Censored Whig Letters

New York Times
April 27, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania
By FRANK RICH

IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.

Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.

When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats’ exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war?

But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that party’s nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. That’s more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.

Those antiwar Paul voters are all potential defectors to the Democrats in November. Mr. Huckabee’s religious conservatives, who rejected Mr. McCain throughout the primary season, might also bolt or stay home. Given that the Democratic ticket beat Bush-Cheney in Pennsylvania by 205,000 votes in 2000 and 144,000 votes in 2004, these are 220,000 voters the G.O.P. can ill-afford to lose. Especially since there are now a million more registered Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania. (These figures don’t even include independents, who couldn’t vote in either primary on Tuesday and have been migrating toward the Democrats since 2006.)

For such a bitterly divided party, the Democrats hardly show signs of clinical depression. The last debate, however dumb, had the most viewers of any so far. The rise in turnout and new voters is all on the Democratic side. Even before its deathbed transfusion of new donations, the Clinton campaign trounced the McCain campaign in fund-raising by 2.5 to 1. (The Obama-McCain ratio is 3 to 1.)

On Tuesday, a Democrat won the first round of a special Congressional election in Mississippi, even though the national G.O.P. outspent the Democrats by more than double and President Bush carried this previously safe Republican district by 25 percentage points in 2004. A Gallup poll last week found Mr. Bush’s national disapproval rating the worst (69 percent) for any president in Gallup’s entire 70-year history. For all his (and Mr. McCain’s) persistent sightings of “victory” in Iraq, the percentage of Americans calling the war a mistake (63) also set a new record.

“I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings,” Mr. Bush joked on Monday night, when he popped up like Waldo on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal” to root for an Army captain who was a contestant. But it turns out that not even cash giveaways to veterans can induce Americans to set eyes on this president. “Deal or No Deal” drew an audience 19 percent below its season average. The best deal for Mr. McCain would be for Mr. Bush to disappear into the witness protection program.

But surely, it could be argued, the mud in the Democratic race will be as much a drag on that party’s eventual nominee as the incumbent president is on the G.O.P. ticket. The counterargument, advanced by Mrs. Clinton in justifying her “kitchen sink” attacks on Mr. Obama, is that the Democrats are better off being tested now by raising all the issues the Republicans will. It’s a fair point. The Wright, Rezko, Ayers, “bittergate” and flag-pin firestorms will all be revived by the opposition come fall. Voters should indeed see how Mr. Obama deals with them, just as Democrats also need to gauge how the flash points of race and gender will play out in the crunch.

The flaw in Mrs. Clinton’s refrain is her claim that she, unlike her challenger, has already been so fully vetted that her candidacy can offer no more unpleasant surprises. “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” she says. Perhaps the delusion that she has a get-out-of-scandal-free card comes from her unexpected endorsement from Richard Mellon Scaife, the nutty Pittsburgh newspaper publisher who once spent a fortune trying to implicate the Clintons in the “murder” of Vince Foster. Or perhaps she thinks Fox News will call off the dogs now that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is appearing in network promos endorsing its “fair and balanced” shtick.

But the incessant praise for Mrs. Clinton’s resilience as a candidate by Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan and William Bennett reveals just how eager they are to take her on. The dealings of the Bill Clinton post-presidency, barely alluded to by Mr. Obama in his own halting bouts of negative campaigning, have simply been put on hold while the Democrats slug it out. Close observers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News can already read Rupert Murdoch’s tea leaves, and not just those from China. “Clinton Foundation Secrets” was the title of The Journal’s lead editorial on Friday profiling a rogues’ gallery of shady donors.

Mrs. Clinton’s supporters would argue that she’s so battle-tested she could fend it all off. She’s unlikely to get the chance. For all the nail-biting suspense being ginned up, the probable denouement remains unchanged. When the primary juggernaut finally ends — following picturesque day trips to Puerto Rico and Guam — the superdelegates will likely succumb to the math of Mr. Obama’s virtually insurmountable pledged-delegate total.

