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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (858)	1/11/2003 7:06:40 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

WHO IS JOHN EDWARDS? An Unaccomplished Liberal In Moderate Clothing And A Friend To His Fellow Personal Injury Trial Lawyers. Edwards has become a captive of the trial lawyers and the left-wing special interests in Washington. He has lost touch with the average American. Clearly, he is not ready for 'prime time.'" (Marc Rotterman, "Way Out Of Touch," The [Raleigh] News And Observer, December 8, 2002) THE FACTS ABOUT SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) EDWARDS IS UNACCOMPLISHED AND "NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME" • Short Of His Work To Protect The Interests Of Personal Injury Trial Lawyers, Edwards' Four-Year Record Is Devoid Of Accomplishment And Leadership. • After Edwards' Lackluster Performance In May On NBC's "Meet The Press," Many Democrats Felt That He "May Not Be Ready For Prime-Time." (CNN's "Inside Politics," May 8, 2002) • A Recent Research 2000 Poll Revealed That Edwards Would Lose North Carolina By 17 Points In A Hypothetical Presidential Matchup With President Bush. (Research 2000, Press Release, July 16, 2002) EDWARDS ISN'T JUST BEHOLDEN TO PERSONAL INJURY TRIAL LAWYERS, HE IS ONE HIMSELF • More Than 4 Of Every 5 Dollars Raised By Edwards For His Hard Money PAC, New American Optimists, Have Come From Personal Injury Trial Lawyers. • Nearly Every Penny Donated To Edwards' Soft Money PAC Since Early 2001 Has Come From Personal Injury Trial Lawyers. (Jim VandeHei, "Trial Lawyers Fund Edwards," The Washington Post, September 3, 2002) • Edwards Consistently Caters To Personal Injury Trial Lawyer Interests By Fighting Tort Reform And Facilitating The Initiation Of Lucrative Lawsuits Against American Companies. (Editorial, "Tort Terrorism," Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2002) EDWARDS PROFESSES TO BE A SOUTHERN MODERATE, BUT VOTES LIKE A NORTHEASTERN LIBERAL • Edwards Voted Against President Bush's Bipartisan Tax Relief Package. • Edwards Voted Against A Ban On Partial-Birth Abortions. • From 1999-2002, Edwards Voted With Senator Ted Kennedy 90% Of The Time And Senator Hillary Clinton 89% Of The Time. (CQ Vote Comparison, CQ Online Website, www.oncongresscq.com, 106th and 107th Congresses) • In An Interview With Robert Novak For The American Spectator, Edwards Even Claimed That He Could Not Recall A Single Conservative Position He Has Taken While In Congress. (John McCaslin, "Dependably Liberal," The Washington Times, October 15, 2002) EDWARDS IN DEPTH SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS: UNACCOMPLISHED AND NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME Edwards Lacks The Accomplishments And Demonstrated Leadership Needed To Be President In June Of 2001, The Washington Post Highlighted Edwards' Lack Of Accomplishment In The Senate. "[Edwards'] role in the legislative battle of HMO regulation gives him something he badly needed, which was an opportunity to grab hold of a big issue and develop a record in the Senate, a crucial building block for someone who showed great promise but not many accomplishments during his first two years." (Dan Balz, "The Rights Time, The Rights Place," The Washington Post, June 30, 2001) Roll Call's Stuart Rothenberg Claimed That Edwards Needs To Display Leadership Ability And Not Just Talk About It. "After watching Edwards, I learned that the United States needs to 'show leadership' in the war against Afghanistan. I know it, because Edwards repeated that mantra as if it had been programmed into his brain. Voters clearly want 'leadership' from their leaders, but repeating a phrase like a trained parakeet does not make someone a leader. . . . Edwards is right, of course, that voters want to elect someone as president who displays leadership qualities. But that means Edwards needs to display leadership ability, both in the Senate and by proposing ideas and grappling with tough choices, not by regurgitating some phrase that Bob Shrum probably told him to use." (Stuart Rothenberg, "Golden Boy Edwards Needs to Do More Than Promise To Lead," Roll Call, May 9, 2002) Political Strategist Ed Rogers Discredited Edwards' Leadership Abilities. "[A]n accomplished figure who has been well regarded within his party, and has been acknowledged by his peers to be a leader. John Edwards is none of that." (CNN's "Crossfire," January 2, 2003) One Of Edwards' Constituents Criticized The Senator For Having No Accomplishments. "We have one liberal, Sen. John Edwards, who extols his own accomplishments, even though he has none except for being a multi-millionaire ambulance chaser. Edwards says he's a small-town man from North Carolina who relates to the little people. Hogwash." (Tom Freeman, Letter To The Editor, "Public Schools Weakened By Democratic-Supported Unions," The Asheville