Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani accepted the endorsement Thursday of former California Gov. Pete Wilson, linking the Republican presidential contender with a strong supporter of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that still echoes among California’s Latino voters.

The issue helped Democrats to victory in ensuing state elections. It was so volatile that then-candidate George W. Bush maintained distance from Wilson in the 2000 campaign as he tried to attract Latino voters to the Republican camp.

The concept behind Proposition 187, which would have barred illegal immigrants from receiving some basic government services — including public education — remains popular among conservatives, who carry extra weight in California Republican primaries.

The proposition was voted into law but was overturned in federal court, and in 1999, then-Gov. Gray Davis allowed the appeal to die.

The association with Wilson will help Giuliani in the Republican primary, said John J. Pitney, a political analyst at Claremont McKenna College. After that, he said, "it could be much more of a problem."

"Primary voters tend to support measures such as Prop. 187, and . . . there are fewer Latinos in Republican primary elections than we have in general elections. But Giuliani doesn’t get to the general without winning the primaries," Pitney said.

Giuliani, who was mayor of New York when Proposition 187 was working its way through the courts, derided it at the time as "inhumane."

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Americans love freedom and choice, so why does our government keep taking it away? Well, it’s for our own good. We are too dumb, ignorant, greedy, fat and lazy to make the right choices for ourselves, so politicians have to make the choices for us.

It’s gotten so bad that government is now telling 85-year-old seniors that they can’t have doughnuts. Senior centers in Putnam County, New York, used to receive free donations of doughnuts and other baked goods. County officials have now banned the evil pastries.  They were concerned that the high-calorie, fatty, delicious treats would worsen some of the seniors’ health problems. They did it for the seniors.

Joe Hajkowski is 75 years old.  He got so mad about the cradle-to-grave doughnut-protection program that he organized a protest.  His fellow seniors carried signs reading, “They’re Carbs, not Contraband,” and “We’re Old Enough to Choose.”  He told me on my radio show that one of the women denied a doughnut is 104. Maybe if she eats carrots from now on she’ll live to be 105. 

The county officials now say it’s more than just a health issue,: it’s a food security issue.  They aren’t sure they can transport the food safely.  Quick, call Homeland Security!  It’s a doughnut emergency.

Joe doesn’t even eat doughnuts very often, but that’s not the point.  He’s upset that the government is telling him what he can eat.  “We’re playing bingo, having dances, we’re having computer classes,”  Hajkowski said, “but we aren’t smart enough to make a choice over a doughnut?”

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Two stories, both about politicians named Clinton, collided recently at one of the nation’s most prominent magazines, raising questions about journalistic integrity and hardball political tactics.

GQ killed a 7,000-word article about infighting among aides to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, a move that came after the magazine began work on a cover story on the philanthropic efforts of Bill Clinton. The final decision was made after a spokesman for the Clinton camp told GQ that running the piece on Hillary would endanger the piece on Bill.

GQ Editor Jim Nelson insisted in an interview that the two events were not directly linked. "Hillary didn’t kill the piece; I killed the piece," he said. While the author, Joshua Green, is a "terrific reporter," he said, "the story didn’t end up fully satisfying. . . . I guarantee and promise you, if I’d have had a great Hillary piece, I would have run it."

Green said the spiking had nothing to do with his work. "GQ told me it was a great story and a hell of a reporting job, but they didn’t want to jeopardize the Clinton-in-Africa piece," he said. "GQ told me the Clintons were unhappy and threatened to revoke access to Bill Clinton if the Hillary story ran."

The incident, first reported by Politico.com’s Ben Smith, reflects the kind of pressure tactics that are not unusual in political campaigns but may be practiced with unprecedented aggressiveness by the tightly controlled Clinton media operation. It also demonstrates how the former president’s star power — he is a media magnet riding a wave of favorable publicity — can be employed on his wife’s behalf.

The freelance article was submitted to GQ by Green, a meticulous and well-regarded Atlantic Monthly writer but not a popular figure in what insiders call Hillaryland. In a cover story for the Atlantic last year, Green portrayed her as a "diligent" New York senator who skillfully forged alliances with detractors but also a cautious politician with "no big ideas."

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At Wednesday night’s Democratic candidate debate in Hanover, Sen. Hillary Clinton refused to tell the American people how she would address the very real and immediate problem of Social Security solvency.

Asked four times how she would make Social Security solvent, she dodged every time. No answer. 

Her campaign Web site does not even mention Social Security. Her Senate Web site does, but it states only that she supports it and opposes "privatization." Saying "fiscal responsibility" and "bipartisan process," as she did repeatedly at the debate, does not a plan make.

It is impossible that Sen. Clinton has no preferred method for dealing with Social Security. The only conclusion is that she has a plan but does not want the American people to know what it is.

Source:  Union Leader

Howard Dean strutted across the stage at Dartmouth College with his hand outstretched toward Senator Hillary Clinton — yesteryear’s great Democratic contender extending a friendly greeting to the party’s candidate of the moment.