There’s also a way that two super-superdelegates, the duo on the Democrats’ last winning ticket, could trigger a faster finale. Bill Clinton could do so by undermining his wife once more with another ill-timed, red-faced eruption. Al Gore could possibly do so with a well-timed endorsement before his party gets mired in yet another Florida recount.

There’s only one way this can end badly, no matter how long it lasts. That would be if the loser, whoever it is, turns sore and fails to rally his or her troops around the winner. It’s all about “the way the loser loses,” as the Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is neutral in the race, likes to say. While the Clintons are capable of such kamikaze narcissism, their selfish desire to preserve their own political future, if not the party’s, may be a powerful check on those impulses.

On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his campaign into an unjustified complacency. The Democrats should “take their time — don’t rush,” the McCain aide Mark Salter joked last week. Yet his candidate, as the conservative blogger Ross Douthat pointed out, keeps bumping up against a 45 percent ceiling in the polls even now, when the Democrats are ostensibly in ruins.

Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.

Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.

The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.

The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.

For the Good of the Party and America, an Obama-Clinton Democratic ticket

Hillary Clinton should end her bid for the White House. Obama should offer her the Vice Presidency. Clinton should accept the offer. It would be a bitter pill for both to swallow but it is what both the Democratic Party and the American nation desperately needs. Neither Clinton nor Obama should place their personal ambition, pride or emotions ahead of the needs of the American people.

Clinton won a big victory in Pennsylvania but the election was tainted by the highly negative campaign and by serious election equipment and logistical flaws. At this point, she could easily withdraw with honor. Clinton is certainly not responsible for the defective voting equipment or the thousands of Republicans who switched their registrations in Pennsylvania to Democratic but were denied their right to cast even provisional ballots.

Brad Friedman of Brad Blog predicted in advance on his website and in an interview broadcast on my Democratic Talk Radio show that the election process in Pennsylvania was going to be a disaster logistically. He told our listening audience in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (WGPA SUNNY 1100AM) and our Internet audience that after the problems arose that the type of voting machines used in Pennsylvania made it impossible to fix errors likely to arise. The voting machines used made it impossible to verify the count or audit the results. Pennsylvania election laws and processes tainted Clinton’s victory through no fault of her own.

This writer believes she won big in Pennsylvania but the voting process was so bad that many voters will always doubt the size of that victory.

Regardless of the Pennsylvania win, Clinton has almost zero chance of gaining the Democratic Presidential nomination without changing the nominating rules to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida selected in unfair primary elections. Even with those delegates counted, Clinton has very little chance of gaining the nomination. It would take a nearly complete sweep of the remaining election contests in places like North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Puerto Rico, Guam and Idaho along with gaining most of the Super Delegates. Basically, it would take a whole series of miracles for her to gain the nomination and place her in a very weak position in terms of defeating McCain in the Fall.

Counting on a series of miracles to win a nomination that would split the Democratic Party in half is a pretty poor campaign strategy. Staying in the race would cast Clinton in a Democratic spoiler role in the minds of the American people should it result in a McCain victory in November. It would ruin her place in history.

A McCain victory would be an absolute disaster for the American nation. It would be basically a third term for Bush Republicanism and the insane policies that have wrecked the American economy. It would mean a foreign policy of endless, pointless, bloody wars. Make no mistake about it, John McCain is a war-monger who has no clue about how to run an economy.

McCain would pack our federal courts with the same kind of partisan, ideologically driven, Far Right judges that Bush appointed. Helping to elect McCain would gut the Bill of Rights and essentially destroy American Democracy. McCain would be both stubborn and inept in the White House just like Bush.

McCain is and always has been a tool of Corporate forces in politics- just like Bush. He and his wife are likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars although the so-called “straight talker” has refused to expose their full family finances. McCain is hiding his conflicts of interests and financially self-serving political position by hiding behind his wife! It is shameful and dishonest.

