Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Joe Lieberman

From a Op-Ed he wrote in the Greenville News, January 12, 2004.

"I'm the only Democrat in this race to offer a broad middle-class tax cut -- for 98 percent of taxpayers. In South Carolina, that would mean a tax cut for more than 1.3 million middle-class families -- and the vast majority of the state's small businesses.

The difference between Howard Dean's tax hikes and my tax cuts adds up to more than $2,200 a year for the average South Carolina family of four. That's $800 more than the average annual family health insurance premium."

Second the specifics of his plan from his website.

First, he will keep in place the middle class tax cuts included in the Bush tax cuts some of which were included only because Democrats fought for them--such as the increase in the child tax credit and the elimination of the marriage penalty.

Second, to make the system better balanced, he will:

- Restructure the income tax brackets in a systematic way
- Reset the top two income tax rates that George W. Bush decreased
- Lower the middle two rates for middle class families
- Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income families
- Repeal the dividend tax cut that Bush pushed for
- Reform the estate tax that Bush repealed
- Eliminate wasteful corporate loopholes and subsidies that Bush has protected
- Add a special "recapture" bracket for the highest income taxpayers that will recoup the benefits of the lower rates.

As a result, about 98 percent of all taxpayers will get a tax cut as well three-quarters of all small business owners.

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Representative Dennis Kucinich

For Dennis Kucinich something a bit different. Apparently he has already proposed his plan to improve our tax plan, in "The Progressive Tax Act of 2003." Commenting on the proposal, Kucinich said, "Our tax system is in need of desperate repair. Tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of Americans do not create jobs and do not increase wages for working people. The only way to real economic strength and security is to provide real tax relief to those who need it most, workers and families. This bill enables real economic growth and progressive tax reform while providing fiscal responsibility."

Here is a summary of the bill.

The Progressive Tax Act of 2003

To resolve the impending crisis, action must be taken now to protect the progressive tax system, provide transparency, and ensure adequate funds for the federal government to meet its obligations. This can only be accomplished by shifting tax burden from work to accumulated wealth, from the working poor to the wealthiest, and from children to
corporations.

In Title I, the bill provides tax relief for workers and families:

1. $1530 Payroll Tax Credit: A refundable tax credit for people who work, linked to what they paid in payroll taxes and phased out at higher incomes. This tax credit is simple, targeted to relieve a high tax burden, provides a stimulus effect, and encourages work.
2. $2000 Simplified Family Credit: A refundable tax credit that simplifies the tax code by consolidating the EITC, Child Tax Credit, Additional Child Credit, and exemption for children into one Simplified Family Credit. This tax credit will
simplify the tax code, provide greater transparency, provide extra work incentives, and a stimulus effect.

In Title II and Title II, the bill closes corporate loopholes and restores the federal budget:

1. Restore integrity to the tax system by closing corporate loopholes and setting tough penalties to prevent corporate tax shelter abuse.
2. Repeal most of the erroneous Bush tax cuts in the past three years that benefited the wealthy. Repeal other tax benefits that provide benefits only to the wealthy and have no stimulus effect.

The Progressive Tax Act of 2003 will provide a positive impact on the federal budget and deficit. It gives $87 billion per year to people with modest income and families in the middle class. The bill collects an additional $107 billion per year from the unfair Bush tax cuts, corporate tax loopholes, and other inappropriate tax giveaways. The bill therefore raises a sum total of $20 billion per year that remains available for deficit reduction or new spending.

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Senator John Kerry

This is from a speech on January 14, 2004 (so Wednesday), in Davenport Iowa.

"And while we must repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, I will fight - and I ask you to join me in fighting against - proposals to increase taxes on the middle class. I disagree with those in my own party who are so mad at George Bush that they want to take it out on working families in Iowa by raising their taxes an average of $2,000 a year. To me, this is a matter of principle: Democrats should stand up for everyday Americans who work hard, hope for the future, and face extraordinary challenges everyday.

A government on their side will know when to take sides. So as President, I will scrub the tax code, which has grown from 14 pages to 17,000 pages, to remove every single loophole, every single incentive, every single provision that rewards Benedict Arnold CEOs and corporations for moving profits and American jobs overseas. And we'll stop giving government contracts for companies who do wrong by their workers.

