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

To: Lane3 who wrote (21819)	12/27/2003 7:15:24 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793575

The perfect Democratic candidate Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By DAVID SHRIBMAN Tom Vilsack is a quiet man in the center of a noisy storm. He's the governor of Iowa, living in a tidy house called Terrace Hill off Grand Street in Des Moines, and for months now the Democratic candidates have come calling, looking for advice, looking for insights, looking for hints of his presidential preferences, but mostly looking for his endorsement. Sometimes they come for late-afternoon refreshments, sometimes they bring their pajamas and stay over in the governor's mansion, but none of the sessions or the sleep-overs has produced much of anything. But now there's less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, and the pressure is rising as swiftly as the temperature is falling. That produces a peculiar physics of politics: If Vilsack is going to have maximum impact, he's going to have to act soon. "I'm leaving open the possibility, and the opportunity," Vilsack said the other morning over coffee in Pittsburgh. "I have competing feelings. It's very difficult to be a political animal and not be in the game. But because Iowa is first, there's a special responsibility to allow every candidate to have a shot right out of the gate. I don't want to shut the door on someone who could do well down the line." That's good as far as it goes, and noble, too. But, like everything in politics, there is a subtle subtheme at work here. Vilsack - a Pittsburgh native who followed his wife to her tiny hometown of Mount Pleasant, became mayor after the incumbent was murdered, served in the state senate and then won two terms in the governor's office - is, of course, one of the most prominent Democrats in a state that is about as evenly divided as the nation as a whole and where the 39 percent who consider themselves independents hold the balance of power. But he's not the only big-wheel Democrat; there's also four-term Sen. Tom Harkin, who also has not yet endorsed anyone, and the struggle for primacy in Iowa this winter isn't only on the presidential level. It's also between Harkin and Vilsack. Vilsack knows, however, that governors can make a big difference in presidential races. That's why Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, for example, worked so hard to win the endorsement of Jeanne Shaheen, and she's a former governor, not even a sitting one. (Shaheen was the first Democrat elected governor of New Hampshire in 16 years. Vilsack is the first Democrat to be elected governor of Iowa in 30 years.) Right now Vilsack won't show his cards. So I tried another tack and asked him to morph the candidates - to take the best thing about each and build an ideal Democratic contender. He took the bait, and the result is instructive, the ultimate insider's look at the Democratic field. Here goes: Wesley K. Clark: "This is a guy who knows how to make a decision. He's a fairly quick study; he's come a long way in a short time." Howard Dean: "He's extremely focused. One of the things I noticed about George Bush when he came to Iowa was his discipline. I see the same thing in Gov. Dean." John Edwards: "He understands that there is a growing insecurity that many people feel today. It's relatively easy to articulate that concern for poor people, but it's harder to understand the insecurity that better-off people have in this economy." Richard A. Gephardt: "He's a rock-solid, decent human being who has never forgotten where he came from, who helped him and how he was helped. He knows there is a place - a very important place - for government to help people." John F. Kerry: "He has a very good understanding of the subtleties and complexities of the world." Dennis J. Kucinich: "This guy is thinking way ahead of everybody." Joseph I. Lieberman: "He has a very good understanding of himself and a humility about himself that is very, very important to lead. He's in it for all the right reasons." Carol Moseley Braun: "People like the fact there's a woman in the field, that she articulates that she would govern differently because she is a woman." Al Sharpton: "He comes up with the one line, phrase or word that captures a problem." There you have it. Here's the ideal candidate to defeat George W. Bush: a humble, focused, decisive woman who understands subtleties, believes in government, is moved by people's uncertainties, thinks broadly and speaks briskly. In the next few weeks, look for Gov. Tom Vilsack to make his announcement. He's going to endorse Eleanor Roosevelt.

To: Lane3 who wrote (21819)	12/27/2003 7:32:24 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793575

Message 19632152

To: Lane3 who wrote (21819)	12/27/2003 8:38:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 793575

Karen, we live in a democracy. The working assumption about elections, for us, is that they are free and fair. If you announce on air, Country X just had an election and Candidate Y just won overwhelming re-election, the assumption is that a real election happened. That is why it was very misleading to report Saddam's election results without comment, as if there had been a real election.