The American nation cannot afford a Bush Presidency. Clinton and Obama should make any sacrifice necessary to spare the American nation of this impending disaster. I am calling on their proven patriotism to work together as a Democratic ticket to defeat Bush Republicanism in the form of John McCain. Please save the American nation!
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Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish or post without prior approval.

UPCOMING SHOWS (times are Eastern)
On May 8, we have Ron Ennis who is Editor of the Lehigh Valley (PA) Labor Council, AFL-CIO newsletter and an American Postal Workers Union activist on the show. He is a great writer on union and political topics.

Tentatively have Cindy Sheehan scheduled for May 1 at 8:35am. About her Congressional run against Pelosi. We have Steve Raysely , who is the Steelworkers (and PACE) Rapid Response Coordinator for eastern Pennsylvania, in the studio for the entire show.

April 24th in studio whole show: Dennis Hower, VP of Teamsters Local 773 http://www.teamster773.org/hower.html & Allentown City Council President Michael D’Amore.

April 17th we had Pennsylvania State Representative and candidate for Pennsylvania Treasurer Jennifer Mann on the first half of the show. Brad Friedman from Brad Blog http://www.bradblog.com/ was on at 8:40am.

April 10th- Sam Bennett http://www.bennett2008.com/ , Democratic Congressional candidate in the 15th District (Lehigh Valley) and Joe Long, Chair of the Northampton Democratic Party, Chair of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus and retired UAW organizer were are guests on this show.

April 3rd- Joe Long (see April 10th for bio) was in the studio for the whole show. We were joined by IBEW National Rep. Paul Simon at 8:35 for the end of the show.

Democratic Talk Radio will have Jack Wagner, Pennsylvania State Auditor; Gregg Potter, President of the Greater Lehigh Valley Labor Council, AFL-CIO; Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of Americaand; Paul Tucker, Editor & Publisher of the Union News newspapers in eastern Pennsylvania on future shows.

We hope to soon announce the appearances of several talk radio show hosts (Rick Smith and Jerry Pippin have agreed to appear) and at least two other Presidents of very large international unions. Keep checking back for details!

I forgot to mention that Sam Lathem, President of the Delaware AFL-CIO and Senator Joe Biden have both agreed to be future guests. We are still working on a schedule for them.

KRATOVIL FOR CONGRESS ***

*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***

Top Gilchrest Aide to join Kratovil Campaign;

Gilchrest Campaign Director to Raise Funds for Kratovil Bid

STEVENSVILLE — U.S. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest’s top campaign aide formally joins the Congressional campaign of First Congressional Democratic nominee Frank Kratovil this week, calling Kratovil’s candidacy the best opportunity to continue the thoughtful, moderate approach that Gilchrest has brought to the district for nearly two decades.

Lynn Caligiuri will join the Kratovil campaign as a finance coordinator after serving as campaign and finance director for Gilchrest since 1999. A graduate of Washington College on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Caligiuri has worked in all of Gilchrest’s re-election campaigns since his upset victory following the 1992 Congressional redistricting.

“Obviously many of us were disappointed in the Republican primary results, but we now have an opportunity to send someone to Washington to continue to represent our values and end the partisan attacks and divisiveness that has rendered Congress ineffective and unresponsive,” said Caligiuri. “Frank Kratovil is the right choice.”

Caligiuri hopes to bring many of the long-time financial supporters of Gilchrest into the Kratovil campaign.

“I have been fortunate to get to know Frank Kratovil, and I have found him to be a thoughtful, knowledgeable leader who cares deeply about the people of this district,” Caligiuri said. “Frank is clearly the only choice to continue the moderate, inclusive approach that we appreciated in Wayne Gilchrest’s service, and it is an honor to be a part of Frank’s team.”

State aims to help children without insurance

Letters to notify families who might be eligible for federal program

By Larry Carson

Sun reporter

April 16, 2008

Inspired by Howard County’s success in finding uninsured children eligible for federal health coverage, state officials are launching a search of their own.

