The Real War

washingtonpost.com
The Real War
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com

There is a war going on -- and I don't mean the fake one between the White House and John Kerry. I mean the real one, in Iraq.

And each and every day, there's more evidence that President Bush's strategy for winning that war isn't working.

Bush's plan calls for American troops to remain in the country as long as it takes for a democratic central government to take hold. But there's little sign that the government has been able to exercise any authority whatsoever outside the fortified Green Zone. The rest of Baghdad is in the throes of civil war. The Kurdish north is essentially independent, the south is ruled by Shiite militias and the Sunni center is in a state of anarchy.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's supposed unity government surprised everyone by showing it is capable of exercising authority -- but it wasn't the sort of act that bodes well for the future.

Maliki showed he can serve his Shiite militia masters by stopping the U.S. military from bothering them.

Ellen Knickmeyer and John Ward Anderson write in The Washington Post: "American soldiers rolled up their barbed-wire barricades and lifted a near siege of the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad on Tuesday, heeding the orders of a Shiite-led Iraqi government whose assertion of sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets. ...

"Maliki's decision exposed the growing divergence between the U.S. and Iraqi administrations on some of the most critical issues facing the country, especially the burgeoning strength of Shiite militias. The militias are allied with the Shiite religious parties that form Maliki's coalition government, and they are accused by Sunni Arab Iraqis and by Americans of kidnapping and killing countless Sunnis in the soaring violence between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni minority."

And do you remember how Bush used to describe his strategy in Iraq? (Other than " stay the course ," naturally.)

On June 28, 2005 , Bush proudly announced: "Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

He repeated it over and over again, at least 40 times , until the phrase was retired almost exactly a year later. His last unprompted use of the phrase was on June 26, 2006 : "And as you well know, our standards are, as Iraqis stand up, the coalition will be able to stand down."

At his September 15 press conference , about 10 weeks after he had mentioned it last, Bush was asked if the strategy was still operative. He said it was.

But he put it this way: "We all want the troops to come home as quickly as possible. But they'll be coming home when our commanders say the Iraqi government is capable of defending itself and sustaining itself and is governing itself."

As Thomas E. Ricks wrote in The Washington Post in October regarding "stand up, stand down": "By strict numbers, the Iraqi side of that equation is almost complete. Training programs have developed more than 300,000 members of the Iraqi army and national police, close to the desired number of homegrown forces. Yet as that number has grown, so, too, has violence in Iraq. . . .

"With the insurgency undiminished and Iraqi forces seemingly unable to counter it, U.S. commanders say they expect to stay at the current level of U.S. troops -- about 140,000 -- until at least next spring. That requirement is placing new strains on service members who leave Iraq and then must prepare to return a few months later. Tours of duty have been extended for two brigades in Iraq to boost troop levels."

And in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus has a short story that speaks volumes about why the Iraqis' "standing up" hasn't allowed us to "stand down."

Pincus writes: "U.S. military advisers are confronting difficult behavior from Iraqi soldiers, who tend to fire all their ammunition in response to a single sniper shot or go on rampages even against civilians upon witnessing the death of a colleague, according to Lt. Col. Carl D. Grunow, a former adviser to an Iraqi army armored brigade. . . .

"His article, based on his year in Iraq, which ended in June, is in the July-August Military Review and is one of several in recent issues that have dealt forthrightly with concerns of military participants with the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq's army during the ongoing war. . . .

"Grunow also notes that some Iraqi soldiers do not show up for training that is difficult, and he says that up to 40 percent of some Iraqi units run away in the face of dangerous situations -- without punishment."
The War and the Elections

Peter Grier writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "The White House, as well as some experts outside the government, say al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups deliberately are trying to inflict more casualties to influence next week's midterm elections and break American will. . . .

"Others say the rising toll is not so much the result of a deliberate decision by U.S. adversaries as it is the cost of moving more U.S. troops into Baghdad in recent weeks in an attempt to more fully control the capital city.

"'The October boost in U.S. casualties was almost inevitable the moment the U.S. attempted to stiffen and replace Iraqi forces in an essentially hopeless mission,' writes Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in his most recent analysis of Iraq."
Bush and Prayer

Talk about motivating the base. Bush sat down for an interview with Melissa Charbonneau of the Christian Broadcasting Network yesterday.

Here's a video excerpt .

Charbonneau: "What's your prayer for the nation?"

Bush: "My prayer is for peace. My prayer is that this world be peaceful, so children can grow up understanding the benefits of freedom.

"Let me just say something about prayer. I have been deeply affected by the fact that people from all walks of life pray for me and my family. It has served as a great source of strength and comfort, and I thank our fellow citizens for those prayers. They don't need to do that, but they do. I am amazed when I work rope lines. . . . People are there, it's like they've come to say 'I've come to let you know I'm praying for you, Mr. President, I'm lifting you and your family up in prayer.'

"And my answer to them is: That is the greatest gift you can give a president. And I thank people for that. It's made an enormous difference in my life as the president. . . .

"It's an amazing country, you know? When you've got total strangers praying for a guy like me. It really is. I think it makes us very unique as a nation, and I embrace it."
Other Interviews

Fox News yesterday broadcast part two of Bush's interview on Monday with Sean Hannity. Here's the transcript ; here's the video .

Bush explained how the Decider works: "First of all, in order to make good decisions, you have to understand the principles that you believe in. . . .

"Secondly, you've got to have good people around you that are capable of giving you good advice. In other words, you've been in the Oval Office. It can be slightly intimidating. And you want to make sure you have people come in there that say, 'Look, here's what I believe.'

"And, thirdly, then you have to be able to make a decision. And making a decision means you're thoughtful, you listen, you think a lot about it. But when you decide, you decide.

"And, fourth, it means you've got to have a team that, when you make the decision, it is, 'Yes sir, Mr. President,' and they carry out the decision you make."

Hannity asked Bush if he felt being president was his God-given destiny, and Bush demurred.

"You know, I don't know. There's just an interesting argument. I think mankind has to be very comfortable about ascribing to God, you know, kind of human answers. In other words, God is bigger than humans."

Bush also sat down yesterday with Morris Jones of Sinclair Broadcast Group. As usual, good questions were rewarded with non-answers.

Today, Bush holds an interview with right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
Just Who Is Bush Motivating?

Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post: "His name is not on any ballot this fall, but George W. Bush is the central issue of campaign 2006. Tuesday's vote will deliver a referendum on six years of Bush's leadership -- bold and principled or radically divisive, depending on one's political ideology -- and the wartime policies he has championed.

"Other issues may come into play, congressional scandals and performance among them, but in the end, next week's verdict will be remembered for what it says about this president. With Bush's approval ratings hovering just below 40 percent, Republicans are braced for big losses.

"GOP strategists know well that no political party has successfully weathered a midterm election with such an unpopular president in office. Bush's challenge as he campaigns in the final days of the election is to find a way to excite and mobilize a fractured Republican base without triggering an even bigger turnout among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents that could cost his party the House or Senate. . . .

"One GOP strategist, speaking candidly about the president on the condition of anonymity, offered this assessment: 'I'd say he's at least 50 percent of the problem.'"
Kerry is So Very

The White House political machine -- flailing without someone in particular to vilify -- yesterday gleefully jumped at the chance to make John Kerry a central issue in this campaign.

And while the broadcast media can't seem to get enough of this story, the print media is being a touch more skeptical.

Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza write in The Washington Post: "President Bush last night accused Sen. John F. Kerry of disparaging U.S. troops in Iraq, echoing the 2004 strategy of ridiculing the Massachusetts senator to raise anew questions about Democratic leaders and their commitment to the troops. The highly coordinated White House effort came as Republicans sought to shift the focus away from an unpopular war and GOP scandals that are putting their congressional majorities at risk.

"The controversy erupted after Kerry told a California audience on Monday: 'Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.' . . .

"The president said Kerry owes service members an apology -- echoing a parade of prominent Republicans who criticized the Massachusetts Democrat throughout the day. . . .

"In his defense, Kerry said that his comment was a 'botched joke' and that he was referring to Bush's intellect, not that of American military personnel serving in Iraq."

How scripted is this? "The White House tipped off the networks to when Bush would attack Kerry, so the comments could be carried live and make the evening news."

Here's the text of Bush speech: "The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and it is shameful."

Here's Kerry's response : "It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, are willing to lie about those who did."

Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg write in the New York Times: "For at least a few hours on Tuesday, President Bush had a chance to relive his victorious campaign of 2004, taking a break from a bleak Republican campaign season as he attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war in Iraq."

But is there a downside even to this?

"In the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq, which he defended with vigor while campaigning in Georgia, at the very moment that a number of Republican Congressional candidates, following the advice of party strategists, were stepping up their efforts to distance themselves from the White House on the war as the campaign enters its final days."

Press secretary Tony Snow got the ball rolling at yesterday's briefing. He even came prepared with the text of Kerry's remarks.

"What Senator Kerry ought to do first is apologize to the troops," Snow said. "This is an absolute insult."

When Snow was done, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas piped up: "Does the president owe the Democrats an apology for saying that the terrorists -- that they will appease the terrorists?"
The Half Empty Arena

Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press: "He didn't fill the arena at the Georgia National Fairgrounds -- plenty of seats were empty in the back along with nearly half of the vast floor space. But the thousands who came out for the Halloween night rally were enthusiastic, applauding his call for tax cuts and against gay marriage."
Trick or Treat

After his speech, Bush stopped off in a residential area of the Robins Air Force Base, where he stood near a gazebo and handed out boxes of presidential M&Ms to costumed trick-or-treaters for about 15 minutes.

