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Politics : Wesley Clark -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (1227)	1/17/2004 4:07:37 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 1414

Inside the numbers: the Latino vote Matt Towery (archive) January 13, 2004 \| Print \| Send While much of the political world's attention is focused on the battle in Iowa among Democratic presidential contenders, a commonly ignored but important story is unfolding in Republican circles. The GOP is moving quietly but forcefully to build and consolidate a viable political relationship with Hispanic Americans. According to a recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, 54 percent of Hispanic-American adults rated President George W. Bush's job performance as "good" or "excellent." That's big news because Hispanic Americans are now the largest minority group in America. This emerging political marriage is no accident, and its implications for the 2004 elections are substantial. The Bush organization in particular has labored long and hard to foster a strong bond with Hispanic voters. Call it "geographical comfort," if you will. Both the president, when he was governor of Texas, and his brother Jeb Bush, now governor of Florida, learned firsthand the vital need to have good, working political relationships with the considerable Hispanic voting blocs in those states. Both Bushes pierced through old stereotypes about minorities always supporting Democrats. The governors realized that, as a whole, Hispanic leaders are open to the message of promoting small business and cutting taxes. Now all that forward-looking strategy is starting to pay off. Hispanics more and more are casting ballots for Republicans. Further, Hispanic candidates are starting to make waves in big political races. Perhaps the most prominent among them is Mel Martinez, who recently resigned his Bush Cabinet post as secretary of Housing and Urban Development to return to his home state of Florida. There he is running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat now held by retiring Democrat Bob Graham. Both Gov. Jeb Bush and the White House likely will stay "officially" neutral in this race. But insiders know full well that Martinez is the choice of the Bush leadership in the Sunshine State. As a result, don't expect to see Katherine Harris -- the somewhat controversial former Florida secretary of state and current Florida congresswoman -- entering the field of Republican candidates for the seat. Martinez's story is nothing shy of inspirational. At the age of 15, he and his brother were evacuated from Castro's Cuba during an operation organized by the Catholic Church and supported by the U.S. government. Martinez first lived in military camps before being provided temporary homes by a succession of families. Several years later, he and his brother finally were reunited with their parents here in the United States. With his accomplishments as an attorney and civic leader in the Orlando area, plus his stint as a Bush Cabinet member, Martinez seems the embodiment of a new generation of Republican Hispanics in America. Why is the emergence of the Hispanic voting bloc and candidates such as Martinez so important to the GOP? For one, decades of attempts by the party to reach out to minorities, especially African Americans, have borne little fruit. Both the party and blacks and other minorities have consistently refused to acknowledge any merit in each other's point of view. Many African-American leaders still view Republican leadership with a jaundiced eye. And even though Republicans now seem all too willing to create what are in effect massive expansions of government -- the new Medicare benefits package, for example -- they are still in public denial that they too can support entitlements and other social programs. Partly because of the longstanding conservative and anti-Castro philosophy of the Cuban-American community, the Republican Party has long had a toe-hold on the broader Hispanic community in this country. But America's Hispanic community goes way beyond Cuban Americans. For example, many residents of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico have chosen to live stateside. Politically, they are split between those who favor statehood for Puerto Rico and who tend to vote Republican, and those who oppose statehood and tend to vote Democratic. Remember, it was a Republican House of Representatives, led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, that produced the only legislation ever passed that would have allowed Puerto Ricans to vote yes or no on statehood. Now the president has a new proposal to relax laws on illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States. All of this collectively is starting to take a toll on the Democratic Party. While polling surveys consistently show that a huge majority of African Americans still vote for Democrats in major elections, the Hispanic-American community's growing clout at the ballot box in many states may soon prove to be enough to offset blacks' reluctance to vote Republican. When national observers start to examine the 2004 presidential race in Florida, they might be wise to consider the effect Mel Martinez's candidacy could have on the presidential outcome. If George Bush's re-election in the state comes down to the wire, Martinez could be the reason for four more years of a Republican in the White House. ©2003 Creators Syndicate

To: calgal who wrote (1227)	1/17/2004 4:07:49 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1414

