Two Nations Under God

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...

I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?

Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.

The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.

This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.

My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.

"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."

I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.

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Lessons of the Ballot Box

This is a start, but much is missing about the high spoilage of votes in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, and the many problems at polling places throughout the country that have been underreported.

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

Lessons of the Ballot Box

When the last of the Ohio returns came in, the 2004 election ended up being outside the so-called margin of litigation. But an uncontested election is not necessarily a well-run one. In Ohio, and around the country, this year's election exhibited flaws that will continue to detract from our democracy until they are addressed. One of the first issues that both parties should commit to is working to produce a first-class elections system.

There were significant problems with the Ohio voting, even though the Kerry campaign determined that a recount would not change the outcome. Incredibly, four years after the 2000 election mess, more than 70 percent of Ohioans still cast their vote on punch-card machines, whose hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads routinely disenfranchise as many as 2 percent, or more, of the voters who use them. Many of the more than 130,000 Ohioans who were forced to vote on provisional ballots were registered voters who should have been on the rolls. The system did not melt down, but there were plenty of problems that showed its vulnerability.

Partisan poll workers challenged voters in Ohio and Florida, relying on laws that in future elections could be used to disenfranchise large numbers of voters and to slow voting in some precincts to a crawl. Voter identification requirements were arbitrarily, and often incorrectly, enforced. Minority voters in some states were the targets of dirty tricks, including leaflets telling newly registered voters that they could not vote in this year's election.

One of the most troubling problems with the voting was the extraordinary lines many voters faced at the polls. In some areas, the wait to vote was four hours or more, and in many cases the longest lines were in minority neighborhoods. Many people literally cannot afford to wait that long to vote, and there were numerous reports of voters leaving the lines without voting. The nation should commit itself to providing enough voting machines and election workers to make waiting times reasonable.

The controversy over provisional ballots, one of the few reforms to come out of the 2000 election, showed that the rules governing them need improvement. Many states quietly adopted laws requiring these provisional ballots to be thrown out if they are cast in the wrong precinct. But election officials are often unable to direct voters to the right precinct on Election Day. A valid ballot should count wherever it is filed. There were also too many reports of absentee ballots duly applied for, including by military personnel, that did not arrive in time.

Nearly one-third of voters nationwide cast their ballots on electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail. As the public has learned more about the vulnerability of electronic voting to errors and intentional tampering, there has been a fast-growing movement to require voter-verified paper trails. Until these are provided, many voters will not have confidence in these machines.

The good news about the election system this week is that more than 114 million Americans, including many young people and new voters, believed in it enough to vote. There is great work to be done, however, to give them the system they deserve.

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The Next President Bush

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

The Next President Bush

President George W. Bush has put to rest all the ghosts of his father's one-term administration. He won a solid re-election victory on Tuesday night. The country remains, of course, divided. It is the point of a national election to illuminate divisions - these days in stark blue and red. The 49 percent of the voting public who wanted a different outcome are disappointed, and in some cases crushed and frightened about the future of the country. Their first job is to accept the will of the majority. Then it will be time for everyone - Mr. Bush, the victorious Republicans and the people who opposed them - to decide what to do next.

Mr. Bush can either try for four years of the same, or look to his place in history. Yesterday, he offered at least some hope that he was choosing the higher road. "A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation," he told the Kerry voters. Experience suggests that these conversions are short-lived. Four years ago, according to Vice President Dick Cheney, when Mr. Bush lost the popular vote and seemed to be in a position where consensus-seeking was a given, White House officials thought about taking a compromise centrist route for "about 30 seconds" before grabbing their old partisan agenda and running with it. In his speech yesterday, Mr. Cheney stressed the president's mandate. Given the way Mr. Cheney behaved during the first term, it's unnerving to imagine what he may have in mind now.

Obviously, the losers in this election are going to be far more eager to see Mr. Bush take a different, more moderate route this time than the winners - especially the triumphalist Congressional Republican leaders. But there's a yearning out there, in red states as well as blue, for a government that works better and with less partisanship. Many of the voters who support Mr. Bush are just as unhappy about economic uncertainties, lost jobs and the number of people who have no health insurance as the people who voted for Mr. Kerry. Vast majorities of Americans want to keep the federal deficit under control, make Social Security financially sound, protect benefits like Medicare and Medicaid, and be sure that there's adequate spending on homeland security.