Health officials are preparing to mail notices to tens of thousands of people across Maryland whose family members might be eligible for a federal program that provides access to affordable health care….

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/howard/bal-md.ho.health16apr16,0,2596495,print.story

Colombia: No Rights, No Trade
By John Sweeney

Last Sept. 27, 16-year-old Andres Damian Florez Rodriguez was on his way home from school when he was forced into a van by three armed men. Andres is the son of Jose Domingo Florez, a leader of the Coca-Cola bottling union in Santander. The assailants drove along, beating the boy while they received radio instructions. Then they gave him a message to convey: “Tell your papa that we won’t rest until we see [the union leaders] quartered in pieces.”

On March 22, Adolfo Gonzalez Montes, a member of the Barrancas local Union of Coal Miners, was found dead in his home, tortured and shot, after his union received death threats during a union conflict.

On March 9, Carlos Burbano, vice president of the National Hospital Workers’ Union in Colombia, was murdered in San Vicente del Cagu?n after leading a local peace march. His corpse was found in the city dump, his face disfigured with acid. He was one of four Colombian trade unionists killed in a single week. Their deaths were not random crimes in a dangerous country. Rather, the Colombian government has falsely denounced union activists as guerrilla sympathizers, opening the door for paramilitary groups’ death threats.

And these assassinations are not anomalies. Seventeen unionists have been murdered since Jan. 1 — up 70 percent over last year at this time — according to the National Labor School, a respected nongovernmental organization.

Against this backdrop, President Bush has sent the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress for ratification, over the opposition of the Democratic congressional leadership. What, then, is the fundamental test of globalization? Is it corporate profits alone?

Globalization and trade should lift up and promote democratic societies. They should empower the many and lift the poor. They should create a fundamentally better world.

That is at the heart of an emerging and hopeful new consensus on trade.

For decades trade rules have protected business interests but offered few enforceable protections for workers’ rights and human rights. Millions of good jobs have been shipped away from the United States, while living and environmental standards have been eroded in our trading partner countries. That is why we have fought to guarantee labor and environmental standards in our trade agreements.

But now the Bush administration’s determination to ram through this agreement with Colombia before it has the capacity to uphold the rule of law threatens all the progress that has been made.

It’s of little use to include a paper commitment to respect “freedom of association” when workers who organize and speak out for economic freedom — and their families — face an implicit death sentence. That is why working people in Colombian and American unions are united in opposition to ratification of this agreement.

President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are pulling out all the stops to persuade Congress to approve the trade deal in this session. The Bush administration has mobilized its Cabinet to lead congressional delegations on sanitized field trips to Colombia. The Colombian government is reportedly spending more than $100,000 a month to lobby for the agreement.

The editorial pages of virtually every major American newspaper have weighed in with unusual intensity. They have heaped praise on the Uribe administration’s self-described successes and vigorously excoriated “bogus” claims about violence against unionists.

In fact, human rights groups say extrajudicial murders of civilians by the Colombian armed forces on Uribe’s watch are increasing. Growing evidence ties high-level members of the Colombian government to violent right-wing paramilitary groups. And, as noted above, Uribe administration officials have repeatedly — and falsely — labeled union leaders and human rights activists as guerrilla sympathizers, endangering their lives.

Supporters of the Colombia agreement have mocked statistics published by leading international human rights organizations, which show that more than 400 Colombian unionists have been murdered during Uribe’s tenure. The rate of impunity remains at roughly 97 percent, even taking government statistics at face value, and nearly half of the convicted assassins are not even in custody.

Colombia claims to be taking steps to reduce the violence. That’s good. But so far, it has done too little. And it has failed to bring its labor laws into compliance with international labor standards or enforce them effectively.

How many murders are “acceptable”? How many is too many? I can’t answer those questions with a number other than zero.