Citizen-Times, November 18, 2002) In Late 2002, Cox News Service Noted The Lack Of Major Legislative Accomplishments During Edwards' Four-Year Senate Tenure. "The freshest of the fresh faces is Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a 44-year-old former trial lawyer who has been dubbed 'the next Bill Clinton' by The New Yorker and 'a perfect politician' by Vanity Fair. But Edwards is up for reelection to the Senate in 2004, and may have to decide between a Senate or White House run. Republicans back home aren't likely to want to let him do both. Edwards is sponsor of a Patients Bill of Rights bill in the Senate, but has no major legislative accomplishments thus far." (Scott Shepard, "Democrats Face Major Obstacles In Trying To Regroup After 2002 Election Disaster," Cox News Service, November 8, 2002) • Even Edwards' Most Notable Legislative Efforts Have Done Little But Protect The Financial Interests Of Personal Injury Trial Lawyers. "A lot of this debate [over the Patients' Bill Of Rights] now centers around that, caps on liabilities, limiting liabilities. Part of the problem there is that John Edwardsand others don't want any capson liabilities." (Congressman Charlie Norwood, NBC's "Meet The Press," August 5, 2001) Ralph Nader Criticized Edwards' Lack Of Legislative Accomplishment. "John Edwards was a very good trial lawyer and talks populism in a fresh though not very specific way. . . . But has he introduced or supported fundamental reform legislation on health care, labor rights, consumer protection, military-budget reform, corporate crime (one of his specialties as a tort lawyer bloated corporate welfare hundreds of billions of dollars), access to government by ordinary citizens? No, instead he has been very cautious letting his new style and fresh looks lead the way rather than what he could have done, proposed and articulated for a deeper democracy." (James Fallows and Ralph Nader, "Who's An Anti-Semite?" Slate Magazine, April 30, 2002) In March Of 2001, The [Wilmington] Morning Star Criticized Edwards' Weak Record. "Our junior senator is smart, charming, a smooth talker, nice looking, and a progressive Southern Democrat. And did we mention smart? But his only experience in politics is two years in the U.S. Senate. He's built a solid record on TV talk shows, but not a solid record of legislative accomplishment - yet." (Editorial, "Let Sen. Edwards Learn His Trade," The [Wilmington] Morning Star, March 7, 2001) Many Feel Edwards Is Simply Not Ready To Run For President Political Columnist Robert Novak Noted That Many Democrats Were "Appalled" By Edwards' May Performance On NBC's "Meet The Press." "The same Democrats who had been enchanted by Edwards were appalled. But even with a firmer grip on issues, the first-term senator faces an uphill climb. John Zogby's poll of Democratic voters shows Edwards eighth out of eight hopefuls with 1 percent, well behind Gore in first place with 46 percent." (Robert Novak, "Who'll Stop Gore In '04?" Chicago Sun-Times, May 9, 2002) Edwards Is "Getting A Little Above His Rais'n'" With His Presidential Run. "My first instinct is to ask, isn't Edwards getting a little above his rais'n'?" (Rob Christensen, "Edwards' Rapid Rise," The [Raleigh] News And Observer, May 12, 2002) Political Commentator Charles Cook Questioned Whether Edwards "Is Ready For The Big Stage." "Edwards, a former trial lawyer who specialized in suing on behalf of injured children, can expect to raise enormous amounts of money from trial lawyers around the country and among party activists seeking a younger and fresher face compared to the balance of the field. The key question is whether he is ready for the big stage." (Charles E. Cook, "Ladies And Gentlemen, Start Your Engines," The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2002) CNN's Robert Novak Said That Edwards' May Performance On NBC's "Meet The Press" Revealed That He "May Not Be Ready For Prime-Time." "John Edwards of North Carolina, Judy, has been the flavor of the week for several weeks as the coming guy for the Democratic presidential nomination. He's good looking, articulate. He's new. But he really may not be ready for prime-time, because our old friend Tim Russert really led him down a lot [of] cul-de-sacs on tough questioning. Senator Edwards is kind of used to the provincial questioning he gets on the campaign circuit, stumbled on a lot of things. For example, he said he thought that the Taliban were coming back in Afghanistan, but he was against U.S. troops. He was against tax cuts, but he didn't want to go with Teddy Kennedy -- a very confused performance. That's just not me saying that. I have talked to a lot of Democrats, very disappointed. They still think Edwards is a real comer, but he has got to really work on his answers when he gets into the political big-time." (CNN's "Inside Politics," May 8, 2002) Roll Call's Stuart Rothenberg Argued That Edwards' May Performance