Here's a photo gallery from the Macon Telegraph.
Standard Order of Business

Devlin Barrett writes for the Associated Press: "Rep. Charles Rangel feels bad -- but not too bad -- about directing a curse word at Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Rangel, a Harlem Democrat who regularly exchanges verbal volleys with the vice president, called Cheney a 'son of a b . . . ' on Monday when asked by the New York Post about comments Cheney made about him in a television interview.

"He repeated his comments in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, but added, 'I shouldn't have said it.'

"'I thought that he should be flattered, there's certainly no animosity in it,' said Rangel, saying he had been making an observation about Cheney. 'Some people just have that as part of their personality.'"
Poll Watch

John Harwood and Jackie Calmes write in the Wall Street Journal: "A week before Election Day, a new poll shows President Bush getting better marks for his handling of the economy -- an issue Republicans are emphasizing in the run-up to Tuesday's vote -- but voters' anxieties about Iraq continue to dominate their concerns. . . .

"Just 39% of voters approve Mr. Bush's performance while 57% disapprove. By 37% to 22% voters say they will be voting to send a signal of opposition to Mr. Bush rather than support; 38% say their votes won't reflect their feelings about the president."
Perle's Vision

Al Kamen writes in The Washington Post that "Richard Perle former Reagan assistant secretary of defense, former Bush brain-truster on the Defense Policy Board, and a key promoter of the war to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, [last week] blistered the administration as 'dysfunctional' when it comes to stopping someone from bringing 'a nuclear weapon or even nuclear material into the United States.' . . .

"'And if it can't get itself together to organize a serious program for finding nuclear material on its way to the United States, then it ought to be replaced by an administration that can.'

"But President Bush, Perle emphasized, is not to blame for this sorry state of affairs. 'I haven't the slightest doubt that if one could . . . put this proposition to the president, he would first be shocked to learn that we don't have the capability. Secondly, [he] would immediately order that we develop it.'"
November Surprise?

Yochi J. Dreazen blogs for the Wall Street Journal: "President Bush will hold no public events of any kind on Wednesday, an exceptionally light schedule this close to next Tuesday's midterm elections. That sparked questions about whether Bush has a 'November surprise' in store. This is, after all, a president who has twice managed to sneak away to Iraq.

"At the White House morning briefing, a reporter observed that the light schedule made it sound 'like something is cooking there.' Spokesman Tony Snow replied, 'No, not really.'

"That left some Democratic political operatives wondering just what Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, might be up to."

Read More...

Summary only...

Why Some Top Republicans Think They May Still Have the Last Laugh

The Allen Report
Why Some Top Republicans Think They May Still Have the Last Laugh
Mike Allen

The President, The Vice President and Karl Rove are all over the airwaves predicting that, against the apparent odds, the GOP will keep both houses of Congress next Tuesday. White House officials say this is not just cheerleading -- that they have five good reasons to think so. An exclusive look at what they think is the way to win in '06.

President George W. Bush points toward the fireworks as they begin exploding against the dusk Houston skyline, lingers to watch for a few minutes with a candidate for the Senate and one for the House, then gives a big wave to a euphoric crowd packed into the hangar behind him, salutes smartly, steps onto his Marine One helicopter and heads out into the night. Earlier, another crowd of boisterous Republicans had been urged to give "a warm Georgia welcome" to a President who soon had them shouting "U-S-A," "Amen!," "You're the man, George," and even, "Four more years!"

With less than a week until midterm congressional elections that will help determine the course of the final quarter of his presidency, the President is summoning the formidable campaign skills that helped him triumph in the primaries and general election of 2000, and win electoral and popular victories in 2004. It's all back: The darkened halls that explode in spotlights as the President takes the stage. His frenzied hand-over-hand greeting of a few lucky audience members as he races to the podium. And the contagious country music, from Brooks and Dunn "dreaming in read white and blue" to Texan Pat Green proclaiming: "You came upon me, wave on wave. You're the reason I'm still here, yeah." The crowd in Sugar Land, formerly represented by Rep. Tom DeLay, was treated to one of the greatest shows on earth: the President's chopper taxiing up to the hangar door, an aide racing his speech to the podium with the engine still running, then the President entering to the theme from Harrison Ford's "Air Force One."

With the crowd waving pom-poms, Old Glory and little Lone Star flags, Bush said hoarsely that he's "looking forward to sprinting to the finish line," and declared that the Democrats were doing some premature celebrating. "In Washington, some of the folks over there are already picking out their new offices," he crowed, in what has become a standard bit on the stump. "That's not the first time it's happened since I've been in Washington. You might remember, in 2004, some of them were measuring the drapes in the West Wing. They had their office suites all picked out. Except their problem was, the movers weren't needed. And the same thing is going to happen this year."

In case you missed it, the Gallup Poll reported in an Oct. 24 analysis: "A review of Gallup polling finds Bush's current 37% approval rating lower than any other president since 1974 at this point in a midterm election campaign." And political guru Stuart Rothenberg is still forecasting that Republicans will lose 18 to 28 House seats, more than the 15 that Democrats need to take control. But the President and his high command have been predicting in television interviews and newspaper editorial-board meetings that Republicans will hold both the House and Senate, a scenario that is foreseen by few others. Top Republican officials have been working in the past few days to convince reporters that there are solid reasons for this optimism, and that it's not just happy talk to try to convince the party's voters not to give up and stay home.

A dozen or so rallies like the Sugar Land extravaganza will be held in the campaign's homestretch, and the President's ability to excite core Republicans is one of the potential keys to victories in close races where Bush is dropping in, including his appearance Monday in Statesboro, Ga., where he was campaigning for Max Burns, a former congressman who lost the last election to Rep. John Barrow (D) and is now in a rematch. As the President's motorcade wended through Georgia Southern University, a bed sheet hung from a brick fraternity house proclaimed that Sigma Chi "Supports Bush." In Texas, he was appearing with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is far ahead of her Democratic opponent, and Shelley Sekula Gibbs, a dermatologist with a complicated name who's trying to convince voters in DeLay's former district that there's nothing complicated about writing in her name on voting machines.

A new Washington must-read by political journalists Mark Halperin and John F. Harris maps "The Way to Win" for presidential candidates in 2008, but White House officials say they have their own way to win in '06. Besides Bush's residual popularity in some crucial states and districts, Republican officials say the other reasons they're optimistic are:

1) No Republican is being taken by surprise, unlike many Democrats in 1994. Shortly after Bush's reelection, White House and Republican National Committee officials began working to convince House members that the formidable reelection record for incumbents (since 1996, 97.5 percent) was not something they could take for granted. "What we attempted to do last year," said one of these officials, "was to go out of our way to say to people: 'You face a potential of a race. In order to win as an incumbent, you better have a plan,' " including an intensive focus on voter registration, a message plan that would unfold in phases, and a ground organization that was operating in a measurable, quantifiable way. One official involved in the process said Republican officials deliberately "scared" lawmakers, telling them: "You face a very tough road. You better be ready."

2) Absentee ballot requests and returns, closely tracked by the party, are meeting or exceeding past levels for Republicans in key states and districts. Republican officials say White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and party operatives are scrutinizing this data with the same intensity that they followed metrics like voter registration earlier in the cycle. For at least 68 races, they have been getting reports once a week on the number of voters registered, phone calls completed and doors knocked on. Now, they're getting a second report on the number of absentee ballots requested, absentee ballots returned and early votes cast. "We can look at that data flow and make an assumption about what's going on and plotting it out," a Republican official said.

3) When the national parties, national campaign committees, state "victory" committee accounts and competitive campaigns are added up, Republicans maintained a substantial financial advantage over Democrats at the last filing period. "We didn't look on it as one pot," said one official involved in the process. "We looked upon it as four pots, with synergy available through all four."

4) Republicans say the district-by-district playing field favors them in several structural ways not reflected in national polls. Here is their thinking, starting with statistics from the President's 2004 race against John F. Kerry: "There are 41 districts held by a Democrat that Bush carried, and 14 seats held by Republican that Kerry carried, so we're fighting on better turf. You see it in the open seats, where Bush carried 18 of the Republican open seats and Kerry carried two. So we're fighting on better turf."

5) The get-out-the-vote machine designed by Rove and now-Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman in 2001 was dubbed the "72-hour" program, but officials say that's quite a misnomer and that it's really a 17-week or even two-year program. "In Ohio, we are making more phone calls this year than we made two years ago," said an official involved in the process. "Now, that's not the case necessarily in Virginia, which was not a battleground state. You have to build that. In other places, we built that and built it early."

On the road Monday, Rove playfully answered the receptionist's phone at a hotel where the President was conducting an interview with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. "Historic Statesboro Inn," Rove said authoritatively, then went to track down the manager himself, returning several times to update the caller on the progress of his quest. On Air Force One on the way home, "the architect" made a rare appearance in the press cabin, handing out chocolate-covered pecans to the reporters. He waved the lid of the tin theatrically and said, "Sweets for my sweets!" In only a few days, it'll be clear whether he has outsmarted the pundits and Democrats, one last time.

Read More...

Summary only...

GOP Launches 'Robocall' Campaign Attack; Democrats Characterize Strategy As Desperate

ABC News
GOP Launches 'Robocall' Campaign Attack
GOP Launches 'Robocall' Campaign Attack; Democrats Characterize Strategy As Desperate
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Press one if you think they're dirty tricks. Press two if you think prerecorded telephone messages are devastatingly effective, especially during the final days of a close campaign.

