Politics: January 2005 Archives

Charlie Peters' Tilting at Windmills thinks so:

My friend Jonathan Rowe, who lives in California, is puzzled that Democrats don't respond to being called “girly-men” by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Have they missed the issue of Vanity Fair with Arnold and Maria on the cover? In the credit box accompanying the photograph, we are told that the governor's “grooming products” are from Dior, his “hair products” by Bumble & Bumble, and his jacket by Prada.

For that matter, would a “real man” refuse to debate unless he gets the questions first? Or would he have had more cosmetic surgery, as one source put it, “than Joan Rivers”?

In the MyDD Cattle Call Dean's in the lead:

Dean secured the frontrunner position with his getting the endorsement from the entire delegation of Florida, with Maddox saying, "I am a Southern chairman of a Southern state, and I am perfectly comfortable with Howard Dean as DNC chair."

Reihan Salam at The American Scene says it "could be a big deal." A friend wrote to tell me of her Republican mother's favorable comments. The Moderate Voice calls it "an almost startling middle leaning stance" and links to many other bloggers' comments. From the NYTimes coverage:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that the opposing sides in the divisive debate over abortion should find "common ground" to prevent unwanted pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions, which she called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."

Positioning for a presidential run? Everyone says so. I stand by what I said last week.

Last week I pointed favorably to Arnold's prison reform plan. This week I'm reminded he's got plenty of the Republicanisms in him that I don't like. To deal with California's budget crisis, he proposes cutting spending on the poor while preserving tax breaks for the well-off. What's worse, writes Kevin Drum:

Schwarzenegger actively created a huge part of the budget crisis himself. Just as George Bush seems to hope that tax cuts will create an artificial crisis atmosphere that allows him to pursue pet projects like Social Security privatization, Schwarzenegger campaigned on a pledge to cut the auto license fee. This slashed $3-4 billion in revenue, an amount that would go a very long way toward eliminating California's problem....

He campaigned on a promise never to cut education funding and went back on his word almost immediately. He campaigned on a promise to end "crazy deficit spending," but adopted Gray Davis's deficit spending plans almost verbatim within months. He's made some interesting proposals, and has demonstrated some genuine charisma and political talent, but in the end his only real tactic seems to be the same one George Bush loves so much: convincing the public that everything is a crisis and he's the only one who can deal with it.

Howard Dean's appearance yesterday on THIS WEEK affirms again my belief that he's the best candidate for DNC Chair. Among his comments:

That's why I'm running for DNC chair. Democrats hope that once in a while a John F. Kennedy or a Bill Clinton will come along and all of a sudden, aha. We can't do that. What the Republicans have is a better system than ours. Now, we made great strides in this election but the Republicans have 14,000 people on the ground in Ohio. We have to bring them in.

Now, the next time, through training and through money to the state parties and building up state parties through grassroots organizations, I want to have a system that's as good as the Republicans and the time after that I want to have a system that's better than the Republicans because the one thing that Republicans don't do is they don't empower their people on the ground. They, they give the orders from on high and then the masses go forth and do their bidding.

I think if you empower people on the ground to make their own decisions, the Democrats can win again. I'm interested in this because of the systems, not because of the policy.

I agree with the diagnosis and I agree with the proposed solution. If nothing else in the last campaign, he demonstrated he could organize and motivate. Let's let him do it again.

Earlier this month when House Democrats needed a Senator to force debate on the legitimacy of the presidential electoral votes (Fahrenheit 9/11 you will recall noted that no Senator would do this last time around), Barbara Boxer said yes. Then this week she took on Condoleezza Rice, in a tone many of us found highly appropriate. The New York Times has a profile.

1/25/05 UPDATE: DailyKos on "Boxer the new Wellstone"

There is no crisis. Really. Check it out.

Sponge Bob Square Pants. A secret agent in the recruitment of gays. Details in the New York Times.

I can't say I pay close attention to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he's doing some things that make him the kind of Republican I could support. This week, it's prisons. California has the nation's largest state prison system, in such sorry shape it's on the verge of a federal takeover. So who has he named to head the system? Jeanne Woodford, a reform-minded warden who believes in prevention, education and rehabilitation. From Tuesday's Morning Edition:

GONZALES: Jeanne Woodford knows what it's like to work her way up from the bottom. She joined the California prison system fresh out of college and came to work at San Quentin as a prison guard. Back then, in 1978, California, like the rest of the nation, was getting tough on crime. But Woodford remembers how the practice of locking up prisoners for fixed terms backfired.

Ms. JEANNE WOODFORD (Department of Corrections, California): And so we started to see more and more younger people coming into the prison who did not have the incentives to behave themself, and they were coming in with longer terms, they were coming in street gang members, so the violence quickly increased.

