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

To: unclewest who wrote (19415)	12/11/2003 5:56:48 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793895

I would luv to know how much Dean is paying Gore to consult. Gore has the Gore inheritance and Six Million stashed from his 2000 campaign. He just gave 400,000 of it to the Tennessee Democratic Party. Plus he is drawing down good bucks from several Corporate Boards. If he wanted more bucks, he could have his pick of several major sinecures in California. And he loves LA. But he does not want to give up Politics.

To: unclewest who wrote (19415)	12/11/2003 7:28:51 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793895

Everybody is seeing it this way. It's obvious, Gore wants to be a player By CLARENCE PAGE Al Gore will not be ignored. With his endorsement of Howard Dean, the former vice president moved from political Siberia to the Democratic Party's power center. He's made several "major" addresses, as his staff has called them, over the past couple of years, but none rattled the political establishment as much or raised as many startling questions, such as: Why now? Why Dean? Why not his former runningmate, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut? Does Gore really think Dean has a prayer? Has "Call Me Al" Gore gone completely nuts? The answer appears to be six words: Gore wants to be a player. If Dean wins the nomination and the presidency, Gore will be seen as a kingmaker who helped put him there with a well-timed endorsement. If Dean loses either one, Gore still will be remembered as the fellow who shifted the national conversation with one little speech in Harlem, a status that could help him become a major contender to run himself in 2008. Gore's endorsement, coming on top of other important endorsements from Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois and two major unions, shows Dean is reaching beyond his maverick, outsider, largely Internet-generated base to impress some party insiders. It also strikes a blow to Dean's rivals, particularly Lieberman, whom Gore curiously did not find the time to notify of his decision before announcing it. "I won't talk about Al Gore's sense of loyalty," Lieberman said Tuesday, obviously disappointed when asked about it on NBC. With that, ol' Joe showed more respect for his ol' pal Al than his ol' pal showed for him. But Gore seems to have bigger fish to worry about. His single-minded robo-candidate vision seems to be locked like a radar-guided missile on another agenda: building a new base in the party to compete with the power exerted by Bill and Hillary Clinton and their friends, including party chairman Terry McAuliffe. Yes, Dean gains by hooking up with Gore, but so does Gore. By endorsing Dean, Gore helps quicken Dean's followers into a full-blown faction, rivaling the Clinton insiders. In this way, we see leading Democrats reverting back to their historical propensity for factional infighting. (Republicans, by contrast, show a remarkable talent for keeping their bareknuckle smackdowns in-house.) A similar maverick uprising in the party's 1972 convention, partly led by a young Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. of Chicago, unseated the Illinois delegation led by the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Outsiders that year nominated Sen. George McGovern, S.D., who lost almost every state that November. Ironically, many of those idealistic mavericks are today's pragmatic insiders who've been trying to find any alternative to Dean, who they dread will be another McGovern -- too extreme to be elected. Gore may well remember that those same insiders urged him not to run this year, despite polls that have showed him to be more popular than the Democratic candidates who are running. To heck with the party regulars who don't want Dean, he might well be saying. They didn't want me to run, either. Now, standing next to Dean, Gore seems to give stature and receive it. Voters looking for a maverick outsider might easily forget that Gore used to be the ultimate Washington insider, a senator who was the son of a senator. And Gore the techno-gadget-freak must be impressed by how well Dean's new-wave campaign building machine rides on the cutting edge of new technologies adapted to populist politics. Dean's ability to draw crowds, organize local campaigns and raise funds has broken all expectations by using the device Gore once inaccurately claimed to have invented: the Internet. The only problem with this scenario is that it reveals how little of Dean's campaign has been about nuts-and-bolts issues and how much of it has been about opposing "Bush's war." He spells out that opposition in crowd-pleasing generalities but little detail as to how he would withdraw the United States from Iraq or what the consequences might be for the region or America's image around the world. So far, he hasn't had to offer details. Ironically, like Richard Nixon in 1968, he only has to promise to withdraw America with honor and that's enough red meat for his hard-core supporters. With that in mind, Dean runs a risk by linking himself too closely to party insiders like Gore. His supporters might seriously question the ability of insiders like Gore to remain loyal to something larger than themselves -- something like ideals. They might even mention as an example of Gore's fidelity his heave-ho farewell to Joe Lieberman. Ah, and you wonder why so many people hate politics. This article is: chron.com

To: unclewest who wrote (19415)	12/11/2003 8:10:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793895

PARAMILITARY FORCES AND RESERVES: It Isn't Fair Strategy Page Blog December 11, 2003: The United States is continuing to mobilize more reserve troops for Iraq duty. In the last week alone, the number of reservists (including National Guard) on active duty increased by 13,384. As usual, the majority are army (148,765), with the other services having far fewer people called up (Navy- 1,585, Air Force- 18,772; Marine Corps- 7,331; and the Coast Guard- 1,175.) By next Spring, 40 percent of the troops in Iraq will be reservists, versus 20 percent now. Many reservists are unhappy with this, especially if they have been called up repeatedly over the last few years. Reserve forces were originally created so that nearly all would be called up in the event of a national emergency, but that normally only a few percent would be active at any one time for local emergencies or special situations. Currently, however, some 15 percent of reservists are on active duty. And that's the problem. If you don't activate all of them, the ones who do go, and go again and again, feel resentful because so many reservists are not on active duty. But that's the nature of the war on terror. The Iraq and Afghanistan operations don't require large numbers of U.S. troops. It's much more effective to train Iraqis and Afghans to do their own police and peacekeeping work. But until those two countries are able to mobilize and train their own manpower, some American troops will be required. Even after Iraq and Afghanistan have quieted down, the war on terror will still require a lot of reservists on active duty. And the ones who go will often be those in a few specialties (like Military Police.) To address this problem, 1,200 National Guards artillery troops are being retrained as Military Police. But it's a long term problem that has to be solved. The existing reserve system was set up for a big war that will not likely come in our lifetimes. So there are proposals, some already enacted, to reorganize the reserves for the situation as it is. strategypage.com