In at least 53 competitive House races, the National Republican Campaign Committee has launched hundreds of thousands of automated telephone calls, known as "robocalls."

Such calls have sparked a handful of complaints to the FCC and underscore the usefulness of the inexpensive and sometimes overwhelming political tool.

"As much as people complain about getting automated calls and saying they don't work, every politician is doing them," said Jerry Dorchuck, whose Pennsylvania-based Political Marketing International will make about 200,000 such phone calls each hour for mostly Democratic candidates. "Targeted calls play a key in very close races."

They can single out single women, absentee voters, independents and party faithful with tailored messages, but they also can frustrate voters. Sometimes, the latter is their goal.

Bruce Jacobson, a software engineer from Ardmore, Pa., received three prerecorded messages in four hours. Each began, "Hello, I'm calling with information about Lois Murphy," the Democrat running against two-term incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach in the Philadelphia-area district.

"Basically, they go on to slam Lois," said Jacobson, who has filed a complaint with the FCC because the source of the call isn't immediately known.

FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must "at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call." During or after the message, they must give the telephone number of the caller.

"The way they're sent is deceptive. The number of calls is harassing. The way her stances are presented in these stories is deliberately misleading and deceptive," said Karlyn Messinger, another Murphy supporter from Penn Valley, Pa., who filed a complaint with the FCC.

NRCC spokesman Ed Patru denied any illegal intent.

"All of our political calls are in compliance with the law," Patru said.

Not so, said the Democrats.

"They are violating the regulations that were set up," said Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who said the DCCC employed one robocall this cycle and paid $500 for it.

"I think the real point here is that the Republicans are using a desperate campaign tactic that is misleading, at worst violating the law and at best is a page out of Karl Rove's playbook," Psaki said. "They clearly are attempting to mislead voters."

Democrats argued that that's the strategy.

"Because they are getting so many, they are only listening to the first part of the message," said Amy Bonitatibus, a Murphy spokeswoman. "They're hoping to turn off our base. ... These are pretty much dirty tricks by the Republican Party."

The NRCC, the GOP campaign arm for House candidates, has spent $2.1 million on such automated calls nationwide. In Illinois, at least three versions of a phone message target Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat in a tight Chicago-area race, and her positions on taxes, Social Security and immigrants.

"Illinois families will be footing the bill for illegal immigrants who get government benefits," the voice says in one.

In Connecticut's hotly contested 4th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Rep. Christopher Shays and Democrat Diane Farrell both said they are victims of misleading and annoying robocall campaigns. Shays, a 10-term congressman, said he has survived more than 20 robocall campaigns, including one that tried to link his stance on stem-cell research to that of religious extremists.

"These calls are at best misleading, and often blatantly wrong," Shays wrote in a letter to several newspaper publishers this summer.

Farrell spokeswoman Jan Ellen Spiegel said Tuesday the campaign has been a victim of "constant pummeling," including robocalls that begin with a recorded voice saying, "I'd like to talk with you about Diane Farrell." It's the same tactic employed in Murphy's district and elsewhere.

In North Carolina's 11th Congressional District, Republicans are going after challenger Heath Shuler, whose campaign said the calls are coming as late as 2:30 a.m.

"Calling people up, making people think it's me when it's actually them it's acts of desperation. ... I think it's part of the corruption in Washington," Shuler said.

That campaign funded two robocalls during the primary but isn't looking to use any more.

"You can't combat a bad robocall message with another robocall message," said Shuler spokesman Andrew Whalen.

It's not just the campaign committees. Outside groups also are joining the fracas. Common Sense, a nonprofit group based in Ohio, has expanded to four other states to help conservative candidates this cycle.

"We can ask the voter or the respondent questions about things that are important to them and then provide information to them based on the things they think are important," said Common Sense's Zeke Swift, who calls the efforts "custom campaigning."

During one call in Maryland, an automated voice asked questions that clearly favor Republican Michael Steele's bid for Senate.

It's not just Republicans. After Rep. Mark Foley resigned his seat amid the House page scandal, the progressive American Family Voices launched robocalls in 50 districts.

"Congressional Republican leaders, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, covered up for a child sexual predator. ... The answer is arrests, resignations and a new congressional leadership," the call told voters.

That Florida district, once a safe Republican seat, is now in play.

Associated Press writers Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn., and Tim Whitmire in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

Democratic Leader Put to Work as G.O.P. Campaign Star

The New York Times
Democratic Leader Put to Work as G.O.P. Campaign Star
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 — Representative Melissa Bean of Illinois, a Democrat, has a Republican opponent in next week’s election, but he does not appear in the advertisement that skewers her. Instead, that role is being played by a fellow Democrat, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader.

Judging by some of the political name-calling in the final days before the elections, Ms. Pelosi seems to be in the thick of campaigns for Congress from Illinois to Georgia and several places in between. She is the unwitting star of at least a half-dozen television spots — and countless radio spots, direct-mail campaigns and candidate debates —warning voters that if they choose their local Democrat for Congress, they are also casting a vote for Ms. Pelosi.

The problem with the tactic, Democrats and some Republican strategists say, is that many voters have no idea who Ms. Pelosi is. That can make the advertisements sound more desperate than menacing, or at the least, confounding.

“It’s awful hard to make a boogeyman out of someone no one knows,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant. “The reality is, no one is going to vote for a Republican congressman because they are afraid of Nancy Pelosi.”

A spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee suggested that Ms. Pelosi fell into the same category of unknowns as Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the Republican speaker.

“We don’t run Denny Hastert ads because he is speaker of the House and no one knows who he is,” said Sarah Feinberg, the spokeswoman. “People know who the president is, and that is why we have used him in more than 90 ads in 35 districts.”

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, 55 percent of those polled said they had not heard enough about Ms. Pelosi to form an opinion about her, compared with 10 percent who viewed her favorably and 17 percent who viewed her unfavorably. Other polls released in the last month have yielded similar results.

Still, many Republicans are betting that the prospect of Ms. Pelosi replacing Mr. Hastert as speaker should the Democrats take control of Congress will scare undecided voters into voting Republican.

“Nancy Pelosi is like kryptonite in Republican districts,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for the Republican National Campaign Committee, which is paying for some of the advertisements. “We’d be more than happy to fly Nancy Pelosi in to those districts.”

Here she is in one of the group’s advertisements against Ms. Bean: “Melissa Bean follows liberal Nancy Pelosi 83 percent of the time,” growls the announcer, over images of the Golden Gate Bridge and some not-particularly-flattering snapshots of Ms. Pelosi, who represents San Francisco. “Melissa Bean. Just a Nancy Pelosi wannabe.”

Mr. Patru said that the committee is encouraging candidates in “overwhelming red states” to invoke the specter of a Speaker Pelosi in their campaigns. The tactic mirrors one employed by Democrats in 1996, when the speaker, Newt Gingrich, became an antagonist in advertisements attacking Republican candidates.

“She’ll reward illegal aliens with welfare, food stamps and free education,” warns the announcer in an advertisement for Mac Collins, a Republican who is seeking to unseat Representative Jim Marshall in Georgia.

In one of the most fiercely contested races in Indiana, a Republican incumbent, Representative John Hostettler, has broadcast a commercial linking his Democratic challenger, Brad Ellsworth, to Ms. Pelosi. A radio spot went even further: “Pelosi will then put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda, led by Barney Frank,” the narrator says.

Representative Charles H. Taylor, the Republican incumbent in North Carolina’s 11th District, goes for an even broader approach, linking his Democratic opponent, Heath Shuler, to Ms. Pelosi; Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The television advertisements tend to share three features: images of Ms. Pelosi looking angry, startled or slightly bug-eyed; the words “liberal” and “San Francisco”; and dire tones reminiscent of the films shown to seventh-graders, warning of the dangers of marijuana.

The Republican National Campaign Committee even has a quiz on the home page of its Web site: “Which Nancy Pelosi quote do you find most disturbing?”

Ms. Pelosi is also used as a bat with which to beat on Democrats in debates and interviews. In Indiana, for example, Chris Chocola, a Republican incumbent, repeated Ms. Pelosi’s name throughout a debate with his Democratic challenger, Joe Donnelly. In Utah’s Second Congressional District, the Republican challenger, LaVar Christensen, has brought up her name incessantly on the campaign trail.

Among the many issues that surface in the advertisements — abortion, taxes and national security — immigration appears to be the most potent in Republican districts.

For example, an announcer in one advertisement produced by the campaign for Van Taylor, who is challenging a Democratic incumbent in Texas, warns over the sounds of a pounding kettle drum that his opponent, if elected, would pair up with Ms. Pelosi to raise taxes and offer welfare to immigrants. Voters are encouraged to “stop them” by voting for Mr. Taylor, to “protect our conservative values.”

Variations of the anti-Pelosi advertisements have appeared in past campaigns, but unlike in this case, the targets had already become speaker.

In addition to the Gingrich advertisements in 1996, the Republicans produced an advertisement in 1980 about Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., then the Democratic speaker, in which Mr. O’Neill refused to yield to warnings that his car was out of gas, intended as a metaphor for his party.

Mr. Gingrich’s spokesman, Rick Tyler, answered an e-mail message requesting comments about the anti-Pelosi advertisements with his own e-mail message: “Sorry. No interest here on that topic.”

In a recent interview, Ms. Pelosi said she was unconcerned about the advertisements because, she said, they had no traction with voters.

“The American people don’t know me,” she said.