We will put an end to tax giveaways for corporations who cut back on their workers while they lavish millions on CEOs. And corporations won't get tax breaks for CEOs million dollar retirement windfalls while they cut back on worker pension plans. We need a President who fights for a fair retirement for every family not Paradise Island for millionaires."

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Representative Dick Gephardt

This is from a speech on August 4, 2003. It's important to know that Gephardt believes that his plans to create a National Health Care Plan will stimulate the economy.

"In 1993, as House Democratic Leader, I led the fight to pass the Clinton-Gore economic plan – a plan designed to slash the deficit, invest in education, cut taxes for working families, and ask the wealthy among us to pay their fair share. We took the political heat and paid the political price. But it was the right thing to do.

Not one Republican voted for that plan. They said it was a job killer. Instead it led to the single largest economic expansion in history. It resulted in the highest home ownership ever. It forged the lowest inflation in a generation and it created over twenty two million new jobs. Turns out we were right and the Republicans were wrong.

. . . As president, my first act would be to submit to Congress legislation to repeal the Bush tax cuts and replace them with health care for all Americans that can never be taken away. Senator Wagner started the fight 70 years ago, and I’m determined to finish it."

And this is from a speech on November 23, 2003.

"Fiscal responsibility is not amputation. It's finding the right balance of optimism, incentive, fairness, and opportunity. It's rising to a fiscal challenge with imagination and compassion, not clinical detachment and disdain for the unfortunate. It's asking the most fortunate to do their part so we can invest in everyone's ability to succeed."

O'Reilly

Well, I know some of you can't get enough negative information on Bill O'Reilly--so here's a new site that lays into him. However, I like that this website is trying an old fashioned boycott; the kind where people just don't watch the show, and tell others why not. Instead of the type of boycott where you try to scare sponsers by boycotting their products.

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Senator John Edwards

This is from a speech at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., on June 17, 2003. Georgetown is apparently the "it" place to reveal your economic plan.

"As President, I will put the government, the economy, and the tax code back in line with our values. No more tax breaks for corporations that move their headquarters overseas or buy life insurance on janitors and make themselves the beneficiaries. No more tax breaks for CEOs who give themselves millions in top-hat pensions while giving no pensions at all to ordinary workers. No more playing games with the budget and driving up deficits. And no more of the Bush administration’s war on work.

First, I will ask Congress to cancel the 2001 and 2003 income, dividend, and estate tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in the upper two brackets. In these times of national sacrifice, we should not be asking less of the most fortunate. I agree with Bill Gates, Sr., the father of the richest man in America, that in a world where taxes must be paid, the people who inherit massive estates ought to pay taxes too. I agree with Warren Buffett, the shrewd investor and another of America’s richest men, who said that something is deeply wrong when a billionaire has a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Second, I will give America a tax code that rewards work, not wealth. Today, middle-class families pay income tax on their earnings at a rate of up to 25%, plus another 7.65% in payroll tax. Yet under the law President Bush just signed, a CEO who pays himself whatever he wants can sell millions of dollars in stock and pay tax at a total rate of 15%.

. . . Under my plan, the wealthiest one-third of one percent of taxpayers – those who claim capital gains and have annual incomes over $350,000 -- will pay the same rate on capital gains – 25% -- that two teachers who earn $35,000 pay on their incomes. In turn, we’ll use the money not for new programs, but to restore fiscal discipline and to give tax cuts to middle-class Americans who live from paycheck to paycheck.

Third, I will cut taxes to encourage savings and wealth creation for the middle class and working poor, not take away their tax cuts. I believe ordinary Americans are taxed too much, not too little. As a direct result of this President’s policies, all across this country people are seeing their property taxes, their sales taxes, their state and local income taxes, and their college tuition bills go up. Now some in my party want to take away their federal income tax cuts, too. That’s wrong. The answer to Republicans who have made middle-class incomes and nest eggs go down should not be Democrats who make middle-class taxes go up."

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - Former Governor Howard Dean

This is from Howard Dean's big economic speech given at Georgetown University, Washington DC on October 16, 2003.

"Balanced budgets matter. They should matter not just to economists who say they lead to economic growth. They should matter to social progressives who should be fiscal conservatives, because only fiscal responsibility guarantees that the American people will have the government they need when they truly need it.