It was just a momentary encounter, nothing more than a ritual exchange of niceties. But it worked just fine as a metaphor for Clinton’s rivals, who are anxious to dispel the notion that she already has a lock on the Democratic presidential nomination.

As Democrat candidates gathered here this week for a key debate ahead of the 2008 presidential primaries, Clinton critics were eager to cast her as ripe for the same mammoth political collapse Dean suffered in 2004.

"I am perfectly willing to concede the lead to Hillary at the end of September," says David Axelrod, the chief media strategist for her chief rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

"But if you have any doubts that these campaigns are fluid, go talk to Howard Dean. He was leading the (Democratic) polls in the fall four years ago and … was being declared the almost-certain (presidential) nominee by the news media by the middle of the fall that year."

DEAN CONSIDERED A SHOO-IN

In fact, Dean, the former Vermont governor, was considered a shoo-in to become the Democratic nominee in the presidential race, a full four months before his ill-timed yelp and third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses in January 2004 doomed his campaign.

Just as Dean, now chairman of the Democratic national committee, held a double-digit lead in polls of Democratic voters in the fall of 2003, Clinton has built a similar lead over her opponents in national polls.

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President Clinton’s answer to Senator Clinton’s suggestion during a televised debate Wednesday that he might "consider" voluntarily making public a full list of donors to his presidential library and foundation was a simple one: No.

"She couldn’t answer that question last night because we don’t believe in one set of rules for us and another set for everybody else," Mr. Clinton said yesterday, according to the Web site of NBC News.

He said that if Congress passes a law that Mrs. Clinton is co-sponsoring to require disclosures from sitting presidents, he would release the names of future donors.

"If she becomes president, I will treat it as if we are covered by that and I will disclose all the donors to our library and activities," he said, according to NBC.

However, the former president indicated he would resist naming all past donors.

"A lot of people gave me money with the understanding that they could give anonymously and if they gave publicly then they would be the target of every other politician in America to hit on them for the rest of their lives. And some of them are Republicans; they may not want anybody to know. It might ruin their reputation in their own party," Mr. Clinton said, according to NBC. Shortly after the Clinton Library opened in 2004, The New York Sun visited and copied the names of dozens of major donors from a computer terminal on the third floor of the museum. The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar, a deputy prime minister of Lebanon, several Saudi businessmen, and the Saudi royal family were each listed as "Trustees," apparently for gifts of $1 million or more. The library’ s computer did not explain the donor levels, but the tiers could be estimated based on the donations from foundations whose finances are public. Other donors at the Trustee level included an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, Alice Walton, and a Hollywood power couple, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. One donor at a lower level, "Humanitarian," was a well-known San Diego class action attorney, William Lerach, who agreed last week to plead guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Soon after the Sun published an article about the donors, the computer display was removed.

At the time, a foundation official, Andrew Kessel, said there were few donors who asked to remain anonymous. "We don’t have many," he said. "It doesn’t involve anyone controversial."

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Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign slogan is "Ready for Change, Ready to Lead" yet she has adopted the time-honored, front-runner strategy of dodging tough questions, contradicting the image of a strong leader.

The former first lady and New York senator refused to take a position on a range of substantive issues during Wednesday night’s debate, from Social Security reform to U.S. troop deployments in Iraq to whether Israel, if threatened, has the right to attack Iran.

She even ducked the question of which team she’d root for if her hometown Chicago Cubs met the New York Yankees in next month’s World Series. "Well, I would probably have to alternate sides," she said.

Clinton’s substantive knowledge of issues and strong debate performances throughout the primary campaign are among the reasons she’s leading her rivals in national and most state polls. But last night’s outing found her refusing to answer questions she deems "hypothetical," or saying she’ll wait until she’s president to outline specific policy proposals.

She also burst into laughter when pressed on certain points, such as when Mike Gravel said he was "ashamed" she had voted to in the Senate to boost pressure on a renegade group inside Iran.

Clinton’s refusal to commit to some policy specifics is both tactical and principled, her advisers insist. They said that while she is reluctant to give Republicans ammunition to use in a general election, she also resists committing to specifics on many matters that could later impede her ability to do her job as president.

Analysts said that’s a credible course of action for Clinton, but only to a point.

"It is a responsible position on some questions for a presidential candidate not to say precisely what he or she would do," Dartmouth political science professor Deborah Jordan Brooks said. "But others are things voters have a right to know. So over time, Clinton’s evasions may wear thin, especially if she continues to play the experience card."

Examples of Clinton’s evasiveness were manifest Wednesday night.

—She refused to say whether she would pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013, the end of her first presidential term. "It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting," she said.

—Clinton ducked the question of whether Israel had the right to bomb Iran if the country posed a nuclear threat. She called the question a "hypothetical," and said, "That’s better not addressed at this time."

—She sidestepped a question about whether she would voluntarily disclose the names of contributors to Bill Clinton’s presidential library. "You’ll have to ask them," she said. "I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband."

The former president defended his wife’s handling of that question at a news conference Thursday morning.