But some Republicans running in close races are counting on her being wrong.

“Nancy Pelosi does not represent the values of middle Georgia,” said Ted Prill, the campaign manger for Mr. Collins, who is seeking a seat in the Third District. “There is a case to be made that a vote for a Democrat in Georgia is a vote for Nancy Pelosi.”

Read More...

Summary only...

Republican Seems to Rally in Run for Seat Foley Quit

The New York Times
Republican Seems to Rally in Run for Seat Foley Quit
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

STUART, Fla., Nov. 1 — When Mark Foley resigned from Congress in disgrace five weeks ago, his Democratic challenger seemed headed for one of the easiest victories of the election season.

But in this least predictable of states, Joe Negron, the Republican choice to run as Mr. Foley’s replacement, is getting powerful help as the clock runs down, and now appears to be running almost neck and neck with Tim Mahoney, the Democrat.

With the National Republican Congressional Committee pouring nearly $2 million into the race and Gov. Jeb Bush campaigning at his side, Mr. Negron, a member of the Florida House, is hoping that even the misfortune of having Mr. Foley’s name on the ballot instead of his own — a consequence of the last-minute nature of the change — can be turned to his advantage. Republicans are posting signs urging voters to “Punch Foley for Joe,” a reminder that a vote in the Foley column is actually a vote for Mr. Negron.

“I know this district, and we are not going to allow ourselves to be defined by the disgraceful actions of our former congressman,” Mr. Negron said in an interview Wednesday. “I feel this tremendous momentum and energy among Republicans and conservative Democrats to keep this district in the Republican column.”

The numbers are on his side: 42 percent of voters here in the 16th Congressional District, which spans the state from Palm Beach to Charlotte County, are Republicans, and 36 percent Democrats. President Bush won here comfortably in 2000 and 2004, and most of the district (its boundaries were redrawn in 2002) has not sent a Democrat to Congress since the 1970’s.

Nationally, the chief political benefit of the Foley furor to Democrats was that it knocked Republicans off their tax and terrorism message in the crucial weeks after Congress adjourned at the end of September. It also ensnared several leading Republicans associated with Mr. Foley, while limiting Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s political drawing power.

But in a reflection of the race in Mr. Foley’s own district, his lewd e-mail messages to House pages seem to have had little lasting effect on Congressional races around the country. One Democratic strategist said the party had never expected more than a few races to be influenced significantly by Mr. Foley’s conduct.

Yet Mr. Mahoney has made a strong showing, especially given that he is a newcomer to politics who was virtually unknown before the Foley scandal drew spotlights to the race. A financier recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to run against Mr. Foley, he is more conservative than many of his party’s other newcomers, a self-described fundamentalist Christian who opposes same-sex marriage and tighter gun control. He has painted himself as an outsider who would act independently in Congress, and Mr. Negron, a state lawmaker since 2000, as an ineffective partisan.

“I find myself running against Dennis Hastert, Karl Rove and the Republican leadership in Washington,” Mr. Mahoney said after rallying campaign volunteers here. “They picked somebody to run for this seat that is publicly on record as supporting the failed policy of this administration for the last six years.”

A poll conducted in mid-October for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel showed Mr. Mahoney leading Mr. Negron by 48 percent to 41 percent, with 11 percent undecided. But this week two nonpartisan Congressional handicappers, Stuart Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, changed their assessments of the race from “leans Democrat” to “tossup.”

Mr. Rothenberg said voters seemed to have gotten past any confusion about the ballot, perhaps because news organizations had closely covered the race since Mr. Foley quit on Sept. 29. He also noted that Mr. Mahoney had begun attacking Mr. Negron by name in television advertisements — a sign, he said, that Mr. Mahoney is worried.

Mr. Mahoney said a new internal poll showed not only that he was still ahead, but that the margin was widening.

“What’s going to put me over the top,” he said, “is I’m getting virtually all the Democrats, the vast majority of independents and about 20 percent of the Republicans to vote for me.”

Mr. Mahoney entered the race about a year ago and says he has been traveling the vast district ever since. It includes a few wealthy Palm Beach County towns, the growing exurbs of Martin and St. Lucie Counties, rural interior regions of cattle and citrus farms, and Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte on the Gulf Coast. He owns a ranch in Highlands County, the backdrop for advertisements in which he shoots a gun, saddles a horse and barbecues slabs of meat.

Mr. Negron, a lawyer from Stuart, heads the powerful budget committee in the Florida House. He ran for attorney general this year, but was lagging and dropped out of the primary.

On Wednesday he issued a news release criticizing Mr. Mahoney for planning to attend a fund-raiser in New York with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, accusing him of taking his marching orders from her. Asked about the fund-raiser, Mr. Mahoney said he needed to “reach out to Democrats on a nationwide basis.”

But his spokeswoman, Jessica Santillo, said later that he had never planned to attend. He will participate by teleconference from Florida, she said.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.

Read More...

Summary only...

Guantanamo prisoners challenge new terrorism law

Reuters
Guantanamo prisoners challenge new terrorism law
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for some Guantanamo prisoners urged a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday to strike down as unconstitutional a key part of the tough anti-terrorism law that President George W. Bush signed last month.

They said the new law does not give the U.S. government the power to arrest suspects overseas and imprison them indefinitely without any charges and without allowing them to challenge their detention in U.S. court.

A provision of the law unconstitutionally suspends the right under habeas corpus, a long-standing principle of American law, of the detainees to contest their imprisonment, they said.

The attorneys, who represented six Algerians captured in Bosnia who have been in U.S. custody since 2002, said the authors of the U.S. Constitution recognized that people held in prison without being charged "must retain the right to obtain a court inquiry."

The Bush administration says the new law means the appeals court no longer has jurisdiction to consider pending appeals filed by scores of inmates at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The law states: "No court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined ... to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination."

Immediately after Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, the U.S. Justice Department informed the courts they no longer had jurisdiction over some 200 cases covering more than 400 Guantanamo prisoners.

The Bush administration is expected to respond in the case by November 13.

The court could rule later this year or early next year, but any decision likely will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would have the final word on the law's constitutionality.

The law was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling in June that said Bush lacked the legislative authority in setting up his first system of military commissions after the September 11 attacks.

That prompted Bush to go to Congress to get authority under the new law authorizing tough interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects under a new system of military commissions.

Read More...

Summary only...

Remember "Bring 'Em On," or "Just so long as I'm the dictator" Mr. President?

Huffington Post
Bob Cesca
Remember "Bring 'Em On," Mr. President?

Since the end of the 2004 election, my confidence in Senator Kerry as a viable 2008 presidential candidate has diminished. It's not really his fault, but the national discourse has evolved beyond his style and his skills will be much better served if he were to continue on as a senator.

That said, the man misspoke.
It was a world class FUBAR gaffe and I admit to cringing when I heard it, the same way I cringed when he said he voted for the -- errrm, you know the quote. But the comment was quite clearly directed at the president and not the troops. Duh.

Yet President Bush ripped into his "opponent" (the president can cut the crap and refer to Senator Kerry by name at this point) in a stump speech Tuesday. Yes, that President Bush. The President Bush who routinely drops words, makes up new words and generally hates words. Too wordy. President Bush, The Googler who sometimes peruses The Internets, seized the opportunity to grandstand in a crowd of friendlies and labeled Senator Kerry's remarks "insulting" and "shameful."

Insulting and shameful. Sort of like... I don't know... "Bring 'em on."

Americans, and especially military families, should never forget that their Commander-in-Chief actually encouraged Iraqi insurgents to attack our soldiers. "Bring 'em on" could be the most irresponsible gaffe in a long history of gaffes uttered by President "Get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" Bush, and quite possibly the most irresponsible statement in the history of the presidency. And that's saying a lot.

Amongst the other not-stupid-duh-but-stupid-evil comments we find, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," or, "And Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job," or, "Just so long as I'm the dictator," or, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," and the list goes on and on and on.

President Bush's "bring 'em on" remark in July, 2003 quite literally invited the deaths of American soldiers. For this one statement alone, President Bush has forfeited his right to comment on, exploit or joke about any gaffe spoken by anyone ever. EVER. Nailing Senator Kerry on his gaffe isn't just hypocritical like, say, Larry the Cable Guy criticizing another comedian for being unfunny, or Bill O'Reilly questioning someone else's honesty. No. President Bush gaffed up a huge puddle of blood and death. President Bush, like his Mini-Macaca across the river, is all too quick to throw the kill switch on political opponents, but only succeeds in boiling statements like "bring 'em on" to the surface of an already polluted crock of shit.

"Bring 'em on" was not only insulting and shameful, it was a death sentence.

I rarely write about Senator Kerry and did my fair share of defending him in 2004. I didn't intend to write about the senator's remarks today. But this evening when I screened the video of the president's stump speech and heard him say, "Our troops deserve the full support of our government," in the context of blasting the senator's gaffe, I instantly flashed back to "bring 'em on" and the six year nightmare this man's administration has wrought upon you and I and especially our soldiers in Iraq whose sacrifice was a premeditated and cynical political plot designed as the cornerstone of their Commander-in-Chief's strategy for winning a second term.

They deserve better than "bring 'em on" and the president deserves to be reminded of that statement for the remainder of his pathetic career in Washington.

Meanwhile, Mr. President... STFU.

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. Oct death toll in Iraq rises to 103

U.S. Oct death toll in Iraq rises to 103
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military on Tuesday announced the deaths of two soldiers, raising the number of troops killed in fighting in Iraq this month to 103.