Repealing the Bush tax cuts is a good first step in restoring fiscal responsibility. But we can’t bring the budget into balance without controlling government spending. Under this president, non-defense spending has skyrocketed by over 20%. To restore fiscal discipline, I’ll work to bring back the pay-as-you-go rule that forces Washington to pay for new spending rather than borrowing for it. And we’ll root out waste and inefficiency in the way that the federal bureaucracy does business by re-instituting the National Performance Review that Al Gore started and which saved over $20 billion a year.

Once we have repealed the President’s reckless tax cuts, we will set about making the tax system fairer and simpler. We’ll end corporate welfare as we know it, eliminating up to $100 billion dollars in tax breaks and subsidies that benefit special interests and large contributors to both political parties.

And we’ll crack down on tax shelters that allow American companies to hide their profits offshore and not pay any taxes while enjoying all of the benefits that the American taxpayer provides to them.

Consider this — from the 1930s through the 1960s, corporations paid 30 to 40 percent of the taxes, and the rest of us paid 6070. Today, corporations pay about 13 percent of taxes. It’s time to move the balance back and take some of the burden off the individual taxpayer who’s trying to make ends meet.

And as a final goal, we’ll simplify the tax system so that a majority of Americans can pay their income taxes without wasting hours filling out forms."

Candidate Review - Tax Reform - General Wesley Clark

I always seem to want to through an extra E into Clark's name. Anyway today we are looking at what the Democratic Candidates plan to do about the Bush tax Cuts.

This is from a speech Clark gave in Nashua, NH on January 5, 2004.

"The week I announced my candidacy, I said that reforming America's tax system would be one of my top priorities. And I promised that I would create a new system with real tax reform that was simpler, fairer, more progressive, and more pro-growth and I'd do it all without increasing the deficit one dime.

My sweeping tax reform plan meets every one of these values. It's called "Families First." Because that's exactly what it does. It will overhaul our tax system so that all Americans pay their fair share. It will reduce poverty. It will encourage families to work and save, so we can be a richer, more prosperous nation. And it will do all this while protecting our most pressing priorities - education, health care, and national security.

First, as I said before, families of four making under $50,000 a year will stop paying income taxes altogether. They will literally not owe a single penny in income taxes to the United States government.

. . . Second, my tax reform plan will give a tax cut to all taxpaying families with children making under $100,000, because all working families are being squeezed by George W. Bush's economy.

Third, my tax reform plan will reward work by building on the Earned Income Tax Credit -- helping millions of America's hardest-pressed families. It will help these families go to work by paying for childcare, transportation, and other work-related expenses. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children will be lifted out of poverty.

Finally, my plan will simplify the tax process, eliminating dozens of pages of forms and boiling hundreds of pages of the tax code down to one easy-to-use form. With this new system, you can figure out whether or not you need to pay taxes just by filling out three lines."

On College Course X

I think I expressed myself inelegantly this morning. Having a very busy day today and a very busy week this week (but hopefully not a busy month this month. Time will tell.). But I did want to follow up on something.

A fun game by some, (particularly Rush Limbaugh, although he's far from the only offender) is to pick a course out of a college catalog and talk about how ridiculous. This discussion usually involves a few misconceptions, that I'd like to point out. Let's pick a random class that seems like it would be a waste of time; Images of Women in American Sitcoms; From Lucy to Roseanne. Actually that sounds like an interesting class.

First sarcastic criticism. "Yep, that's what the world needs, more experts on Roles for Females in Sitcoms. I heard just the other day that IBM was looking to hire a top specialist in the field of Sitcom Actress Studies." Of course, that's kind of absurd, which is the whole point. Nobody expects to get a job as, strictly speaking, a Sitcom Actress Studies. They might, if they are interested in the subject, write some books on the subject while teaching at a college (so in that sense they could make some money), but they are hardly going to entering corporate America with just that under their belt. However, they might have that and a half dozen accounting/business management courses under their belt.

Second sarcastic criticism. "I remember back when kids used to study Shakespeare or Milton. Now it's just sitcoms. What a waste!" First of all I appreciate this criticism on some level; the fault is when the person assumes it's an either or situation. A student has the option to take both Female Sitcom Roles and Shakespeare, and it's not very common that Shakespeare is being squeezed out by pop culture studies. But I can appreciate that getting students to take Shakespeare is a bit like getting kids to eat Brussels sprouts; it helps if there's nothing else on the plate.