And I know this: Unless working people can exercise their right to lift their families out of poverty and exploitation, trade cannot strengthen democracy or advance a better world. And until they can exercise their fundamental human rights without fear that they will end up in a garbage dump, or their teenage son will be picked up at gunpoint, there should be no trade agreement with Colombia.

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John Sweeney is President of the AFL-CIO.

Democratic Talk Radio went on the air in the Lehigh Valley on Thursday mornings
March 31st, 2008

Democratic Talk Radio went be on the air in the Lehigh Valley on Thursday at 8:05 am on WGPA, 1100AM. The program will be streaming live on the Internet at http://www.wgpasunny1100.com/welcomepg.html. All programs will be archived on the Democratic Talk Radio website at http://66.39.111.188/arc.html for anytime streaming or downloading for Podcasting.

The program will feature book authors, talk show hosts, journalists, labor leaders, officeholders, candidates, policy experts, political activists and more, as guests. The program will be co-hosted by Stephen Crockett (from Maryland and Tennessee) and Dana Garrett (from Delaware.) Both are experienced political observers and talk show hosts….

See details at Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com or Democratic Talk Radio http://www.democratictalkradio.com.

Will Bob Barr Be McCain’s Very Own Ralph Nader in 2008?

By Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny!
Posted on April 4, 2008, Printed on April 7, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com//81402/

How badly will another cranky old right-winger in the presidential race hurt
McCain? Looks like we’re about to find out. Far right extremist, Georgia
ex-Congressman Bob Barr, has been muttering darkly of late about how the Insider
GOP Establishment has abandoned conservative principles. He happens to think
McCain has morphed into George Bush and agrees that a McCain presidency would
basically just be a third term for Bush. He’s been talking openly about
running for president as an independent and this weekend he is expected to
announce his candidacy at the Heartland Libertarian Conference in Kansas City,
where he is scheduled to speak.

“There’s been a tremendous expressed to me both directly and indirectly on
the Internet. I take that support very seriously, and I think it also reflects
a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current
two-party system. So it is something, to be honest with you, that I’m looking
very seriously at… Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that
dissatisfaction and that awareness. Unfortunately, working through the Republican party
structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his
movement. But we have to have ….a rallying point out there to harness that energy,
that freedom in this election cycle.
“What we’ve fallen into in recent years– not just since 9/11, but
particularly since 9/11– is this notion that, in order to protect ourselves, we have
to preemptively go into and– in the case of Iraq– occupy another sovereign
nation. Simply saying, ‘Gee, it’s better to fight over in this other nation
and destroy another nation, so we’re not potentially attacked here, is the
height of arrogance.”

Today’s Moonie Times speculates that a Barr bid could hurt McCain’s already
slim chances to slip into the White House. He would probably negate whatever
benefit McCain would get from Nader’s run, although progressives
overwhelmingly blame Nader for all the damage Bush has caused and are unlikely to vote
for him in any significant way. He’s unlikely to break even 1% of the vote
anywhere. Barr, an NRA board member and a hero to rabid Clinton-haters, would
probably attract far more voters among Republicans than Nader would among
Democrats. Most Democrats are happy with either Obama, the likely winner, or
Clinton. Many Republicans, especially the dominant conservative wing, are still
mistrustful of McCain.

Republican campaign pros said a Barr bid could range from causing them some
damage all the way to being the equivalent of Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential
bid, which many Republicans think split their party’s voters, unseating
then-President Bush and electing Democrat Bill Clinton.

Gun rights fanatics don’t like McCain and there are plenty of Republicans
who have been schooled by extremists like Limbaugh to hate McCain for his
“support” for campaign finance reform. The Moonies interviewed Michigan’s crackpot
Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, who said Barr would do well in
fascist-leaning states like Texas but it wouldn’t matter because McCain would win
by a big enough margin there to triumph anyway. Anuzis apparently hasn’t been
watching the demographic shifts in certain parts of the country. In any case,
he acknowledges that where Barr would kill McCain’s chances are in the swing
states, GOP strategists are counting on– Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan
and Pennsylvania.

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!