In a brief statement, the military said one Baghdad-based soldier was killed at about 5:00 p.m. Monday after being hit by small arms fire during combat in a western district of the Iraqi capital.

A second Baghdad-based soldier was killed at around 5:30 p.m. Monday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb just south of the city.

The names of the soldiers were being withheld pending notification of their families.

October already is the fourth deadliest month for American troops since the war began in March 2003. The U.S. lost 107 troops in Iraq in January 2005; at least 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.

Read More...

Summary only...

US force in Iraq swells to 150,000: Pentagon

AFP
US force in Iraq swells to 150,000: Pentagon
By Jim Mannion

WASHINGTON - With the US death toll in Iraq passing 100 this month and mid-term elections just days away, the Pentagon said the US force in Iraq has grown to 150,000 troops, the biggest it has been since January.

A Pentagon spokesman attributed the growth to overlapping unit rotations, but it came amid surging violence that so far this month has claimed the lives of 101 US troops and many more Iraqis.

"Several units are transitioning out as several are transitioning in," said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Ballesteros, who said that as of Monday the number of US troops in Iraq was 150,000.

A Pentagon official, who asked not to be named, said the US Army's 4th Infantry Division was near the end of its year-long rotation.

US commanders in the past have timed the overlap of troop rotations to increase the US military presence during Iraqi elections and other critical milestones in the political process.

The increase this time follows the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which US military officials anticipated would bring higher levels of violence, and comes just ahead of the November 7 congressional elections in the United States.

Pentagon officials, echoing Vice President Dick Cheney, have expressed concern in recent days that Al-Qaeda is trying to step up the violence in Iraq to influence the outcome of the US vote.

Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary, said he did not know why US troops levels were climbing.

"This is news to me," Ruff told reporters. "Talk to MNF-I (Multi-National Forces-Iraq). That's General Casey's decision."

The increase is noteworthy because US troop strength in Iraq is only 10,000 under the all-time high of about 160,000 reported in January after the Iraqi elections.

It had fallen to as low as 127,000 in June when US commanders still believed they could make troop cuts this year.

In late July, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reversed directions and ordered a combat brigade to be extended beyond a year as part of buildup to quell burgeoning sectarian violence in Baghdad.

In mid-September, General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East, said more than 140,000 troops would be needed through the first six months of 2007 to check the violence.

Since then, US troop levels have oscillated between 142,000 to 147,000, the level it reached last week.

But the stepped-up operations have so far failed to bring the violence under control in Baghdad or stop its spread to other cities, prompting a review of military tactics.

General George Casey, the commander of US forces in Iraq, had said earlier this month that it was an "open question" whether bringing in more troops would have a lasting effect on the violence.

But he left the door open to it last week at a press conference in Baghdad.

"Now, do we need more troops to do that? Maybe," he said. "And as I've said all along, if we do, I will ask for the troops I need, both coalition and Iraqis."

Rumsfeld, however, insisted two days later that Casey's comments had been mischaracterized in press reports.

"Listen, we're in the political season," he said. "People are trying to take what he said and turn it in a way that it plays the way they'd like to see it play."

Read More...

Summary only...

Wah!

Huffington Post
Greg Saunders
Wah!

Jeez, this Republican crybaby crap over John Kerry's comments is just pathetic. It's amazing to me that the GOP has a reputation for toughness when they throw temper tantrums over meaningless shit. Watching the President of the United States use his bully pulpit to shed crocodile tears is just embarrassing. Maybe the Democrats should just go silent in this last week before the election, lest we bruise the feelings of those delicate little flowers in the Republican party.

As far as the substance of Kerry's remarks, I don't give a damn what he said. The only reason this is getting any play at all is because the media and right-wing are desperate to turn Democratic momentum on its head. If the GOP can get people to spend the last week of the election obsessing over the smug jerk from Taxachussets, then they might change a few independent minds. Moreover, the media love, love, love the "Democrats are a house divided" storyline and will jump on any Democrat who says something like "I disagree with Sen. Kerry's remarks".

We've seen this exact same scenario unfold countless times in response to similarly "controversial" remarks by Howard Dean, Al Gore, and others. If Republicans were so concerned about civility, why would they support racist ads like the ones accusing Democrats of wanting to murder black babies? The GOP sickening and deliberate attempts to distract voters from the real issues in this race shows how little respect they have for voters.

The American people aren't stupid. They're tired of the GOP's manufactured outrage machine.

Read More...

Summary only...

Justices Weigh Limits on Punitive Damages

The New York Times
Justices Weigh Limits on Punitive Damages
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — The Supreme Court is accustomed to drawing fine lines. But during arguments on Tuesday on the limits the Constitution places on punitive damages, the proposed line between the permissible and the unconstitutional was so fine that the justices appeared close to giving up.

The result was that a case widely anticipated to produce the most important business ruling of the Roberts court so far looked likely instead to end with a trip back to the Oregon Supreme Court for clarification.

That court upheld an award of $79.5 million in punitive damages against the cigarette maker Philip Morris in a lawsuit brought by the widow of a man who smoked two packs of Marlboros every day for 45 years. The man, Jesse Williams, died five months after a diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer in 1996.

The jury had awarded his widow, Mayola, compensatory damages of $821,000, meaning that the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages was 97 to 1. That was far greater than the “single digit” ratio the Supreme Court placed at the outer limit of constitutionality three years ago, the last time it decided a punitive damages case.

Philip Morris’s lawyer, Andrew L. Frey, argued that the Oregon courts had allowed the jury to punish the company for the harm to other Oregon smokers who had not filed suit. Mr. Frey said this had allowed a single plaintiff’s case to be turned into “a one-way class action in which Philip Morris was exposed to global punishment by the jury without any of the protections of a class action.”

There was general agreement during the argument, including by Mrs. Williams’s lawyer, Robert S. Peck, that awarding damages on the basis of injury to nonplaintiffs was impermissible under the Supreme Court’s recent precedents.

But there was no agreement on whether that actually happened. Mr. Peck argued that the Oregon courts had simply permitted the jury to consider harm to others, not to impose “global punishment” but as part of its assessment of the “reprehensibility” of the cigarette company’s behavior, a factor that the Supreme Court’s precedents permit juries in punitive damages cases to consider.

The basis for the lawsuit was the claim that Philip Morris’s strategy of denying the connection between smoking and cancer deceived Mr. Williams into believing that he could safely keep smoking.

“This was a massive market-directed fraud driven by their rational and deliberate decisions at the highest levels of the company to deceive customers and knowingly endanger their health,” Mr. Peck told the justices. The Oregon Supreme Court, in upholding the award, called Philip Morris’s conduct “extraordinarily reprehensible, by any measure of which we are aware.”

The United States Supreme Court has been deeply split on the punitive damages question, with three justices, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, rejecting the idea that the Constitution’s guarantee of due process places a limit on what states can permit juries to award.

With the departure of William H. Rehnquist, the former chief justice, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, both of whom supported due process limits on punitive damages, the known margin of support for the court’s precedents fell to 4 to 3, with the views of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. unknown.

The court’s decision last May to hear the Philip Morris appeal, Philip Morris USA v. Williams, No. 05-1256, suggested an effort to find a new center of gravity on an issue of considerable interest to the business community.

But the problem that emerged during Tuesday’s argument was the justices’ evident concern that they lacked a basis for deciding whether, on the one hand, the Oregon courts had improperly allowed jurors to take into account the harm to nonplaintiffs, or on the other hand, had properly allowed consideration of the reprehensibility of the conduct by Philip Morris, a unit of Altria. Finding the Oregon Supreme Court’s opinion insufficiently clear on this basic point, the justices would be unable to use the case as a vehicle for taking their consideration of punitive damages to the next level.

“What’s worrying me,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said to Mr. Frey, “is that we’re going to be in a kind of bog of mixtures of constitutional law, unclear Oregon state law, not certain exactly what was meant by whom in the context of the trial, et cetera.”

And Justice David H. Souter, referring to the Oregon Supreme Court, asked Mr. Peck: “Isn’t perhaps the better course to send this back to them and say, ‘We don’t know what you mean?’ And let them tell us clearly.”

The confusion was evident at the beginning of the argument, when Mr. Frey said the Oregon trial court had improperly refused to use a jury instruction proposed by Philip Morris “which would have told the jury that it was not to punish for harm to nonparties.”

The proposed instruction said that “although you may consider the extent of harm suffered by others” in deciding whether the punishment bore a “reasonable relationship” to the injury to Mr. Williams, “you are not to punish the defendant for the impact of its alleged misconduct on other persons, who may bring lawsuits of their own.”

The failure to give this instruction was part of the denial of Philip Morris’s right to due process, Mr. Frey said.

But several justices said they found the instruction confusing and unlikely to have steered jurors away from an improper basis for awarding damages.

“You don’t think that would confuse the jury if they are first told that they may consider the extent of harm suffered by others, and then the next instruction seems to say they can’t?” Justice Ginsburg asked Mr. Frey.

“The concept may be abstract,” Mr. Frey replied, insisting that there was a “difference between considering and punishing” that a proper jury instruction would have made “quite clear to the jury.”

Tobacco Judgment Blocked

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (AP) — A federal appeals court blocked a landmark judgment against the tobacco industry on Tuesday, allowing the companies to continue selling “light” and “low tar” cigarettes until their appeals can be reviewed.

The decision by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also allows the companies to continue for now the advertising campaigns that a federal judge in August ruled were misleading.