Mr. Bush can address that national yearning - and leave a magnificent legacy to the country - but such an effort will require bipartisan action. Except for his education initiative, the president's domestic agenda thus far has been the product of the Republicans alone, and it has been a mess that has made nobody very happy. Tax cuts are easy to pass, even irresponsible ones. But spending cuts are not, and the president's own party refused to make them happen. Instead, Republican leaders bought the passage of the bills they needed by piling on masses of unnecessary, irresponsible pork. A truly heavy political lift, like fixing Medicare or restraining the deficit, requires national attention and the kind of political support that can come only if both parties feel they have something to gain from success.

For Mr. Bush's opponents, one of the great disappointments of this election was the fact that the war in Iraq had little impact on the outcome. The nation is worried about whether the Iraq conflict is going well, but many of the people who wonder whether the president made the wrong choices on that had other interests when they went to the polls: a preference for the president's personality, memories of 9/11 and concern over social issues like gay marriage. While Iraq did not in the end hurt the president's re-election campaign, it has not gone away. Although members of his team campaigned as if Iraq was going very well indeed, they know better. Finding a way out of the morass in Iraq must be the work of all Americans, and on this issue, the president has a real obligation to reach out to the other party. While Democrats may be quietly hoping that Mr. Bush runs into so many problems in the new term that the country will turn back to them in the next election, no partisans are so eager for political gain that they want to see Iraq plunged into an inferno of civil war and terrorism.

Tuesday's vote came as a particular shock in places like Europe, where much of the population simply couldn't conceive that people would want to keep Mr. Bush in power. In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair made two important points to America's angry allies when he spoke about the results. One was that this is the right time for Mr. Bush to reach out to America's traditional allies - and time for the rest of the world to accept that he will be around for the next four years and must be dealt with as the American people's choice. The other is that the critical goal of stability in the Arab world will never be achieved unless the United States throws itself back into the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Mr. Blair is one Bush supporter who deserves all the election rewards he can get, and this is the one he's desperate for.

For many anti-Bush voters, the wounds of this rancorous campaign will be raw for a long time, and the idea of joining hands with the president will be a nonstarter. And 49 percent of the public expects those in the loyal opposition to continue taking principled stands against the administration. The challenge for them will be to pick their fights wisely.

To us, the central domestic issue of the next term will be the Supreme Court, and Mr. Bush's nomination to replace the seriously ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The president could pick a respected jurist of centrist temperament with a genuine belief in judicial restraint, or he could pick someone in the ultra-extreme school of Justice Antonin Scalia. Mr. Bush's social conservative base will be pressing in one direction, and will no doubt remind him that the election turned heavily on social issues, particularly opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

The evidence in the polling data that these social issues were crucial to Mr. Bush's win - and that the bulk of those infrequent voters who stood in line for hours to vote were evangelicals, not people against the war - is pretty inescapable. But we were struck by the broad majority of voters who told pollsters that they favored a middle approach on these issues: providing gay couples with the right to have some kind of civil unions, and guaranteeing women the right to legal abortions in most, if not all, cases. This page will never give up our commitment to women's right to reproductive choice, as well as full civil rights for people of all sexual orientations. But a leader who was prepared to make political sacrifices in order to stake a claim to that middle ground could be laying the foundation for a new national consensus that might finally bring the nation's social wars to an end.

Mr. Bush could be that leader. He could be the uniter he promised to be, then failed to become, four years ago. He could put an end to a period in national history when too many people go to the polls on Election Day convinced that victory for the other side would mean disaster for the nation. A lot of voters felt that way on Tuesday, and now Mr. Bush has the chance to show them they were wrong.

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Stunned Democrats Look to the Internal Debate Ahead

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

Stunned Democrats Look to the Internal Debate Ahead
By JAMES BENNET

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 - Democrats began turning Wednesday to the fight that some in the party fear they wage most consistently: with one another.

Democratic politicians and operatives said the defeat of Senator John Kerry and the loss of seats in the House and the Senate were likely to fan internal debate over everything from overarching ideology to on-the-ground tactics to the qualities to look for in a candidate.

The recriminations began even before Mr. Kerry's concession, with leaks to the news media about which Democrats had given what valuable but unheeded advice to him. While condemning any acrimony, several Democratic leaders said the party would benefit from a substantive internal debate.

"You always take stock after a loss like this, and it was a big disappointment," said Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the longtime House Democratic leader who ran against Mr. Kerry for the presidential nomination, only to see his labor ties fail to bring him the Iowa victory he had hoped would propel his candidacy.