On NBC's "Meet The Press" Illustrated That He Has "A Long Way To Go" To Win The 2004 Democrat Nomination. "Everybody seems to be talking about Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) these days. The hotshot magazines are all writing about him, and he isn't having any problems getting face time on television. But if the freshman North Carolina Senator really wants to emerge as his party's nominee in 2004, he needs to acknowledge the obvious: His appearance on NBC News' 'Meet the Press' last weekend showed that he has a long way to go to beat out House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (Mo.), Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) and former Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic nomination." (Stuart Rothenberg, "Golden Boy Edwards Needs To Do More Than Promise To Lead," Roll Call, May 9, 2002) More at web site.. gop.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (858)	1/18/2003 1:58:46 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

here is a great column from Saturday's New York Times...fyi... Joe Millionaire for President By FRANK RICH Columnist The New York Times January 18, 2003 Watching that noble doctor Bill Frist make his TV rounds last weekend — I know he's a saint because he keeps telling us so — I began to think I was going under general anesthesia. Here's a guy who dispenses bromides and palliatives for every troublesome topic, dishing out the spin so smoothly that you have to question your own grasp on reality. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down? Dr. Frist, as he insists that we call him, gives us the whole bowl. "He's perfected that earnest, focused look that people want when they go to the doctor," one of his former medical colleagues told me this week. "It's as if you are the only person in the world." It's a sham, of course, because the client who always comes first is Senator Frist's role model and patron in compassionate conservatism, George W. Bush. And so the good doctor congratulates himself for his good work on "H.I.V./AIDS in Africa," an admirable record indeed were it not for the unmentioned footnote that he knocked down his own Senate legislation earmarking $500 million for that cause by 60 percent after the White House jerked his chain. He promises to open up Medicare to private health plans without mentioning that much of his own fortune (in a blind trust, of course) derived from the for-profit Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the medical giant founded by his father and brother. Dr. Frist further suggests that that little Trent Lott nastiness is behind us now because Republicans are going to have "a dialogue on race . . . in a more visible, a more open way." The dialogue, we later learn, consists of (1) highly visible photo ops for Dr. Frist with black conservatives; (2) a spirited defense of the judicial nominee Charles Pickering's strenuous effort to reduce the sentence of a convicted cross-burning hoodlum; and (3) the White House intervention in the Supreme Court case challenging the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. (Will the administration also weigh in on the affirmative action programs for alumni children that have given every Bush family applicant a leg up at Yale?) The doctor is very good at this game, but not yet nearly so sophisticated as the master. The White House has the bait-and-switch routine down to a science. As The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, Ari Fleischer just happened to announce that Mr. Bush would increase aid to Africa just before declaring the president's intention to intervene in the Michigan case — much as he had announced at the height of the Lott embarrassment that the president was looking forward to a trip to Africa. (That safari was quietly "rescheduled" to no fixed date when Mr. Lott stepped down three days later.) The Africa card is the Republicans' answer to the Democrats' race card, and once it had been played, the stage was set for Mr. Bush's "statement on affirmative action." That statement contained so many sound bites lauding "diversity" — the word turned up as many as three times in a single breath — that the casual channel surfer might think the president was joining the Rainbow Coalition. Or forget that he presides over a party whose Congressional majority contains not a single black member, even in the House, where "diversity" could easily have been put into action, affirmative or otherwise, by recruiting a minority candidate for one of the many safe Republican districts. The Bush rhetorical technique — of implying one thing while doing quite another — was first honed to perfection in the speech handing down the great stem-cell "compromise" of summer 2001. In his new and mostly worshipful memoir about Mr. Bush, "The Right Man," his former speechwriter David Frum describes the president's sleight-of-hand technique from the inside: "Because Bush