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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/28/2003 12:15:40 PM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

I am purely an SV-centric company evaluator. That, itself, is a valuable perspective. Thanks for sharing. lurqer

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/28/2003 12:30:14 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

General blames US for Iraq 'chaos' _____________________________________ BBC News Last Updated: Thursday, 28 August, 2003, 01:53 GMT 02:53 UK news.bbc.co.uk The former commander of Nato forces in Europe, General Wesley Clark, says American policy has "created chaos" in Iraq. General Clark said the fundamental problem was the US tendency to fight states to get at "terrorists", rather than take on the "terrorists" themselves. "We may have given Osama Bin Laden the recharge he needed to rebuild his arsenal and his ranks," he told the BBC's World Today programme. General Clark is being encouraged to become a democratic candidate for next year's presidential election, but has not yet announced if he will stand. His criticisms coincided with a warning from the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, that the country would need tens of billions of dollars to rebuild its shattered infrastructure. The bill to overhaul essential services would reach almost $30bn, on top of the estimated $1bn per week the US already spends on its forces in Iraq, he said. President George W Bush has pledged "no retreat" in Iraq, saying US-led forces are making good progress in restoring order and insisting Iraq is part of the wider war on terror. But General Clark expressed reservations about waging war on a country that he did not believe was "particularly linked to terrorism" or an "imminent danger". He said the war should have resulted in restored Iraqi relations with the UN and Nato, finding weapons of mass destruction and ensuring Iraq would "not become a hotbed of international terrorism". "We are drawing in terrorists. We have created chaos in Iraq," he said. 'Rethink strategy' America should have concentrated its efforts on the "fundamental problem" of fighting "terrorism", he argued. "What I have seen again and again is a tendency to want to attack states to get at terrorists rather than dealing with the harder problem of getting the terrorists themselves." He said America should rethink its strategy on Iraq, and work to ensure Iraqis could take back control of their borders, security and reconstruction. General Clark said he would announce in the coming days if he would stand as a democratic candidate in next year's presidential elections. The situation in Iraq is fast becoming an issue for next year's presidential election, the BBC's Justin Webb reports from Washington. Mr Bush's speeches have been branded "empty rhetoric" by opposition candidates, and his popularity ratings have fallen. The number of American deaths since the end of major combat operations on 1 May has now surpassed the number killed during the war - 139 compared to 138.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/28/2003 12:45:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Dreams of Jimmy Dean ___________________________________ Aug 28th 2003 From The Economist print edition economist.com A toothy nightmare for Republicans AS KARL ROVE drifts off into the fretful sleep of all great political operatives, one name probably consoles him: George McGovern. The president's opinion-poll ratings may be sky-diving, Iraq may be morphing from triumph to quagmire, the much-vaunted recovery may be jobless, but the Republicans' main strategist can still count on those crazy Bush-hating Democrats to nominate Howard Dean, the darling of the anti-war movement. And, just like Mr McGovern, the scourge of the Vietnam war in 1972, he can be trounced at the polls. The McGovern comparison is now the political orthodoxy on Mr Dean. With the Vermonter leading the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire (where he leads John Kerry by a massive 21 points) and downloading money off the internet by the clickful, the centrist Democratic Leadership Council is already screeching with alarm. Far from denying the McGovern link, Mr Dean's two most loyal constituencies—young idealists and Volvo-driving professionals—positively celebrate it. (Indeed, some of the older fans probably worked for Mr McGovern in their impecunious youth.) Full disclosure: this column once described Mr Dean as two parts McGovern to one part McCain. So Mr Rove can sleep soundly? Well, consider another name from the past. Possibly, just possibly, the real comparison should be not with Mr McGovern but with Jimmy Carter. Mr Carter may be no more than a cuddly old joke to many conservatives nowadays. But back in 1976, he was certainly no joke to Gerald Ford. Mr Carter (to whom Mr Dean talks regularly) seized the White House by presenting himself as a very different creature from the hapless president he later became. The two great themes of his campaign seem familiar today. First, Mr Carter sold himself as the voice of authentic America running against the phoney-baloney Washington establishment, a class in which he included Democrats as well as Republicans. He made great play of being a God-fearing southern governor who made his living farming peanuts. He encapsulated popular disgust with inside-the-Beltway by claiming that he wanted “a government as good as its people”, and he put enormous store in personal probity, promising the American people that “I will never lie to you.” On his recent “Sleepless Summer” tour, Mr Dean's speech reached a climax when he swore he would make people “proud to be American again”. He presented the Democratic establishment as Mr Bush's moll—a cowed co-dependant making compromise after compromise on taxes and Iraq. High time, he cried, for a straight-talking doctor to stand up for the real America. The second big comparison with Mr Carter is both men's capacity for defying political stereotypes—for mixing left-wing and right-wing ideas together. Candidate Carter captured the moral indignation of liberal America over Watergate; but he was also a southern Baptist who supported balanced budgets, denounced the welfare system for discouraging work and family values, and tried to cut red tape. Having begun 1976 as the choice of just 4% of Democrats, the peanut farmer cleverly circumvented the established veterans of both wings of his party, notably Scoop Jackson on the right and Morris Udall on the left. Mr Dean is also much more eclectic than many people suppose. Yes, he opposed the war in Iraq, but he boasts that he would “never hesitate” to send American troops “anywhere in the world to defend our country”. Yes, as Vermont's governor he signed the most liberal gay-marriage bill in the country, but he supports gun rights and the death penalty. Yes, he promises more health-care coverage and more taxes on the rich, but he has cut government, reduced taxes and forced welfare recipients to look for work. The clever thing about populism and political eclecticism is that they go hand-in-hand. What could be more outsiderish than defying party orthodoxies, picking up good ideas wherever you find them and avoiding becoming a prisoner of any of the party's interest groups? In the 1970s, many Democrats regarded Mr Carter as a man who could revitalise a party that was still too fixated on the New Deal. Mr Dean's populism also gives him that revitalising edge. A peanut for your thoughts As Mr Rove tosses and turns, he can reassure himself with several differences between 1976 and 2004. Mr Ford was running as the anointed heir of Richard Nixon just after Watergate. Despite the flap over Iraq, most Americans still trust Mr Bush. Even better, Mr Dean comes from the wrong part of the country—the liberal north-east. He will have a much harder time convincing independents of his conservative side than the southern Mr Carter had. And of course, ever since September 11th, Mr Bush has had the trump card of national security. Against a full-scale assault from Mr Rove's troops next year, a Nominee Dean will have difficulty explaining the subtleties of his position on defence. But politics is a moving form of warfare. Mr Dean's stand on Iraq looks less controversial with every American soldier who is shot and with every day that passes without weapons of mass destruction being discovered. Moreover, Mr Dean is not staying still, waiting for Mr Rove to McGovernise him. In his current stump speech, he claims he can no longer be rude about Republicans because so many support him. And he has also reacted warmly to suggestions that he might choose General Wesley Clark as his running mate. Just like Mr Carter in 1976, Mr Dean has a chance to exploit a widespread feeling of frustration with the direction of the country. To do that will surely need more mistakes by Mr Bush and extraordinary political skill on his own part. But it has already taken quite a lot of political skill to turn a no-hoper from a backwoods state into the front-runner in the Democratic field.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/28/2003 1:54:48 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

$1,000,000 Pledged for Wesley Clark Candidacy; $200,000-plus in Last 48 Hours for DraftWesleyClark.com "General Fund" 8/28/03 12:00:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Maya Israel, 917-445-0183 or Maya@DraftWesleyClark.com; John Hlinko, 202-744-6525 or John@DraftWesleyClark.com; Josh Margulies, 917-509-6240, Josh@DraftWesleyClark.com; Chris Kofinis, 202-270-2117 or Kofinis@iseconsulting.com (for poll results); all for DraftWesleyClark.com WASHIONGTON, Aug. 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- DraftWesleyClark.com, the campaign to draft former General Wesley Clark for President, today announced that its "General Fund" has topped $1,000,000 in pledges -- a full four days before its Labor Day goal. Key to the effort was a surge in pledges over the last 48 hours, in the wake of stunning Zogby poll results showing Wesley Clark beating President Bush 49 percent to 40 percent in a blind-bio comparison. "By raising over a million dollars in pledges before General Clark has even finalized his decision, Clark supporters everywhere have sent a powerful message of just how strongly they want General Clark as our next president," said John Hlinko, co-founder of DraftWesleyClark.com. "But we're not stopping at $1 million -- we will continue to drive this effort forward, raise as much as possible in pledges for this candidacy, and give General Clark the money he needs to hit the ground running from day 1." Clark supporters can make a pledge to the General Fund by visiting ww.draftwesleyclark.com STUNNING POLL RESULTS According to DraftWesleyClark.com, over $200,000 was pledged to the General Fund in the last 48 hours. The surge was fueled by stunning numbers from a Zogby Poll commissioned by DraftWesleyClark.com, and analyzed by Dr. Chris Kofinis. Findings included: -- "Too Late?" - 84.1 percent of likely Democratic primary voters say it is not too late for a new entrant into the race to win their support; -- "Military/National