On the other hand Female Sitcom Roles have more to say about our current society. Watching Lucy, or Mary Tyler Moore, or Diane Chambers, or Elaine or Marge Simpson can reveal, if one watches with a critical eye, the changing ways we look at women in America. While I don't want to devalue Shakespeare, I also don't want to devalue other knowledge.

I have more to say on the subject, but will have to hold off. Candidate review tomorrow, as we focus on the candidates favorite Ice Cream Flavors.

Mike S. Adams and Provocation

Mike S. Adams teaches at UNC Wilmington in the Socialogy Criminology dept. Apparently in talking about free speech he brings up some examples of hateful free speech from both the left and the right. A fellow faculty member (a grad student, Adams is careful to point out) heard him doing this and complained to her students. So far so good.

He then spends a few paragraphs ripping into this professor for teaching a class called "Queer Theory."

. . . The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having a course in “queer theory.” I’m sure that the course isn’t just about promoting gay politics. I’m sure that the professor and the students spend a lot of time talking about their feelings. And I’m sure that it’s a must for people who actually want to become “queer theorists” after they graduate.

Let’s face it; we really do have a shortage of “queer theorists.” In fact, I’ve never met one who didn’t teach at a university."

Ha ha ha. But, of course, what Mr. Adams and we all know is that nobody goes to school to become a Queer Theorist. A class in Queer Theory is part of a communication or sociology or history or english program. One class as part of that program, not the entire thing. Now a history professor might decide that he wants to specialize on the Gay Community or an english professor might specialize on Images of Homosexuality in Literature. Nothing wrong with that, per se. Everybody's got to study something. But to paint a picture of UNC Wilmington cranking out "Queer Theorists" is just nonsensical.

Brent Bozell and Dan Rather

For those who don't know, Dan Rather claims there is no media bias, which is probably not exactly the truth. (The media probably is biased liberal on many social issues and biased conservative on many economic issues. Also they are sensitive to being called Liberal so they play softball with President Bush while reaming Democratic Presidential candidates like Al Gore or Howard Dean.) Brent Bozell claims that there is vast media bias. Brent Bozell offered to donate $1 million dollars to a charity of Rather's choice if an independent media research company proved Liberal Media Bias. Bozell's latest article is all about this grand-standing stunt (kind of reminds one of David Horowitz and his stunts on campus).

But Bozell makes an interesting admission a little bit into the article. "In an interview with Jane Hall in the most recent Columbia Journalism Review, Brokaw suggests there is no such thing as liberal media bias ... and then asserts that liberal bias is an "obligation" of journalism. Journalists should "represent the views of those who are underrepresented in the social context, or the political context, and to make sure that they're not overlooked, and that their wrongs get the bright light of journalistic sunshine."

He's not talking about pro-lifers. He's not talking about tax cutters. He's talking about the "little guy" and the journalist's noble quest to better his world. Try to put that puzzle together. There is no liberal agenda. There is only a journalistic agenda to extol the virtues of the liberal impulse."

So in other words, concern about the poor or the ill or the disenfranchised is naturally a Liberal impulse. Conservatives (well, Brent Bozell anyway) are willing to concede that any attention paid to the poor and needy in our society will have to come from liberal impulses, as they either aren't interested or they believe that being aware of the poor and the ignored are better off if nobody pays attention to them.

Bear in mind that Dan Rather wields no power. He can't pass a law. He can't enforce a law. He can't pass judgement in any legal sense. All he can do is talk on his news program and bring stories to light as he sees fit.

He then proves Dan Rathers Liberal Bias by proving that Dan Rather is a Liberal (by quoting him in several contexts where he is speaking as an individual and not when he is behind his news desk. That's not really the same thing, unless Brent Bozell thinks there's something wrong with an American being a Liberal, which presumably he does.

Salon and Donald Trump

I really like Salon Magazine. It's not as great as it used to be; but we live in a time of lowered expectations and I have no doubt they are doing the best they can. What they usually have is pretty great writing, such as this article on Donald Trump and his latest television show, by Heather Havrilesky. The article includes a description of one of the contestents, who is waiting to see if he will be booted from the show.

"Sam is feeling desperate, so he sets about demonstrating the curious side effects of severe narcissism, trotting out his delusions of grandeur for the bemusement of the other two.