GONZALES: And with the violence came long periods of lockdowns, which choked off vocational training classes. Over time, college classes, provided at taxpayer expense, were eventually outlawed, and Woodford, working her way up the chain of command, was learning a lesson.

Ms. WOODFORD: My history at that particular prison led to my belief that if you're impacting that offender, the potential for impacting that offender's children and their family can stop the cycle of crime and stop victimization. And that really is true public safety.

The broken windows theory applied to prison reform. With no tax funding she turned to community and non-profit volunteers to build education and training programs. That impressed the governor. Schwarzenegger's overall reform plan, which creates a new Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to underscore the shift towards rehabilitation and prevention, has been met with substantial criticism. Time will tell. I'm just impressed to see that rehabilitation and prevention are part of one Republican's agenda.

Here is the concluding Part 2 of the Morning Edition series.

Monday's Washington Whispers piece about Hillary's brothers saying she's readying for a presidential run kicked up this week's Hillary talk. Lots of critics on the left; Chris Bowers answers them point by point. I'm reminded of another Michael Moore comment from his January 6 Today Show appearance:

COURIC: What about Hillary Clinton, do you think she has a chance?

Mr.MOORE: What--she's a star. Absolutely she has--absolutely she has a chance.

COURIC: Many people think she could not--even if she won the nomination could not win the election because she's so polarizing.

Mr. MOORE: I don't--well, talk about polarizing, how about George W. Bush? They don't worry about--they never ask themselves that question. `Geez, I don't know, should we run Bush again? He's kind of polarizing. A lot of people don't like him,' you know? It's like, you know, we--our side has got to knock that off. Hillary Clinton is beloved by millions of Americans. I'm not saying, you know, she should necessarily be the one. But, you know...

I voted for her in New York and she's doing, by most accounts, an outstanding job. I recall her working hard to get elected, running a smart campaign that won over conservative leaning upstate voters. If she wants to run, good for her. She's earned it. If she were to get the nomination, I'd vote for her.

Michael Moore was on the Today Show a couple weeks back (January 6). I thought he made a lot of sense when he asked:

Where's our Arnold? Why aren't we running our Arnold? Why do we continue to run these wonks? The American people--see the Republicans, as much as they berate Hollywood, actually they love Hollywood. In fact, they know that Americans love Hollywood, too, and that's why Republicans run people from Hollywood. Reagan, Arnold, Gopher from "The Love Boat." He was in Congress...Sonny Bono...Fred Thompson. They know that Americans love Hollywood. That's why they run people from Hollywood. And--and when the Democrats run stars: Bill Clinton, the rock star; John Kennedy, the movie star, they win. And when they run wonks, they lose. And they've got to start thinking about the people who connect to the average American out there, and who are really--you know, people who move the American public in--in a very visceral way...when we start running people that are beloved by the American public, we're going to win.

Let's start with the DNC Chair. Howard Dean is our star. Martin Frost is not.

Today in Georgia, the Cobb County School Board appealed the judges ruling from last week holding that "evolution disclaimer" stickers must be removed from science textbooks. And in Dover, PA, the town where my brother raised his family and my 2 nephews attended the public schools, today was the first day students were read the "Intelligent Design" statement. The Associated Press reports it was read by administrators:

Seven science teachers, including three biology teachers, wrote a letter earlier this month saying that reading the statement would violate Pennsylvania's professional standards and practices code. All three biology teachers chose not to read the statement.

You have to respect those teachers. Surprisingly, they're in the minority. A Gallup Poll found that only 35% of Americans say that evolution is well-supported by evidence. Now that's scary.

Simon for DNC Chair.

The guy I wanted, Donnie Fowler, is apparently not happening. He's young, he's got time, he'll do great things. (Click here for a roundup of results from the DNC regional caucus in Atlanta). Now that Dean made it official, I'm with him. And strongly against Roemer

Ten former WorldCom board members have to pay $18 million out of their own pockets in a settlement with investors who lost a fortune when the company collapsed in scandal. New York state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit, insisted on it. From "All Things Considered:"

The notion that companies can commit fraud and that the directors can ignore that and not meet their obligations as fiduciary because they are covered by insurance and they don't even pay the premiums for it, we thought that, I thought that was just unfair and it was wrong.

That sure makes sense to me.

Jerome Armstrong debunks a Fred Barnes column, "The Incredible Shrinking Dems," that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on New Years Eve (the full column is included in the post). Much as the Republicans loathe admitting it:

...in 2004, Democrats gained state legislative seats nationwide, and retook the majority. Republicans have lost governorships, state legislatures, and legislators to Democratic gains-- a post-election fact that is a measure of Democratic success... What we really had in 2004 was a "southern peak" for the Republicans, where they gained 4 open Senate seats in the South, took over state leg seats in TN and GA (IN too), and saw an even stronger performance by Bush in the South than in 2000.