summarized all points of view so sympathetically, he was able to win the support of his viewers for his own not at all middle-of-the-road position." What the speech did, in other words, was persuade inattentive listeners that the president was so sympathetic to scientific research and the ill that he couldn't possibly be throwing roadblocks in the way of potential cures for cancer, juvenile diabetes and Alzheimer's (as in fact he was). It was only a few weeks after the stem-cell speech that 9/11 was upon us. Although that cataclysmic event is said to have changed George W. Bush as much as it supposedly changed so much else, it has not altered his brazen style. If anything, the midterm election has emboldened the White House to use fictional rhetoric to paper over harsher reality in almost every policy area it can. Mr. Bush rolls out an economic plan that he says will help address joblessness, now at an eight-year high and growing, when in fact it's mainly a payday for those who collect dividend checks. Promising to speed the cleanup of corporate corruption, he accepts the resignation of Harvey Pitt, but two months-plus later Mr. Pitt is still on the job, working his will as the S.E.C. does some of its most crucial "reform" rule-making. Mr. Bush thumps as a hallmark of his education vision the No Child Left Behind Act, but his tight budget will leave states struggling to fulfill its alleged goals. Even Marvin Olasky, the Bush sycophant who wrote the book that inspired compassionate conservatism, said last month that while he awards the president an "A" for "setting the message" he gives him an "F" for his legislative follow-through. (Page 2 of 2) But Mr. Olasky may not be the only one who is waking up to the ruse. The drop in Mr. Bush's poll numbers this week reminds us that anesthesia, no matter how well administered, eventually wears off. Affirmative action, judicial nominations, Enron and the rest are passionate issues for some, but war is a wake-up call for all. As the president keeps stamping his foot about Saddam Hussein, there is a dawning sensation that America is being held hostage by the administration idée fixe that is Iraq. It's a sword of Damocles hanging over our foreign policy, economy and national security alike. The White House wants us to believe, as Dr. Frist reassured us last weekend, that North Korea is "an entirely, entirely different situation" from Iraq. Yes it is, not least because North Korea does not produce oil. But the two situations are now inseparable. Kim Jong Il may be crazy but he's not stupid. He bet the bank that Mr. Bush, for all his promises not to respond to nuclear blackmail, would do exactly that to avoid a distraction from Iraq. And so he called the president's bluff and will soon get his ransom. Mr. Bush's retreat all but invites other rogues to push us around, or worse, in this interregnum of vulnerability that his verbal bluster and tactical blundering has created. Iraq's hammerlock on the economy is just as tight. We increasingly realize that no matter what Mr. Bush's tax-cutting plan, or any Democratic alternative, the economic issue du jour is not so much class warfare as warfare, period. No one believes the economy is going to expand as long as war clouds dampen the business environment. If the war drags on for months, recession could well follow. Nor does anyone know what vanquishing Saddam and then governing Iraq will cost in either dollars or lives. Lawrence Lindsey, the chief White House economic adviser, was fired after he put the bill at $100 billion to $200 billion. But William Nordhaus, the Yale economist, puts the Lindsey estimate at the low end, with the high end being $1.6 trillion over a decade. Whatever the number, the cost of the war isn't being factored at all into the budget proposal the White House will send to Congress, according to USA Today. Yet even with that huge sum unaccounted for, the tax cuts and deficits are already so out of control that budgetary allotments for homeland security are being cut back. As for the American troops to be thrown at Saddam, remember those leaked Pentagon war plans from last summer that capped the total at 250,000? This week ABC's John McWethy reported that the number had escalated to 350,000 before the battle is even joined. Mr. Bush's rhetoric says we can have it all — lower taxes, better schools, a war or two or three, civil defense — without pain. But the numbers don't add up, and when the expanded war becomes a reality, we'll see a bottom line that not even the smoothest politician's bedside manner can obscure. While we wait, an anxious nation whiles away the time with "Joe Millionaire," a "reality" TV show in which a sweet-talking con man charms a bevy of credulous women into believing he will give them a fairy-tale ending. And why not? It's a perfect reflection of the reality of this moment, right down to its predictable, all too inevitable, denouement. nytimes.com