Security" - 73.5 percent of all likely voters rate military/national security experience as "very" or "somewhat" important for a presidential candidate; -- "Clark vs. Dems" -- Clark comes in first in a blind-bio match-up versus six key Democratic candidates (Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, and Graham); -- "Clark vs. Bush" -- Clark wins 49.4 percent to 40.2 percent in a blind-bio match-up versus President Bush among a national poll of likely voters; -- When the poll question referred solely to candidate names (no bio information), Clark ranked 5th (4.9 percent) nationally among likely Democratic primary voters - behind Dean, Gephardt, Lieberman and Kerry. (full poll results at draftwesleyclark.com GENERAL CLARK ON DRAFTWESLEYCLARK.COM -- "They've really caught fire and really have done something very, very important." (CNN, 8/17/03) "Mr. Clark also said that DraftWesleyClark.com was central to the possibility of making the race. 'It has a very significant influence,' he said. 'When you are looking at moving into a field where you've never been before, when you see things like this forming, it makes you seriously consider your options.'" (NY Observer, 7/16/03) -- "They're using new tools of communication, like the Internet, in ways that we haven't seen before." (The Today Show, 7/14/03) -- "They're the ones really that are forcing me to seriously look at this." (CNN Inside Politics, 7/2/03) ABOUT DRAFTWESLEYCLARK.COM Launched in April, 2003, DraftWesleyClark.com has collected tens of thousands of letters urging General Clark to run, raised over $800,000 in pledges, and built a network of volunteer leaders, ready to serve - if General Clark chooses to lead. DraftWesleyClark.com has already been featured on Good Morning America, Meet The Press, CBS Evening News, Crossfire, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, as well as in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire and Newsweek. DraftWesleyClark.com is the largest effort to draft Wesley Clark for President. It is not affiliated with General Clark. The effort is headquartered in Washington, DC, one block from the White House. For more information, please see draftwesleyclark.com. ------ Paid for by DraftWesleyClark.com. Not authorized by any candidate. Contributions to DraftWesleyClark.com are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. usnewswire.com -0- /© 2003 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/28/2003 9:22:17 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Some discussion On Outsourcing Offshore... leadershipforamerica.org Note: This website was started by Wesley Clark and there is discussion about lots of leadership and foreign policy issues. leadershipforamerica.org btw, I'm not necessarily against Outsourcing Offshore BUT I do feel it must be done intelligently.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/29/2003 9:34:55 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Do Jobs Not Matter Anymore? By E. J. Dionne Jr. Columnist The Washington Post Friday, August 29, 2003 Maybe we should just scrap Labor Day and rename it "Capital Day." After all, aren't we now a "nation of investors"? Isn't most business reporting, especially on television, about stock prices and "returns on capital"? If you care about wages and working conditions, you must be some sort of dinosaur. And, hey, who cares about unemployment? Productivity is growing, which means we're more efficient. Sure, we're losing manufacturing jobs. But worrying about manufacturing is so Old Economy. Yeah, yeah, a lot of those manufacturing jobs helped people build middle class lives. But won't they make it all up in their portfolios? Income is old hat. Wealth is the thing. This Labor Day is as good a time as any to begin rolling back the effects of roughly a quarter-century of propaganda that sought, quite successfully, to diminish the role of labor -- which is to say real human beings living primarily on wages and salaries -- in creating prosperity. Beginning in the late 1970s, the promoters of supply-side economics tried to resell us on the economic ideas of the 1890s and obliterate the assumptions that had dominated thinking about the economy from the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 during the Great Depression. The lesson of the Depression was that if ordinary workers lacked jobs and adequate incomes, the economy would crash because too few people could afford to buy what businesses hoped to sell. This was demand-side economics and it laid heavy stress on spreading incomes and job opportunities broadly. The supply-siders insisted that supply created its own demand. In plain English, this meant we should think less about labor and more about capital -- specifically, investors who created the means to produce the goods. If the New Dealers glorified the role of the worker, the supply-siders glorified the entrepreneur. "One of the little-probed mysteries of social history is society's hostility to its greatest benefactor, the producers of wealth," wrote George Gilder in "Wealth and Poverty," his influential supply-side manifesto published in 1980. "How much easier it is -- rather than learning the hard lessons of the world -- merely to rage at the rich and even steal from them." Supply-side theories on the urgency of cutting taxes on the rich were exploded when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and -- contrary to the supply-side predictions -- helped unleash a remarkable period of economic growth. But the supply-siders have had a great run, and their latest rationales focus on how many