Without comment, the appeals court granted the tobacco companies’ request to put Judge Gladys Kessler’s order on hold. They have argued that her far-reaching ruling could cost them millions of dollars and lead to a loss of customers.

In mid-August, Judge Kessler ruled that the companies had violated racketeering laws and conspired for decades to mislead the public about the health hazards of smoking.

She ordered tobacco companies to stop labeling cigarettes as “low tar,” “light,” “ultra light” or “mild,” because such cigarettes have been found to be no safer than others because of how people smoke them.

Judge Kessler’s ruling was appealed by Philip Morris USA, Lorillard Inc., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation and British American Tobacco.

Read More...

Summary only...

Yeah, Right: Gas price rise undermines U.S. election conspiracy

Reuters
Gas price rise undermines U.S. election conspiracy
By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A widespread conspiracy theory that the White House engineered gasoline prices lower to influence next week's congressional elections was undermined by news of a small hike at the pumps last week, the industry's main trade group said on Tuesday.

Polls show that many Americans believe oil companies have been working with the Bush administration to keep gasoline prices lower in an effort to help Republican candidates. The White House has denied such a link.

"It's all supply and demand. The (oil) companies do not have the ability to manipulate the market in any way," said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute trade group.

The Energy Department reported Monday that the national price for gasoline increased a penny to $2.22 a gallon last week, the first rise in three months.

Felmy said that if the White House were working with oil companies to control gasoline prices, they would not want them to go up a week before the election.

Since reaching a summer high of $3.04 a gallon in early August, the average price for gasoline had fallen a record 11 weeks in a row by 83 cents, mainly due to a steep decline in crude oil prices. Oil accounts for about half the cost of making gasoline.

Read More...

Summary only...

Investigation: At Least 2 Dozen Federal Judicial Candidates Donated Money To Bush, Key Republicans

salon.com
Money trails lead to Bush judges

A four-month investigation reveals that dozens of federal judges gave contributions to President Bush and top Republicans who helped place them on the bench. A Salon/CIR exclusive.

By Will Evans

Oct. 31, 2006 | At least two dozen federal judges appointed by President Bush since 2001 made political contributions to key Republicans or to the president himself while under consideration for their judgeships, government records show. A four-month investigation of Bush-appointed judges by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that six appellate court judges and 18 district court judges contributed a total of more than $44,000 to politicians who were influential in their appointments. Some gave money directly to Bush after he officially nominated them. Other judges contributed to Republican campaign committees while they were under consideration for a judgeship.

Republicans who received money from judges en route to the bench include Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Gov. George Pataki of New York.

There are no laws or regulations prohibiting political contributions by a candidate for a federal judgeship. But political giving by judicial candidates has been a rarely scrutinized activity amid the process that determines who will receive lifelong jobs on the federal bench. Some ethics experts and Bush-appointed judges say that political giving is inappropriate for those seeking judicial office -- it can appear unethical, they say, and could jeopardize the public's confidence in the impartiality of the nation's courts. Those concerns come as ethics and corruption scandals have roiled Washington, and on the eve of midterm elections whose outcome could influence the makeup of the federal judiciary -- including the Supreme Court -- for decades to come.

The CIR investigation analyzed the campaign contribution records of 249 judges appointed by Bush nationwide since 2001. The money trail leading from Bush judges to influential politicians runs particularly deep through the political battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Since 1990, Judge Deborah Cook, who was confirmed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May 2003, gave more than $10,000 to three Ohio Republicans who were instrumental in getting her on the bench. One was Sen. George Voinovich, who is chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics. Another was Sen. Mike DeWine, a member of the Judiciary Committee, which is critical to the confirmation of federal judges. The other was Gov. Bob Taft, who gained national notoriety after he was convicted of ethics violations in 2005 for not reporting gifts he received.

Cook's contributions included $1,000 to Voinovich and $1,500 to Taft after President Bush had nominated Cook, with their backing, in May 2001. Once on the bench, Cook continued giving, contributing $800 to DeWine in December 2005. Political giving while serving on the federal bench is a violation of the official Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. The code says that "A judge should not ... solicit funds for or pay an assessment or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate." DeWine's campaign committee returned the money three weeks after Cook made the contribution.

Another judge, Christopher Boyko, gave $2,000 to Voinovich in August 2004 -- his first federal contribution on record since 1996 -- less than a month after Bush nominated him for the bench upon the recommendation of Ohio's senators.

Another, Judge John Adams, cut a $1,000 check received by Voinovich's campaign committee just two days before Voinovich and DeWine publicly recommended him to Bush in November 2001. "I've been supportive of the Republican Party and President Bush," Adams said, after DeWine and Voinovich recommended him for the judgeship, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. "I'm sure that had some bearing on the selection." About two months later, in January 2002, Adams gave DeWine $1,500, which was returned to him in February. Then, less than a month after his subsequent nomination by Bush in October 2002, Adams gave $250 more to Voinovich.

Brian Seitchik, a spokesperson for Sen. DeWine's current reelection campaign, confirmed that the money from Cook and Adams was returned because, at the time it was given, Adams was a judicial candidate and Cook was a sitting judge. "The campaign has operated out of an abundance of caution," Seitchik said, "and we thought it was the prudent thing to do."

Adams declined to comment. Cook's chambers faxed an unattributed one-sentence note that appeared to suggest that some of the donations in her name, as identified by public records, were made by her husband. Two written requests to Cook seeking further clarification were not answered.

The president selects most federal judges with significant input from U.S. senators of the same party. In Ohio, that process is "totally controlled by party politics," says Tom Hagel, a professor at the University of Dayton School of Law and a part-time trial judge. "If you don't have the blessing of the county and state party chairs you can stop right there," said Hagel, whose brother is Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. "Believe me, they've got to get approval all the way up the line." Hagel says campaign contributions could play into that process, as a demonstration of "how loyal and appreciative" a judicial candidate is. "That certainly has an appearance of impropriety," he said. "It gives the impression that the senators' decision-making process could be influenced by money."

In some cases from around the country, judicial candidates gave money directly to the president's campaign. Judge Thomas Ludington of Michigan gave Bush $1,000, after being nominated in September 2002. Judge P. Kevin Castel of New York gave Bush $2,000 after Bush nominated him in March 2003. Judge Paul Crotty of New York gave $1,000 to Bush in June 2003, the same month he met with Bush officials about the judgeship. Judge Mark Filip of Illinois, who had volunteered as a Republican election monitor in Florida during the disputed 2000 election, gave the president $2,000 after Bush nominated him in April 2003.

In a statement to Salon and CIR, White House spokesman Blair C. Jones said that "potential nominees" recommended to Bush are not based on "any consideration" of an individual's political contributions. He added, "We are not aware of any law or regulation that prohibits a federal judicial candidate or nominee from making political contributions."

In Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter has recommended dozens of judicial candidates to the president during his career. As a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, and its chairman since 2005, he has helped oversee Bush's hundreds of appointments. Speaking by phone last week, Specter said political contributions are "not a factor" in who gets recommended in his home state or elsewhere. Citing the thousands of contributors and tens of millions of dollars raised in his 2004 campaign, Specter said that "it's just not possible to know everybody" who gives money.

However, in order to avoid any impression that the contributions carry influence, he said, "I think once an individual becomes a [judicial] prospect that that would be a cutoff point." In Pennsylvania, Specter said, that point would come when candidates apply for the job with a bipartisan selection committee set up by him and Rick Santorum, the state's other Republican senator. "I don't know of anybody who has made a contribution beyond that," Specter said.

In fact, the investigation revealed at least three judges in Pennsylvania who gave money to Specter, Santorum or President Bush after they were formally under consideration for the jobs.

The First Amendment protects the right of Americans to make political contributions. But there must be a balance, some ethics scholars and judges say, between that right and the responsibility of those seeking a judicial post to appear impartial. With the judiciary drawing increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent times, the American Bar Association is overhauling its judicial code of conduct to set new recommended ethical guidelines. The draft of the new code, to be voted on this February, would forbid political contributions by judicial candidates.

Political patronage certainly didn't start with the Bush administration. (There is an adage in legal circles that a federal judge is "a lawyer who knows a senator.") The investigation of Bush-appointed judges also turned up a Clinton-appointed district judge in California, Dean D. Pregerson, who, like Judge Cook of Ohio, made a political contribution in apparent violation of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. While serving on the bench in 2002, Pregerson gave $1,000 to Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, according to federal records. (A spokesperson from Pregerson's chambers claimed that the contribution was made by his wife.)

After being alerted to the forthcoming Salon/CIR story, the Committee for Justice, a conservative advocacy group in Washington with ties to Karl Rove and Santorum, looked into a sampling of President Clinton's judicial picks, according to Sean Rushton, the group's executive director. CFJ found 10 judges confirmed to the bench under Clinton who had given political contributions of some kind after they were nominated, according to information provided by Rushton.

Indeed, money and personal connections have long played into the selection process in both parties, says political science professor Sheldon Goldman, author of "Picking Federal Judges." "Why pick someone who hasn't supported you over someone who has?" Goldman asks. "It's been tradition," he said. "You reward your friends."

The status quo, however, is disturbing to some observers. Ethics concerns have been thrown into sharp relief in Washington, with a string of corruption scandals staining the Republican Party in particular. And the future shape of the nation's courts may hinge on the midterm elections, depending on which party controls Congress afterward. There are currently 49 vacancies on the federal bench -- and with a justice potentially retiring from the highest court, there is the possibility President Bush will nominate another Supreme Court Justice before leaving office.

