Posted on 02/14/2004 5:09:05 AM PST by Elkiejg
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry's campaign is putting out word that it is time for Sen. John Edwards to leave the presidential race. The Massachusetts lawmaker's one-sided primary wins Tuesday in Virginia and Tennessee undermined the North Carolinian's claims to be the South's candidate.
Edwards is still first choice for vice president among key Kerry advisers, but they say he will needlessly hurt his chances if he keeps running for president. Kerry does not want to expend more time and money in those states after the nomination really has been wrapped up.
A footnote: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, whose mother is Mexican and resides in Mexico City, is increasingly talked about as Kerry's running mate to attract the expanding Latino vote. Kerry-Richardson would be the first national Democratic ticket without a Southerner since Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro lost 49 of 50 states in 1984.
DEMOCRAT HOFFA
Republican middlemen gave up their last hope of bringing James P. Hoffa closer to President Bush when the Teamsters president returned to Washington as a fiercely partisan Democrat after campaigning in Iowa for Rep. Richard Gephardt's presidential campaign.
Hoffa, who excoriated Bush in speeches all over Iowa, left the state indicting the Republican administration for job losses that he encountered there. However, Labor Department officials who deal closely with Hoffa say he had become bitterly anti-Bush long ago.
Hoffa attended the University of Michigan Law School with Gephardt, and Republican operatives had hoped the labor leader would stay neutral after Gephardt withdrew. Instead, Sen. John Kerry convinced Hoffa that as president, he would try to impose international trade restrictions, winning the Teamsters' endorsement.
RILING UP POWELL
House Democrats who have launched a planned attack on President Bush are irritated that a colleague, Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, picked the wrong target at the wrong time in riling up Secretary of State Colin Powell.
During a House International Relations Committee hearing, Brown told Powell the president "may have been AWOL" from the Alabama National Guard in 1972. "You don't know what you are talking about," an angry Powell told Brown. When the congressman repeated his insinuation, the former four-star general flashed his famous stare, asserting: "Mr. Brown, let's not go there."
Brown, one of the most partisan Democrats in Congress, is working closely with Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois in attempting to chip away at the president's credibility. However, they did not intend to provoke a fight with Powell.
NO TO HOLLYWOOD
Retiring Democratic Sen. John Breaux has become the second legislator from Louisiana to turn down a $1 million-plus a year job as Hollywood's lobbyist in the nation's capital.
Breaux's fellow Louisianan, Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin, previously rejected the offer to replace 83-year-old Jack Valenti, who is retiring as president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) after 38 years. Tauzin has accepted a $2 million post as the pharmaceutical industry's representative. As an independent lobbyist, Breaux could easily make twice what he was offered by the MPAA.
A footnote: Hollywood may next look at Republican Rep. David Dreier of California, chairman of the House Rules Committee. However, he is reported to be uninterested in leaving Congress.
NON-FLORIDA FRIENDS
The Senate Republican establishment showed Tuesday it is anything but neutral in Florida's U.S. Senate race by sponsoring a fund-raiser at national GOP headquarters supporting Mel Martinez, who recently resigned as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in the contested Republican primary.
Listed as honorary co-chairs for the event were Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate President Pro-Tem Ted Stevens and the rest of the Senate GOP leadership. The cost of the reception was $1,000 to $4,000 a person.
Republican opponents of Martinez (who never before has sought statewide office) include former Rep. Bill McCollum, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and former Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire. McCollum was the losing Republican Senate candidate from Florida in 2000.
Where do you get that from? I certainly hope you have some facts to back up this wild assertion.
Bush was left a broken economy, a broken CIA and a a demoralized military by the Clintons and now the Democrat enemy seeks to inflict the coup de grace against the American people.
There is an civil culture war being waged simultaneously with an external threat.
I hope the voters see the Democrats for what they are and defeat that enemy this year!
It's up to our so called friends in talk radio to stop bashing the president and get with the mission.
If Richardson is the veep, though, does this not suggest a CLINTON hand in KERRY??? I am starting to be sickened by a new scenario: "Effing" Kerry and Richardson win the election; "Effing" citing a relapse of prostate trouble, steps down in 08 and Richardson, the loyal toady, latches on as Hillary's veep.
Likewise, in World War I, (and I don't endorse Wilson), Woodrow Wilson had to put up with nutballs like Henry Ford trying to charter "peace ships" and socialists like Eugene Debs, as well as strikers and outright commie traitors.
I think our view of war, and how patriotic Americans should respond, is jaundiced by our "romantic" memory of WW II, where it wasn't until after D-Day that the "peaceniks" started to come out. Note even then, though, that . . .
in the summer of 1945, there were polls showing that Americans wanted to bring the troops home from the Far East BEFORE victory over Japan. They were "tired" of war. Depending on the poll, many did not want to transfer men from the European theater to the Pacific theater to finish the job.
With that historical perspective, it is still astonishing to see the Dems' disgusting behavior.
2) I challenge you to give me one good thing Novak has had to say about Bush in the last three years. ONE.
3) His sources are waaaayyy old and dated, and to my knowledge the last time he made a "correct" prediction was in 1994 . . . and he has been living off that ever since.
If I want to see what the Dems' criticism of Bush will be, I can usually find it in a Novak column.
Novak is a doddering old fool!
He is a good choice for CNN's Crossfire because he is so weak and mentally feeble.
CNN would never hire a real conservative to go agaist Carville and Begala.
Most anyone on FR could and would outclass Novak.
Bill Richardson was also and is a Clinton lackey/yes man. Miguel Estrada is twice the man Richardson is yet the Democrats openly contested him because he is “a Latino” – Memo Gate.
The left is becoming very successful at dividing the Republican Party - Don't let this continue especially here on FR. In order to defeat them, we must stand shoulder to shoulder for our President.
However, this is a risky strategy, regardless of what "Rove knows." You CANNOT allow your enemy to define you. More important, this is part of a gigantic "credibility offensive" that appears to be seriously damaging the president---and he and Rove must know that at any minute we could be faced with a CRITICAL decision on Iran (less likely, Syria) and HAVE to try to rally the country for war (if, say, the missing WMDs turn up in Iran or if Iran suddenly and unexpectedly goes "on-line" with its nukes). To have a "credibility gap" of any sort right now would be SUICIDAL, which is what makes the Dems all the more despicable.
A solid couter would be that Kerry led the charge on the Guard stuff, turn-about fairplay.
No, can you cite me that fact? I find it hard to believe.
2) I challenge you to give me one good thing Novak has had to say about Bush in the last three years. ONE.
He was an early supporter of the President's tax cut(s).
3) His sources are waaaayyy old and dated, and to my knowledge the last time he made a "correct" prediction was in 1994 . . . and he has been living off that ever since.
I don't think you even know who his sources are. Regardless of whether he's 'correct' he's still entertainning and usually IMHO, right on.
So? He's a reporter. Reporters report. He did nothing illegal, but whoever in government that supplied him the information might have. That CIA agent's husband, by the way, wants to see President Bush do a perp walk. Is that a friend of yours? Who's the real american here? You or Novak?
Novak made his decision. Do you defend Benedict Arnold and the other traitors against the USA, too?
The Dems want to be the one's who grant amnesty to millions of illegals.....and win their votes for generations.
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