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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (8130)	9/15/2003 7:00:05 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Yeah, if we can elect him with punch cards, why can't we recall him with punch cards?

To: NickSE who wrote (8130)	9/15/2003 7:13:56 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793820

Texas Dems finally face reality Texas Democrats Return to Face Redistricting Plan By KIRK SEMPLE - NEW YORK TIMES State Senator John Whitmire of Texas, ignoring pressure from Democratic colleagues, attended a special legislative session in Austin today, giving Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, the quorum he needed to try to push through a disputed Republican redistricting plan. Senator Whitmire had promised to attend today, though fellow Democrats had held out hope for a last-minute change of heart. Earlier this month, Senator Whitmire broke ranks with 10 other Democratic state senators who went to New Mexico on July 28 to foil the Republican plan to redraw the Congressional districts of Texas. Though he said he was opposed to the redistricting plan, the senator, whose 30 years in the State House and Senate make him the dean of the Texas Legislature, said the fugitive strategy was proving futile. His return to the Senate floor brought to 21 the number of senators who were present for the session, assuring Governor Perry of the quorum needed for business to be conducted in the 31-member Senate. Republicans hold 19 seats and Democrats 12, though one of those Democrats often votes with the Republicans and had not left the state with Senator Whitmire and his other Democratic colleagues. With a quorum in place today, the other 10 Democrats also attended the session, which was over soon after it began at noon today. "We didn't have anything to do," Senator Whitmire said by telephone after the session, adding that the Senate would reconvene on Tuesday morning. This is the Republican leadership's third such effort to redraw the Congressional district lines. In two previous Republican efforts to redraw the map of Congressional districts in Texas, Democratic lawmakers — senators in one case and House members in the other — slipped across the state line to avoid Republican efforts to have them forcibly brought to the legislative chambers to establish needed quorums. Democrats have a 17-to-15 majority in the Texas Congressional delegation in Washington, but Republicans, who control both houses of the State Legislature, hope that remapping will help them gain as many as seven seats in Washington after the 2004 elections. After Senator Whitmire returned to Texas and Governor Perry called another special session last week, the 10 other Democratic renegades returned to Texas and said they would attend the special session if Senator Whitmire showed up. Though he opposes the redistricting effort, Senator Whitmire said in a telephone interview this afternoon that the Democrats' strategy of hunkering down beyond state lines had run its course. "There was absolutely no endgame to remain in Albuquerque, unless you could stay there indefinitely," he said. The strategy, he said, "had become counterproductive. We need to begin the process of debate and let the courts review it." Senator Whitmire acknowledged that his departure from Albuquerque over the Labor Day weekend had provoked animosity among some of his colleagues, but he asserted today that the gulf was not as wide as it appeared publicly. "There are varying degrees of dissatisfaction," he said. "A couple of them were winking at me today, so I think there are public postures and private opinions." He also said that he thought that he did his colleagues a favor by being the first to break the protest — "and they should be sending me thank-you notes right now." "Someone had to step up to the plate and, I would suggest, provide some leadership to get us back into the state," he continued. "It gave them the opportunity to return to the Senate and be with their constituents." The rebel senators have accused the Republican leadership of undemocratic procedures in efforts to force through the redistricting measure. This summer, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, suspended a longtime practice of bipartisanship that had required a supermajority of two-thirds to introduce bills like the redistricting measure. The Republicans have contended that the two-thirds practice was not a hard-and-fast rule. Governor Perry, who was elected last November to President Bush's old job after succeeding him in 2000, has staked much of his prestige on redrawing the state's 32 Congressional districts. The Whitmire switch gives the Republicans their best chance yet to use their majority muscle to redraw the lines and perhaps give Texas the largest Republican delegation in Washington, with sweeping national implications. The majority leader in the United States House of Representatives, Tom DeLay of Texas, is hoping that his state makes a better Congressional showing next year and perhaps overtakes the two biggest state Republican Congressional delegations, California, with 20 seats, and Florida, with 18. A strong showing in Texas, political experts say, could propel Mr. DeLay to the House speakership. nytimes.com