Campaign finance is an area of particular concern, says Jeffrey M. Shaman, a judicial ethics expert at DePaul University College of Law. "We just have so many problems with contributions to judicial campaigns, and so many problems with campaign contributions to members of the legislature," he said. "If someone wants to be a judge, then they should, in their sound discretion and wisdom, voluntarily decide not to make these contributions anymore."

More than 50 Bush-appointed judges who made campaign contributions around the time of their nominations were contacted with written requests for comment, as were some other judges who gave money prior to their appointments. While many did not respond, some responded by phone or in written statements.

Boyko, the Ohio district judge who gave money to Voinovich after Bush had nominated Boyko, said in a statement that he had given the money at a Republican fundraising event attended by Bush. "I have always expressed thanks for Senator Voinovich's trust in me and have always publicly supported him. If I could ethically donate today, I would. And, because of a long standing mutual respect with Senator Voinovich, I saw no ethical improprieties donating after the recommendation." Boyko added: "If you believe for a minute that $240, $2,000 or $25,000 'buys' a federal judgeship, as you clearly intimate ... your naivete astounds me. Any such insinuations are a blatant insult to both Senators, denigrating their integrity and character. No one 'buys' either Senator DeWine or Senator Voinovich -- period."

Sen. Voinovich's press secretary, Garrette Silverman, said that participation in the political process is not a consideration. "To think that contributions would even enter the equation is absurd when we're taking about evaluating candidates for federal judgeships," she said.

Judge Lavenski R. Smith -- who contributed money to Republican Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas after Hutchinson had recommended him to Bush for a judgeship, and after Smith had publicly acknowledged that he was undergoing an FBI background check for a potential nomination -- said in a written statement, "The proximity of the timing between my donations and my nomination was largely coincidental." The $1,000 donation to Hutchinson in 2001, apparently Smith's first federal contribution since at least 1990, came three weeks before Bush announced his nomination.

Smith, who was confirmed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2002, also said, "Until nominated, potential nominees should retain their full first amendment rights to participate politically as ordinary citizens."

A number of Bush-appointed judges from around the country, however, said they consider political contributions by judicial candidates to be inappropriate.

"My thoughts are that it would probably be inappropriate for a lawyer who is a candidate for a federal judgeship to make a significant campaign contribution to a person having influence over the selection process, especially if the candidate had no prior history of making such contributions," wrote Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr., of Georgia, who was confirmed to the bench in March 2006. Even those who have a history of giving campaign money, Batten continued, "should realize that public disclosure of the contributions might ... raise unpleasant questions as to the purpose of the contributions."

Judge Roger W. Titus of Maryland, confirmed in November 2003, wrote: "From a personal standpoint, I do not believe that political contributions should be made to an appointing authority while under active consideration."

"I knew that federal judges were forbidden from making political contributions," wrote Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of Minnesota, confirmed in April 2006. "I thought that, as someone recommended or nominated for a federal judgeship, I should follow the same practice."

It's not always senators who make recommendations to the president for judgeships, and who receive political money that could look bad in the eyes of the public. In New York, because both senators are Democrats, Republican Gov. George Pataki has had an influential role under Bush in selecting nominees for the federal courts. Judge Richard J. Holwell, who was a law school classmate and former lawyer of Pataki's, met with the governor's judicial screening panel in March 2001 and was told he would be recommended for a judgeship. The next month, Holwell gave Pataki $10,000.

In Pennsylvania, as in Ohio, there are numerous examples of Bush appointees giving money to influential politicians as they were headed for the bench.

In March 2001, Judge Thomas M. Hardiman interviewed with a selection committee set up by Specter and Santorum for recommending judicial candidates to Bush. Between then and April 2003, when Bush nominated Hardiman for a district court seat, Hardiman contributed a total of $2,400 to Specter, $2,000 to Santorum and his political action committee, and gave thousands of dollars to other Republicans. Hardiman kept sending some of those donations even as he was interviewing with the White House, filling out forms for the Justice Department and undergoing his FBI background check. Hardiman was confirmed by the Senate in October 2003. This fall, he was nominated by Bush to be elevated to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- so he'll go before the Judiciary Committee, with Specter now in charge, again.

Specter dismissed the importance of the money he received from Hardiman. "He was a protégé of Santorum, not mine," Specter said. He added that if he had known Hardiman was donating while under consideration for the judgeship, "I would have told him not to do it."

As a Judiciary Committee member, Specter also helped oversee the confirmation of Judge Gene Pratter. Pratter gave Specter $1,500 between February and March 2003, and interviewed with the Pennsylvania selection committee in "spring" 2003, according to her Senate questionnaire. Pratter then interviewed with White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez in July and September 2003 -- and in September she contributed $2,000 to Bush.

The records of other federal judges appointed by Bush in Pennsylvania reveal a similar pattern. Judge John E. Jones of Pennsylvania gave $1,000 to Santorum after he was recommended by the senators' committee. Judge Michael Baylson, nominated and confirmed in 2002 after serving for decades as legal counsel and then treasurer for Specter's campaigns and committees, gave $2,000 to Specter after it was reported in the press that Baylson was a likely candidate for the judgeship.

"If I had known about it," said Specter, "I would have returned their contributions. I don't want anybody to think that it's relevant." He added, "You ought to look at all the others who were nominees who didn't make contributions. I don't think anybody would believe that those contributions would influence a decision on making anyone a judge."

But ensuring that the public won't see the money as tainting the selection of judges may not be so simple. "All campaign contributions are in some sense to buy influence," said William Hodes, a professor emeritus of law at Indiana University who helped draft the proposed ABA code. "Once you cross into the world of judging or being a candidate for judge you take on a new responsibility to begin living by the rules of your new job," said Hodes, who runs a legal ethics consulting practice. "Since sitting federal judges can't donate even a dime anyway, my guess is that it would be very comfortable for the federal system to say once you have had direct talks with the senator with an eye toward [a judgeship], or if the White House has contacted you, then you're a candidate and you have to back off."

Even some Bush judges who gave money as they were bound for the bench acknowledge the ethical concerns that it can raise.

"I was recommended [to the president] around August 2001," said Judge Jones of Pennsylvania. "Is that the point that I should have stopped making contributions? Maybe I should have." He added, "If you know you're being recommended by the screening panel, probably in retrospect it's better to say, 'That's it,' and not make any contributions after that. But that's the benefit of hindsight."

Read More...

Summary only...

Terrorists love Bush / Cheney

Huffington Post
RJ Eskow
Dick Cheney Is Right - And Good For My Love Life

There's no question about it. Dick Cheney is absolutely right when he says that terrorists are "very much aware of our political calendar here." After all, Cheney would not be Vice President today had Bin Laden not issued his video shout-out to the America people in 2004.

Under the Republicans, Iraq has become a combination job fair and training ground for the terrorist networks.

The policies of this Republican Administration have been a bonanza for the bad guys.

Leaving aside all other considerations about the war, it's fair to say that it has been the most spectacular national security failure in American history. Terrorist incidents ballooned from 3,192 in 2004 to 11,111 in 2005 alone. A third of those were in Iraq itself, while a distracted America failed to stop the other two-thirds elsewhere around the globe.

The report card is in on Republicans and America's safety, and they get an "F." The only way to measure progress on a global iniative like anti-terrorism is to look at success and failure on a global level.

So, when Cheney goes on to boast that "we've gone five years without another (homeland) attack" I imagine it's scant comfort to the families of more than 3,000 Americans killed in Iraq (counting contractors.) It probably doesn't provide much comfort to the victims of the bombings in Bali, Madrid, and London either. And as far as the homeland is concerned, I still say it's like driving blindfolded and bragging you haven't hit anything yet.

Of course, by Cheney's logic he's failed to match the accomplishment of the Clinton Administration. They went six years after the first World Trade Center attack without a homeland incident. And, who knows? We might be up to eleven years by now if Bush and Condi had bothered to read that "Bin Laden Determined to Strike ..." memo.

Cheney's also correct that " the ultimate threat is a group of terrorists in one of our cities with a nuclear weapon." That makes it all the more stunning to realize that our GOP-led government still doesn't examine 95% of the containers brought in through our ports.

It's been over a year since I wrote that the next Katrina could be a nuclear attack. Last year retired Admiral Richard Meis conducted an independent study of the GOP Administration and its crony-laden Department of Energy's handling of radiological materials, and here's what he said:

"Some radiological waste storage areas may lack adequate protection against sabotage which could cause wide-area radiological dispersal."

That's nothing less than disastrous incompetence in the face of nuclear terror - on Cheney's watch. (A big part of the problem is the Administration's outsourcing of our nuclear safety to private contractors.)

And how about this quote from a GAO study?

"The US Defense Department failed to secure sources of radiological material in Iraq for six months after the US invasion in 2003, during which period some were looted or scattered."

Let's face it: these guys are too cronied-up, greedy, and incompetent to keep us safe. They're a terrorist's dream come true.

So of course Cheney's correct when he says that the terrorists watch our electoral process. They don't want the gravy train to stop now. A well-run national security strategy based on renunciation of torture, strong international alliances, firmer inspection procedures, and a safe and well-ordered withdrawal from Iraq would take away their biggest recruitment bonanza and source of propaganda. It would also put the bad guys on the run, and make it harder for them to do their dirty deeds.

Dick's overreaching a little, though, when he says this:

... when the Democratic Party in Connecticut purged Joe Lieberman, in effect, drummed him out of the party on the grounds that he had supported the President in the global war on terror, that sends a message to the terrorists overseas that their basic strategy of trying to break the will of the American people may, in fact, work.