"She just thinks I’m entitled to speak for myself just like I think she is entitled to speak for herself," Bill Clinton said. "And she has got no business being asked to speak for me in a presidential debate just like I don’t try to speak for her unless I know what her position is."

—She dodged when asked what she would "put on the table" to save Social Security, such as a proposal to raise Social Security taxes on incomes above $97,000. "I’m not putting anything on the proverbial table until we move toward fiscal responsibility," she said, adding, "I don’t think I should be negotiating about what I would do as president.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said she considered Clinton’s answer on Social Security to be "too clever by half," but said Clinton was holding her own in the debates even without committing to specific policy proposals.

Some people may have felt shortchanged by her answers, Brazile said, while adding that Clinton said enough to keep her current status as the front-runner.

"When you have such a substantial lead and so much credibility, you can afford to lay back."

Written By Beth Fouhy

Source:  Associated Press

There’s currently only one candidate capable of mobilizing the Republican base for a widespread "get-out-the-vote" drive in the upcoming presidential election. It’s not Mitt Romney or newcomer Fred Thompson. One potential candidate could mobilize the Republican base beyond anything that Karl Rove ever dreamed of, and that’s Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It’s only fair. George W. Bush certainly contributed to the Democratic victory in the 2006 midterm elections. If Hillary receives the nomination, we may discover who hates whom more - the Democrats vs. George W. Bush, or the Republicans vs. Rodham Clinton?

I don’t make this point to be sensational, nor do I care to stir the debate of whether or not Hillary is "electable." I have a more substantive argument. I’d rather question her experience.

In the constant rhetoric of the Democratic debates, there’s one theme I find more tiresome than "It’s Bush’s fault": the assertion that Hillary brings "experience" to the White House. I hear it repeatedly in the media and the debates: Obama brings change, and Hillary brings experience. I find this laughable, particularly in a Democratic debate where Hillary is standing next to Joe Biden (34 years in the Senate, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee); Christopher Dodd (26 years in the Senate, chairman of the Banking Committee); and Bill Richardson (current governor; former congressman, UN ambassador, and secretary of Energy.) Hillary has just over six years in the Senate. Perhaps supporters feel that her time as first lady has prepared her for the job, but let’s be honest - if shagging Bill Clinton qualifies you for the presidency; we’ve got an ample selection of qualified candidates to choose from.

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Sensing that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) will win the Democratic presidential nomination, Republican Party operatives are stepping up their political attacks on the former first lady but are wary of going too far with their criticisms because she is a woman.

As with the other Democratic White House hopefuls, GOP strategists are concerned that extremely aggressive rhetoric against Clinton could backfire. However, they point out that they are devoting significant resources to defeat her.

Richard Collins, a wealthy Texas businessman and a leading organizer of Stop Her Now, a political committee devoted to opposing Clinton’s White House bid, told The Hill his group will spend $500,000 to $600,000 between now and February targeting her candidacy.

“We expect we’ll be much more intense in our efforts between now and Feb. 28,” said Collins.

Collins emphasized that his group’s strategy and tactics are more important than how much it plans to spend.  

Stop Her Now will use humor in its attacks against Clinton to make them more appealing to swing voters. Its website features anti-Clinton cartoons and jokes of the week. It also has posted a spoof of “The Tonight Show” in which an unflattering parody of Clinton plays the role of Johnny Carson.

Republican operative David Bossie, president of Citizens United, is producing a critical film documentary about Clinton that conservative financial backers hope will be as effective as the attacks of another group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, against former Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).

Republicans must find novel ways to pan Clinton because she is a female and because many of the criticisms of her are already well-known, having been hashed out during the partisan battles of her husband’s administration.

“You can’t go after a woman candidate the way you can go after a guy,” said Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and an influential conservative leader. “It’s very, very difficult to campaign against a woman candidate.”

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Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn’t a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. Anyone got a problem with that?

With Hillary Rodham Clinton hoping to tack another four or eight "Clinton" years on to the Bush-Clinton-Bush presidential pattern that already has held sway for two decades, talk of Bush-Clinton fatigue is increasingly cropping up in the national political debate.

The dominance of the two families in U.S. presidential politics is unprecedented. (The closest comparisons are the father-son presidencies of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, whose single terms were separated by eight years, and the presidencies of fifth cousins Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, whose collective 20 years as president were separated by a quarter-century.)

"We now have a younger generation and middle-age generation who are going to think about national politics through the Bush-Clinton prism," said Princeton University political historian Julian Zelizer, 37, whose first chance to vote for president was 1988, the year the first President Bush was elected. And as for the question of fatigue, Zelizer added: "It’s not just that we’ve heard their names a lot, but we’ve had a lot of problems with their names."

And now, if Hillary Clinton were to be elected and re-elected, the nation could go 28 years in a row with the same two families governing the country. Add the elder Bush’s terms as vice president, and that would be 36 years straight with a Bush or Clinton in the White House.

Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn’t a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president.

Does a nation of 303 million people really have only two families qualified to run the show?

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