Fighting for the soul of Wesley Clark Paul Greenberg (archive) January 9, 2004 \| Print \| Send The struggle for the political soul of Wesley Clark goes on. On one side are those of us who would like to see the general rise above petty politics and campaign as a unifying figure who can bring the country together on a higher level than the usual, deadening, partisan razzmatazz. We're cheered when General Clark delivers a thoughtful speech about the need for pre-school education or why we must not fail in Iraq, whatever differences Americans may have had over whether our troops should be there. But on the other side of this tug-of-war is a campaign staff filled to overflowing with knee-jerk libs who are trying to make The Candidate over in their own image. When they're in the ascendancy, Wes Clark becomes indistinguishable from much of the rest of the Democratic pack, each trying to outhowl the other before the party faithful, each appealing to the same familiar cast of hungry special interests - from the teachers' unions to the plaintiffs' bar. This year, the political operatives around him are out to present a new model of Bill Clinton - a Hummer in camo colors instead of a tricky little pickup outfitted with Astroturf. You could see, hear and taste their handiwork when the general threw some raw meat to the True Believers at Florida's Democratic convention. He roused the howling masses by claiming the last presidential election was stolen in Florida - no matter what those post-election polls actually showed. Typical was USA TODAY's conclusion in April of 2001: "George W. Bush would have won a hand count of Florida's disputed ballots if the standards advocated by Al Gore had been used, the first full study of the ballots reveals." But the general proved his point, if it was that he could demagogue as well as anybody else in the Democratic race. Well, almost anybody else. Al Sharpton's still in the campaign. But Wes Clark is no slouch at this low game. For example: "We've got a president today who's so deeply divisive, so carelessly indifferent, so incredibly lacking in judgment, wisdom and leadership, that this ship is about to capsize." Really? Do you think the general really believes all that in his calmer moments - that the United States of America is about to go under? Is this the realistic four-star general who's going to rise above partisanship and unite the country? Or just another rabble-rouser? Maybe the general was engaging in what Wendell Willkie tried to shrug off as just "campaign rhetoric" when pressed to defend some of his more outrageous charges against the indomitable FDR in 1940. Every politician does it, right? But Wesley Clark's great appeal was that he wasn't supposed to be every politician. He was supposed to be a different kind of candidate. But it's not always easy to see any difference. All too regularly, the general's campaign degenerates into a series of sound bites. Here he is again on the subject of the nefarious George W. Bush: "This is a president who is all bully and no pulpit when it comes to our nation's security, all mouth and no money when it comes to supporting our children, and all photo and no opportunity when it comes to fixing the mess here at home." Snappy patter, but not exactly presidential material. This is the kind of thing presidents usually leave to their James Carvilles and Ann Coulters, or to their vice presidential candidate - the way Gerald Ford left the ax jobs to Bob Dole, and Bill Clinton used Al Gore. Which reminds me: Who's Wes Clark's idea of one of the greatest American presidents? Yep, Bill Clinton. Nothing polarizing and divisive about that president. Wesley Clark is conducting a kind of split-level campaign, trying to position himself as the moderate Democratic alternative to Howard Dean but, when addressing the party faithful, sounding just like him. This week the general was tacking back toward the center with his tax plan, which accepts the Bush tax cuts - even though it includes a populist dig at The Rich and The Corporations. At least he's headed in the right direction. Literally. General Clark needs to decide who he is - a statesman above the fray, which was the essence of his original promise as a presidential candidate, or just one more of the scrappers mixing it up in the swirl of partisan fuss 'n' feathers known as the Democratic primaries. If he tries to play both of those conflicting roles, people will notice. And in this more serious decade, they might even care. ©2003 Tribune Media Services

To: calgal who wrote (1227)	1/17/2004 4:10:14 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1414

Jack Kelly O'Neill has ruined a reputation newsandopinion.com \| Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill took a swing at President Bush... and punched himself in the nose. "The Price of Loyalty," written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind on the basis of interviews with and documents supplied by O'Neill, made two sensational charges: First, that Bush was detached and disengaged in Cabinet meetings, "a blind man in a room of deaf people." Second, Bush had planned to invade Iraq right from the beginning of his administration, before Sept. 11. "From the very beginning, there was the conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and he needed to go," O'Neill said in an interview broadcast on CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday, Jan. 11. During the CBS interview, Suskind showed a document, supplied by O'Neill, which he said showed Pentagon plans to divvy up Iraqi oil after a successful invasion. O'Neill's characterization of Bush as "detached" was denied by Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld. "He drives the meeting, asks tough questions. He likes dissent," Evans told CNN. "I don't see any validity to (O'Neill's) criticism at all," Rumsfeld said. "I really feel fortunate to be working for a man of (Bush's) character and ability." It could be argued that Evans and Rumsfeld were shading the truth to protect their boss, were it not for the fact that their description of Bush is shared by Larry Lindsey, former director of the National Economic Council, who was fired at the time as O'Neill. So it seems more likely that O'Neill's distinctly minority view of Bush's leadership skills is "sour grapes," as Rumsfeld said, or part of an effort to hype the book. During the 60 Minutes interview, Suskind showed a document, entitled: "Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield Contracts," which he said was a Pentagon plan for dividing up Iraq's oil after a successful war. This casts serious doubt on his - and O'Neill's - judgment and integrity. As Laurie Mylroie pointed out, this was not a Pentagon document. It was a document prepared for Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, and it was merely a list of existing and proposed "Iraqi Oil & Gas Projects." It was one of a series of reports on global energy supplies. To represent this as a plan for dividing up the spoils in postwar Iraq, as Suskind did, one has to be either an idiot, or a liar. O'Neill was backtracking furiously within 48 hours of the 60 Minutes interview, telling a clearly disappointed Katie Couric on the Today show that "people are trying to make the case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration that there needed to be regime change in Iraq." Asked about his comment that Bush "was like a blind man in a room full of deaf people," O'Neill said: "If I could take it back, I would take it back." Web logger Daniel Drezner, who worked in the Treasury Department when O'Neill was secretary, said his former boss was repeating a familiar pattern. "The following would happen like clockwork every two weeks: O'Neill would say something he thought meant X, when if fact it could be interpreted as either X or Y - and Y is either controversial or wrong. The financial press would seize on the statement as suggestive of Y. O'Neill would have to issue a clarifying statement that he really meant X." The controversy has served to remind people of what a truly terrible Treasury secretary O'Neill was. "O'Neill's tenure at Treasury was marked by verbal gaffes and impolitic comments," wrote Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post. "He publicly disparaged Bush's 2002 imposition of steep tariffs on steel, roiled currency markets with his blunt talk, (and) enraged a Brazilian president." O'Neill comes across as disloyal, egotistical, clueless about the ways of Washington, and more than a little dishonest. His book will have little impact on Bush's reputation, but a considerable impact on his own.