"I want to be the president of a Trump organization. I can't do it today. I can't do it today. You know what I'm doing right now? I'm like this," Sam says. He gets on his hands and knees as Troy and David cringe visibly. "Today I'm crawling. Tomorrow, I'm gonna be like this [halfway up]. Next week, I'm gonna be like this [standing]. And in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna stand up there, just like he does, and I'm gonna be promoted to the president of his organization."

While Sam is tragic and pathetic in his own way, his outburst mostly hints that he's at least a little sharper than the other two. This is television, after all, and anyone who's willing to embody gritty determination in a demented, melodramatic way is sure to stick around for a while. Most of all, Sam is signaling that he belongs in the club. After all, plenty of America's wealthiest businessmen are narcissists and delusional jackasses, and Sam may be exactly the flavor of freak show that makes it in this crazy, mixed-up world."

Anyway go check out Salon--even if you have to use the day pass commercial thingy.

That Darned Media Bias

Yep. Once again we are upset at the clear Media Bias. Take the latest front page at MSNBC.com. Right there is a picture of Howard Dean with the headline. "Fresh Assault."

Now we like the "Fresh Assault" headline; makes Dean look like an assaulter which he clearly is (for those more innocent of my readers, Dean said some bad, mean, nasty, hurtful things about President Bush). But the picture doesn't make him look nearly crazy enough.

Stay with me. I'm just spitting out an idea here, but why don't you have his eyes a bright glowing red, as if they were the gateways to Hell itself. Now, it might be hard to find a photo that looks exactly like that, but maybe you could play around with Photoshop.

For those of you with some notion of "photo integrity," consider this. The red glowing eyes, making Dean look evil, will convey a deeper truth, and so it's all justified.

Anyway hop to it. Remember making any Liberal look even slightly less than insane or evil is biased against Conservatives.

American Culture

David Limbaugh is up in arms about the immigration bill, which leads me to believe, although I haven't spent any time studying, that it must be ok. In particular he's up in arms about the damage unrestricted immigration could do to an "American Culture."

"But beneath the slick packaging of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" we find that what they really stand for is the denunciation of Western civilization and America. All civilizations are equally wonderful in the world cultural mosaic -- except those arising out of Western civilization, especially America.

If the multiculturalists had their druthers, what remains of a unique American culture would probably be eradicated, since it is viewed as bigoted and evil." A bit of hyperbole on Limbaugh's part, to be sure. But let's examine the underlying premise.

What is American culture?

Is it our food? And if so what food do you mean. I mean, Apple Pie and Hamburgers to be sure. But what about Pizza with Goat Cheese, invented in California (near as I can tell). Is that part of a distinctive American Culture? How about the Bagel? How about Spaghetti with Meatballs? Or the ubiquitous Taco Platter or Sweet and Sour Pork?

Is it our music? And which parts? George Gershwin? Leonard Cohen? Chuck Berry? Rogers and Hammerstein? Bob Dylan? Miles Davis? Chuck D? Eddie Vedder? The Dust Brothers? Duke Ellington? Jimi Hendrix? George Clinton? Moby? Which of them reflect a distinctly American culture? (And for a moment, let me say that it is nice to note that 2/3 of what makes distincitive American Music comes from the African American community, if not more.)

Is it our literature? Little Women? The Naked Lunch? Huckleberry Finn? Stranger in a Strange Land? The Sound and the Fury? On the Road? What counts as American and what doesn't?

Of course you might go back to reverence for our national documents; reverence for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence and so on. But it doesn't take much time to see that those who are being attacked by Limbaugh quote from these documents as much as he does; perhaps more.

Frankly when you boil it all down; Mr. Limbaugh either wants to see immigrants and minorities copying white middle class culture as much as possible (which means you can drop your Goat Cheese Pizza, your DJ Shadow, and your Naked Lunch), or something else. Could it be that by a specifically American culture, Mr. Limbaugh means a politically conservative culture? Immigrants are welcome if we thought they would vote for President Bush. But since we think they might fall under the influence of evil "Multiculturalists" (or Liberals, to be more clear), than it's best to keep them out.

Of course, I could be wrong.

And Even More Paul O'Neill

This time from Paul Krugman, leading to speculation that their might be a League of Pauls somewhere. If so I'm not a member of it. Back to Mr. Krugman, who comments on some of the juicier bits of the book.