Americans own stock. The theory is that if we're all entrepreneurs, then all of us benefit from policies that benefit investors. Our role as employees -- as workers -- is shoved up there in the attic with that old lady Ross Perot used to talk about. No one is more evangelical about the new investor nation than Grover Norquist, the conservative activist who has devoted his life to eliminating taxes, especially taxes on savings and investment -- which means taxes on the best-off Americans. Norquist speaks constantly of the 70 percent of voters who own shares of stock. But let's look at those numbers. Norquist speaks of voters. According to the Federal Reserve, half of all Americans have some connection to the stock market, which means that half do not. And even for the happy 50 percent, their major connection to the stock market is through pension funds they do not themselves control. It's still the case that most stock is owned by a small percentage of Americans. An analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for example, recently found that the top 10 percent of income earners owned 70 percent of directly held equities. The bottom 60 percent of earners owned just 9 percent of directly held equities. That's why policies that benefit investors (such as the dividend tax cut) shower huge benefits on a small number of Americans. The simple truth is that the standard of living of most Americans depends on getting jobs that pay well. This means that unemployment matters not just for those out of work but also for those whose wages are depressed when too many people are competing for too few jobs. For most Americans, the best economic policy is still low unemployment. That's why the late 1990s produced income growth for the poor and the middle class as well as the wealthy. I am all for a nation of owners and investors. But most people need jobs. For 25 years, we have been hearing that labor depends upon capital. It's time to resurrect the other, buried truth: that capital depends upon labor. Our prosperity really does require keeping the "Labor" in Labor Day. © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (26662)	8/29/2003 11:30:41 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Kerry Proposes Direct Aid to States story.news.yahoo.com 2 hours, 12 minutes ago By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer DURHAM, N.H. - Despite recent signs of economic recovery, gloomy days of "deficits, debt and doubt" will remain as long as President Bush (news - web sites) holds office, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry said in announcing a broad plan to boost the economy and create jobs. The Commerce Department (news - web sites) said Thursday that the economy grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the April to June quarter, a better-than-expected showing. But Kerry remained grim, saying the 2004 election will determine whether America still offers opportunity for all or allows a privileged few to call the shots. "We need action and leadership because we're not just in a temporary downturn. America is in a fight for our economic future," he said at the University of New Hampshire, where he outlined an economic package that mixed new ideas with some old proposals. His new ideas include sending $25 billion to states struggling with budget deficits under Bush administration policies that put the interests of the president's "buddies and big shot campaign contributors ahead of the people he passes by in his motorcade," the Massachusetts senator said. "When it comes to creating opportunity, restoring fiscal discipline, putting values back into our economy, and preparing for the jobs of the future, George Bush hasn't lifted a finger," Kerry said. "I intend to move mountains." A spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Republican Party responded by calling Kerry a "typical Massachusetts tax and spend liberal." "John Kerry likes to say President Bush's answer for everything is a tax cut," said Julie Teer. "The bottom line is John Kerry's answer is to raise taxes." But Kerry said he would provide tax relief to middle-class families by keeping the child tax credit, reduced marriage penalty and lower tax rates that were part of the Bush tax cut package while lowering capital gains and dividend taxes for the middle class. Though he would repeal Bush's tax cuts for the top 1 percent of income earners to finance some of his proposals, Kerry criticized some of his Democratic rivals — Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) of Missouri and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean — who want to repeal the entire tax cut. "Some in my own party are so angry at George Bush and his unfair tax cuts that they think the solution is to do the exact opposite," Kerry said. "They want to return to rejected old-style policies that eliminate all tax breaks, including those to working people." Kerry also proposed a new tax credit to help families afford college. The credit would apply to the first $1,000 spent on tuition and 50 percent of the rest, up to $4,000 a year. He also proposed a new tax credit to encourage manufacturers to remain and expand operations in the United States. Some of Kerry's proposals sounded familiar to one of his Democratic rivals. A spokesman for Sen. John Edwards (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina noted that Edwards also has proposed lowering the capital gains and dividends tax for the middle class and reining in executive pay. "Apparently the Edwards economic plan was on somebody's summer reading list," said Colin Van Ostern.