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

To: Brumar89 who wrote (23534)	1/8/2004 7:10:53 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793672

Me too. Way too much porpaganda value to those regular releases. Andrew Sullivan opines on Bush's immigration plan...... BUSH'S BOLDNESS: Just when you think he cannot surprise you any more, he does. His outreach to undocumented aliens is a political coup de main. As an immigrant, I do not share others' view that Bush's expansion of temporary work visas for illegals is somehow anathema. On purely pragmatic grounds, it makes a lot of sense. They're here; they're working; they deserve basic legal protection; immigration is America's glory and demographic and fiscal savior. The immigrants will not be given preference over others aiming for citizenship. But citizenship can be eventually theirs' through the regular - elaborate and frustrating - channels. I guess this doesn't make me much of an old-style conservative - but I think it makes sense to integrate people already in the country rather than maintain a kind of surreal fiction that they aren't here, or to hold over their heads the constant and debilitating risk of deportation or destitution. The status of such people is also terribly destructive to their sense of well-being, dignity and welfare. Bush's money quote: This new system will be more compassionate. Decent, hard-working people will now be protected by labor laws, with the right to change jobs, earn fair wages, and enjoy the same working conditions that the law requires for American workers. Temporary workers will be able to establish their identities by obtaining the legal documents we all take for granted. And they will be able to talk openly to authorities, to report crimes when they are harmed, without the fear of being deported. But the real impact of the news is, of course, political. Bush has decided he can tick off the conservative forces in his own coalition and reach out to a huge new consistency. Even if he fails to pass the legislation, his very advocacy of it will send an extremely powerful signal to Latino voters: you're welcome in the GOP realignment. Watching some of the reactions on television last night - Bill O'Reilly was literally screaming in his apoplexy, Pat Buchanan was talking about "an illegal invasion" (not Iraq, this time) - you can see the price Bush is prepared to pay politically. Or just look at the flecks of foam on John Derbyshire's lips. It's well worth it. The battle for the center - and for a real Republican realignment - is under way. andrewsullivan.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (23534)	1/8/2004 8:08:35 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793672

To: Democratic presidential candidates From: The Note Date: 1/8/04 Bcc: Nicolle Devenish, Joe Erwin, Josh Wachs, Senator Sununu, Elizabeth Edwards, Jack Oliver Re: the stuff your staff isn't telling you We know it is impersonal to communicate with all y'all this way, but time is short, and we thought you would want to know what happened at yesterday's meeting ASAP. As you are aware, a result of the Bush-Cheney-Evans deregulation effort is that the 10 news organizations that largely control the presidential nominating process are now allowed to meet and talk about how we will do things in concert. Yesterday, we had our final meeting before the Iowa caucuses, and we wanted to make sure you knew what happened. Our main worry is that your campaigns (even your supportive-but-non-advising spouses) aren't telling you the real deal, so here's what you need to know: -- Forget the State of the Union (and how it will blot out the caucus results) and the threat of international news to override your best efforts to get known — your TRUE problem is The Four Trials. Not Senator Edwards' book by that name, but the legal proceedings involving Martha Stewart, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, and Scott Peterson. We have all agreed to devote substantial news coverage resources and air/cable time to these important matters, and if you think you can break through on any given day that one or more of those flare up, you need to ask, say, Joe Lockhart, for a tutorial. -- As the current Fineman-fueled Wes Clark boomlet illustrates, we have all agreed to maintain our regular poll-driven "whose-up-whose-down?" mentality for this election cycle, basing sweeping generalizations, graphics, bookings (really: everything) on the daily hum of polling — and we don't care how questionable or aberational or minor the poll results are. A candidate moving up but only rising a statisticaly meaningless point or two? MAJOR SURGE!!! If you are wondering more specifically how we plan to do this, you should review tapes of any CNN anchor reporting a poll, or MSNBC's delicate, calibrated treatment of Zogby data during the 2000 election. -- The expecations game is in full bloom, and if you don't meet our group-think expectations in Iowa and New Hampshire, be prepared to answer just different versions of the same question over and over: When are you getting out of the race? -- As a group, we plan to spend next to nothing on monitoring TV and radio spending, direct mail, church-parking-lot fliers, or persuasion phone calls — it really is too much of a bother. And don't imagine we will share your outrage about last-minute attacks delivered to voters — we are really too busy in the last 72 hours up through election day to check things out. -- Busta Caps in Iowa and New Hampshire with impugnity. It's too much trouble for us to police that (see previous item), and why should we be any more aggressive than the FEC is? -- Nobody has a clue (not even us!!) how we plan to cover the respective results of the February 3rd contests. Although some of us have described South Carolina as the "signature" event of the day, or said it will be the "most watched," who knows?