"Ron Suskind's new book "The Price of Loyalty" is based largely on interviews with and materials supplied by Mr. O'Neill. It portrays an administration in which political considerations — satisfying "the base" — trump policy analysis on every issue, from tax cuts to international trade policy and global warming. The money quote may be Dick Cheney's blithe declaration that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." But there are many other revelations.

One is that Mr. O'Neill and Alan Greenspan knew that it was a mistake to lock in huge tax cuts based on questionable projections of future surpluses. In May 2001 Mr. Greenspan gloomily told Mr. O'Neill that because the first Bush tax cut didn't include triggers — it went forward regardless of how the budget turned out — it was "irresponsible fiscal policy." This was a time when critics of the tax cut were ridiculed for saying exactly the same thing.

Another is that Mr. Bush, who declared in the 2000 campaign that "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum," knew that this wasn't true. He worried that eliminating taxes on dividends would benefit only "top-rate people," asking his advisers, "Didn't we already give them a break at the top?"

The problem is that we have two different groups looking at these facts. One side believes that accusations they made months ago are now justified (which seems to be the case). The other side believes that the deceptions of the administration don't matter or must not have happened. If the Bush administration stretched the truth a bit, it was in the service of a higher goal, and at any rate, they certainly believed what they were saying. And if you question how we got to war, you must prefer the Iraqi people be suffering under Saddam Hussein's rule.

More Paul O'Neill

Well, you can clear your minds about Paul O'Neill. Bruce Bartlett, doing the kind of in-depth detective work that most of only dream about, has interviewed Cesar Conda, Dick Cheney's policy advisor, and it turns out Paul O'Neill is in the wrong. Oh, and apparently the former head of the Council of Economic Advisors also disagrees wth Paul O'Neill. So two administration insiders confirm that Paul O'Neil is a liar.

"Although the books cites a transcript of this meeting provided by Mr. O'Neill, participants in the meeting tell me that no such statements were ever made. Former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman R. Glenn Hubbard states flatly, "The president NEVER made any of the distributional comments referred to in the interview." Cesar Conda, Vice President Dick Cheney's domestic policy adviser, also told me that the president never said anything about giving money to rich people. Referring to his own notes of the meeting, Conda said that the discussion was about extending depreciation rules that were due to expire, not about reducing income tax rates."

So that has to be a load off of all of our minds. Unless, for some reason, these two men might have fudged the truth.

Paul O'Niell, Tom Tomorrow and the Right Wing Punditbots

I haven't had much time to cover the Paul O'Niell saga, but for those who don't know, Paul O'Niell alleges in his new book that the Bush Adminstration was planning to invade Iraq before September 11th.

Already, of course, he is being attacked pundit bots. Apparently one of the attacks being hurled around is that everybody knew President Bush was planning on attacking Iraq. Well, Tom Tomorrow has some typically trenchent comments on this idea--go read them.

Robert Novak vs. Richard Gephardt

Doesn't that sound like the lamest pay per view wrestling match ever?

Anyway Robert Novak does a little play by play of the Gephardt Campaign, which seems to be gaining momentum in Iowa. Of particular note is the following passage.

"Gephardt on the campaign trail could not be more different than Dean. He gives no hint that Sept. 11, 2001, ever happened. He didn't mention terrorism or the Iraq war in Carroll, at a previous stop at Cronk's Cafe in Denison or the night before at the Bluffs Area Family Center in Sergeant Bluff. Nor did anybody ask him about the war during question periods. He does not mention his votes to authorize the war and to finance the occupation.

That silence is not an effort to evade overwhelmingly antiwar sentiment in the pacifist Midwest, charmed by Dean's antiwar rhetoric. Polling data indicates that most Iowans support the war, and that includes many Democrats (such as the scrupulously neutral new state party chairman, Gordon Fischer). To Gephardt, the war never has been foremost in the minds of Iowans. "Politics is all local and personal," he told me after his Carroll appearance, "and people want answers to their problems."

Gephardt might be right; people might really not care about Terrorist threat, and be mostly focused on local domestic issues. Among Iowa Democrats.

But I don't think that attitude persists across the nation, which is where the General Election while be fought.

New Quote

As is traditional, we have a new quote and a new Quotes Page.