That's as overheated as his wife's soft-core porn. (She denied it was porn, of course, as she attacked Jim Webb's writing. Judge for yourself: "He reached down as if to tie it shut, but slipped his hand inside instead, inside her unbuttoned nightgown too ... They moved into the bedroom. 'Mmmmmm,' he agreed as they fell toward the bed." There's more here.)

If anything, the notion that America might develop a well-designed plan to withdraw from Iraq would disturb the terrorists, who don't want to be deprived of the war's ability to churn out more and more recruits.

As for this disgraceful new bill: Think the bad guys are afraid of a little torture? In their worldview, that - like martyrdom - helps buy a quick ride into paradise. It's the torture of the innocent that harms our interests, and there's widespread documentation that we've done exactly that many times in Iraq. Torture is yet another propaganda victory for Al Qaeda. To them (and many neutral Arab observers), it confirms the impression that the West is immoral and should be resisted.

That's why there's open talk about the possibility of another Bin Laden video, or a worse "October surprise," to help the GOP's sagging fortunes. (Dems should have an action plan in place for just such a possibility.)

For the GOP power brokers, an electoral repudiation of Bush/Cheney would be bad for business. And the Cheneys are all about business - whether it's allowing Halliburton to rip off the American soldier, or peddling a little blowsy smut (against their purported "family values") to pump up book sales. Sadly, they're representative of the Republican Party as a whole. Like their fellow GOP leaders, the Cheneys choose greed over ethics and self-interest over service to country.

"Honey," the beautiful redhead murmured to her blogger-husband, "won't a Democratic victory make us safer, both here at home and on that European 'second honeymoon' you've been promising?"

"Mmmm," he agreed as they fell toward the bed.

Read More...

Summary only...

E-Mail Voting Comes With Risks; Pentagon Warned on Security Issues for Overseas Ballots

washingtonpost.com
E-Mail Voting Comes With Risks
Pentagon Warned on Security Issues for Overseas Ballots
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer

Time was when soldiers, if they wanted to vote, had to request ballots by snail mail, fill them out and return them the same way.

The process typically took weeks.

This year, thousands of soldiers around the world have the opportunity to vote in the Nov. 7 elections by e-mail. It's part of a Pentagon effort to make it easier for overseas military personnel to cast ballots in federal and state elections, and it reflects how the Internet has changed life in the combat zone.

But computer security experts inside and outside the government warned that the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program ignores the risks associated with unencrypted e-mail: interception, hacking and identity theft.

"E-mail traffic can flow through equipment owned and operated by various governments, companies and individuals in many countries," Joel Rothschild, a Navy Reserve captain, said in an August report prepared for the Pentagon. "It is easily monitored, blocked and subject to tampering."

A separate report by four outside computer security experts released last week raised similar red flags and added that the use of unencrypted e-mail for registering overseas voters invited identity theft.

"No bank would ask their customers to send Social Security numbers over unencrypted e-mail," said the report's co-author, David Wagner, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. But that is what the system allows, he said.

Rothschild's report noted that e-mails can be encrypted to reduce tampering risks. Pentagon officials said states would need to arrange for that provision.

States have options for getting ballots to and from voters. They can fax, e-mail or mail the ballots, or use a combination of the methods. The federal government began the use of faxed ballots in 1990, with troops stationed in the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield. E-mail is an option in those states that allow it; at the moment eight do. Mississippi was the first, allowing troops overseas to vote by e-mail in a 2003 gubernatorial election.

Neither the Pentagon nor state officials say they track how many of the 294,000 military personnel overseas are voting by e-mail. That information is held at the county level, state elections officials said.

Anecdotally, the number of military personnel voting by e-mail appears limited.

In Colorado, Jefferson County elections official Shawna Weir said she has received three ballots that soldiers sent by e-mail. The service members -- two in Iraq and one on a ship -- e-mailed their ballots to a federal facility in Virginia, which then faxed them to the county.

They were all "very eager to vote," Weir said, noting that they had called her to make sure they could get their ballots.

The combination of faxing and e-mail "is about as dangerous as you can get," Wagner said. "It's got all of the problems with unencrypted e-mail, plus your ballot is being routed through the Department of Defense. Will soldiers feel free to vote their conscience when they know that the DOD may be able to see how they voted? How do we know that the DOD or their contractors haven't modified soldiers' ballots in transit?"

J. Scott Wiedmann, deputy director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said the operators at the federal facility cannot alter e-mail content, which is sent in "read-only" format. Voters are also encouraged to mail in an original copy of their ballot as a backstop, he said.

Soldiers faxing and e-mailing their ballots also must sign waivers saying they understand that somebody might see their ballot, Wiedmann said. "There's no U.S. constitutional guarantee to a secret ballot," he said.

Joni Ernst is a county elections official in Iowa and a major in the Iowa Army National Guard who served in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. She delivered mail to the troops and saw how long it could take, so she is glad that soldiers have the e-mail option. Most every camp has an Internet cafe for soldiers, and if the voting process is simple, she said, the troops are more likely to vote.

"Their time is very limited," Ernst said. "We don't want to detract from the mission. But we want to make sure their vote counts."

Read More...

Summary only...

Requests Hit Record For Absentee Ballots; Continued Delivery Delays Are Feared

Requests Hit Record For Absentee Ballots
Continued Delivery Delays Are Feared
By Steve Vogel and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writers

A record 166,000 Maryland voters had requested absentee ballots as of yesterday, spurred in part by suggestions from the governor and other state officials to abandon electronic voting for the security of a paper ballot.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), among others, urged voters to use absentee ballots in the wake of widespread voting problems during the Sept. 12 primary. The governor's running mate, Kristen Cox, voted by absentee ballot yesterday morning in Baltimore County, and Ehrlich has said he will vote absentee.

The crush of demand for absentee ballots has left local election officials overwhelmed and worried that late delivery of them will make it difficult for everyone to vote.

"The Democratic and Republican politicians are telling them that they should not trust the voting system," said Barbara L. Fisher, elections director for Anne Arundel County. "The whole scenario is ridiculous."

Yet despite widespread problems during the primary, a Washington Post survey shows that an overwhelming majority of Maryland voters are confident that their votes in the Nov. 7 election will be counted.

The poll of slightly more than 1,000 registered voters conducted last week found that 86 percent are confident -- 45 very confident and 41 somewhat confident -- that their votes will be counted.

Officials said the high demand for absentee ballots is also linked to a "no excuses" law passed in the spring that allows registered voters to request absentee ballots without giving a reason.

washingtonpost.com
Whatever the cause, the number of ballots requested is well above the previous high of 137,953, recorded for the 2004 presidential election, according to State Board of Election officials. In the 2002 gubernatorial election, 65,824 voted absentee. The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot is today. Voters can still request absentee ballots in person at local election boards through 8 p.m. Election Day.

The high number of absentee ballots could delay election results in close races. The first count of absentee ballots will begin at 10 a.m. on the Thursday after the election. Each envelope containing a ballot will have to be examined to make sure it has been postmarked by Monday, Nov. 6.

Ballots that are postmarked by Nov. 6 will continue to be accepted until Nov. 17, 10 days after the election, to give ballots mailed from overseas time to arrive.

If previous rates for gubernatorial elections hold, about 1.6 million people -- 60 percent of Maryland's 3.1 million registered voters -- could cast ballots in the election. In previous elections, about 85 percent of those who requested absentee ballots used them. Absentee ballots could therefore make up about 10 percent of the total vote, according to election officials.

"It's absolute hysteria," said John Willis, a Democratic former secretary of state. He warned that chances are far greater that an absentee ballot, rather than one cast via machine, will not be counted because of issues ranging from mail delivery problems to the possibility that a vote will be disqualified because the ballot was not properly filled out. "It'd be amusing if it wasn't so serious," he said.

Ehrlich's opponent in the election, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), has characterized the governor's advocacy of absentee ballots as a form of voter suppression, accusing him of "spending a lot of time trying to confuse people and discourage them from going to the polls and predicting that there are going to be all sorts of problems."

During a visit to Montgomery last week, Ehrlich denied trying to suppress the vote. "I've never figured out how that benefits me," he said.

Ehrlich and other candidates have factored the absentee voters into their campaign strategy, tracking how many of their supporters have requested the ballots and following up to ensure that they mail them. Campaign workers can then concentrate on bringing others out to the polls on Election Day.

As of yesterday morning, Democrats held an edge in the number of absentee ballots requested in Maryland -- 77,836 to 68,014. But the ratio is well short of the nearly 2 to 1 advantage Democrats hold among registered voters.

Because of uncertainty over how many ballots would be needed, election boards requested that 1.1 million be printed for absentee voters and for voters who cast provisional ballots.

Officials with Diebold Election Systems, which manufactures Maryland's electronic voting machines and is printing the ballots, told the state Board of Elections yesterday that they greatly underestimated the number needed.

Most outstanding ballots were sent to county boards over the past several days and the last should be delivered by today, the board was told by Tom Feehan, Maryland project manager for Diebold. But election officials said there may not be enough turnaround time for some voters.

In Prince George's County, officials struggled to fill requests for more than 13,000 absentee ballots -- more than twice as many as four years ago.

Interim Elections Administrator Robert J. Antonetti Sr. said the office had run out of several of the county's 37 ballot styles. More ballots were delivered yesterday, but he said Diebold had still not sent the county's full order.

Staff writers Robert Barnes and John Wagner contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...