To: NickSE who wrote (8130)	9/15/2003 8:48:23 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Incredible! "Hang test" forces candidates to get real By DEIRDRE SHESGREEN 09/14/2003 Viewed as a man of the people Wasn't seen as very likable WASHINGTON - Forget about fund-raising figures. Forget about the polls. The most crucial hurdle for the Democratic presidential candidates may have come last week when they endured "the hang test." It's not as bad as it sounds. The White House hopefuls were each put in a room with 25 to 30 "average people"- janitors, nurses and other working stiffs. No handlers, high-paid consultants or media were allowed to meddle. It was a private audition of sorts, to see how the candidates interacted when "hanging out" with regular folks. The crucial question: are they likable? It might seem like a shallow inquiry, but political experts and party strategists say it's the question on which next year's election could be decided. "It's very important that ... voters have a sense that this is a candidate they'd like to have dinner with (or) go bowling with," said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which subjected the candidates to the "hang test" last week. "George Bush did incredibly well in the last election (on that front)," Stern noted. "Al Gore had his problems." "Regular guy" likability is hard to define - and even harder to achieve for many politicians outfitted with oversized egos and accustomed to red-carpet treatment. And it's something that even the best (or the best-paid) political gurus can't churn out with a few focus groups and a spin session. Not that Gore didn't try, with his switch to earth tones and his "alpha male" transformation. Indeed, Stern's concern seems to stem directly from the lesson of the 2000 election, when strategists from both parties agree that George W. Bush trounced Gore on likability. "Bush has that undeniable charm that Reagan did," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University. "He seemed like more of an authentic person than Gore." Perhaps it was the patronizing and very audible sighs Gore let loose during his debates with Bush. Or the purposefully long kiss he planted on wife Tipper's lips at the Democratic Convention - designed to shed his image as contrived but so contrived that it only reinforced that perception. "It's one of the things that cost Al Gore the election in 2000 - people didn't see him as a particularly likable fellow," said Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster. Bush, meanwhile, with his linguistic slip-ups and cowboy swagger, came off as a man of the people (despite his own privileged background), without airs and comfortable in his own skin. Bolger noted that polls often put Bush's personal favorability ratings higher than his job approval score, demonstrating that "even if they don't necessarily like the job he's doing, they like the president." So it's no wonder that Democrats are feverishly searching for the candidate who can connect. And it's no wonder that so many of the contenders are playing up their personal biographies and telling real-life stories on the stump. Rep. Richard Gephardt tells every audience from New Hampshire to California about his modest upbringing in St. Louis and his infant son's struggle 30 years ago against cancer. Sen. John Edwards never fails to mention that his father was a North Carolina mill worker and that he's the first in his family to go to college. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has been playing down his pricey haircuts and playing up his motorcycle riding. He almost always mentions his service in the Vietnam War, and in his "hang test" last week, Kerry even talked about his own struggle with prostate cancer. "They want to out-charm each other," said Goldford. He attributes the soul-baring campaign speeches to a "growing personalization of the presidency," sparked in part by the dominance of television. "Television covers events and people well. It doesn't cover ideas or institutions very well," Goldford noted. And because TV brings politicians into our living rooms in an intimate way, "people think they know this guy." That in turn has led politicians to focus more than ever on the personal - trying to say to voters, "I am just like you," or in the words of master-connecter Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain." "You don't have to be a regular person, but you do have to show you can connect," said Bolger. Failing to do so can be fatal. Take the first President Bush, whose reputation as out of touch was cemented during a foray to a grocery during the 1992 campaign, when he looked bewildered by the electronic scanner in the checkout line. It's still unclear whether any of the Democratic candidates have that magic quality of connectedness to match Bush next year. After all, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is seen as prickly and arrogant. Kerry has been tagged as aloof and patrician. And Gephardt has been portrayed as bland and robotic. But they all managed to wow the workers in last week's hang test. Several of the participants said the contenders oozed down-to-earth real-guy personas. "I felt sincerity," declared Carmellette Parks, a 51-year-old custodial worker in Cleveland who was in Kerry's hang test group. "He just made you feel comfortable, like family." Ditto for Gephardt, said Brenda Adams, a 54-year-old nursing home worker from St. Louis. "He identified himself as a working person, just like us." Dana Cope, a 34-year-old union official from North Carolina, emerged from his session with Edwards to say that the multimillionaire senator is definitely someone he'd like to go bowling with. "He is that kind of guy," Cope said, "... a common man." Reporter Deirdre Shesgreen of the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau writes about national political issues and Congress. stltoday.com