Mr. Gephardt argued that the Democrats' failure appeared to be more of tactics than of programs - that Mr. Kerry's proposals were popular but that the Democrats' organization, while impressive, paled beside the Republicans' machine for turning out votes.

"They used the infrastructure of gun organizations and religious organizations to get that done,'' he said, "and we've got to grapple with that.''

But Senator Bob Graham of Florida, who also sought the presidency but who dropped out before a single primary, said the party had to address some basic positions as well.

"We ought to debate what our strategy should be in the war on terrorism,'' Mr. Graham said.

"We also ought to have a debate,'' he said, "on how we can move the debate on values beyond God, guns and gays to tolerance, concern for others, love."

The Democratic Party appeared Wednesday to be trying to find God, or at least to find a way to talk about him. Several Democrats said their candidates needed to reach evangelical Christian voters, who on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported President Bush.

"Our failure - or our 'drawback' is a better word - is, sometimes, to speak to our faith, and to relate to people that we share their faith," Mr. Gephardt said.

One senior Democratic official suggested that the problem was deeper than communicating.

"I do believe there is a cultural shift going on in this country," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the intraparty debate. "I think the country is becoming more conservative. I think their base is growing.''

Douglas Sosnik, who was a counselor to President Bill Clinton and who advised Mr. Kerry, said that contrary to the aftermath of the muddled 2000 election results, the Democrats now needed to accept that they had become - "no ifs, ands or buts" - the opposition party.

"As we go prospectively forward - to the question of 'now what?' - to me it's all going to be stuffed through the prism of what does it mean to be an opposition party," Mr. Sosnik said. "And to me, being more effective as an opposition party means being grounded outside the Beltway, through the governors."

"We've got to build the party back up from the ground up,'' he said. "That's going to require some bloodletting, and a rethinking on substance and style."

Some argued that the party needed to embrace policies that would appeal to voters in Southern states and across the country.

"We need to put ideas first," said Al From, founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which was close to Mr. Clinton. "Over the last 40 years we've seen the turf that we compete on shrink. We've got to be a national party."

Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster from the same centrist faction of the party, said, "The Democratic Party, in terms of security and values, has to be more competitive with the Republicans, and in that sense the party is going to look for ways to rebrand itself."

But Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said the problem was the Democrats' communication rather than their traditional platform.

"I don't think we need to trim on the social and economic justice principles of the Democratic Party at all," Ms. Schakowsky said.

"We can do a better job of connecting that with people's lives, not just their economic lives but their spiritual lives as well," she said. "It doesn't have to be in religious terms so much as value-laden terms."

She said, for example, that she expected that Mr. Bush would now try to "privatize" Social Security, and that the Democrats should respond by emphasizing that they wanted to preserve a "safety net" because "we care for you."

Democratic officials seemed stunned by Tuesday's vote. They said they had thought that for once they had the unity, the money, the organization and a weak enough Republican opponent to win the presidency and at least hold their own in the House and the Senate.

"With 120 million people voting, at some point it's got to settle in with us that there are just more of them than there are of us," one Democratic operative said of the Republicans, adding, "My greatest fear now is we're going to turn the guns on each other."

Several Democrats noted that the party, in belated imitation of the Republicans, was now building its own infrastructure of policy institutes to generate its positions and messages. John Podesta, the president of one such organization, the Center for American Progress, said he hoped that the party would not become bogged down in its long-running fight over moving left or center.

"There has to be a rearticulation in the party of a sense of core principles that I think people are confused about," said Mr. Podesta, who was chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

In one Senate race, in Republican-leaning Colorado, Ken Salazar, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, managed Tuesday to dispatch the beer magnate Pete Coors. Jim Carpenter, Mr. Salazar's campaign manager, said the candidate, a Roman Catholic, was "very clear that his faith was very important to him but he disagreed with the church on the issue of abortion." He said Mr. Salazar's roots in Colorado as a rancher, his personal success story and his service as state attorney general had earned him voters' trust, insulating him from attacks.

"It's difficult,'' Mr. Carpenter said, "for an East Coast senator to get the trust of the voters out here.''

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After the Voting: What May Lie Ahead for Business in America

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

THE IMPACT
After the Voting: What May Lie Ahead for Business in America
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Wall Street to Detroit, there were plenty of sighs of relief as it became clear that President Bush had won another term. As one auto executive said, "Bush has been a good president to work with."

But even as stocks rose on the news, the exuberant mood of business executives was tempered by worries about continuing high prices of oil, the nation's ballooning budget deficit and the increasing cost of health care. Military contractors, for example, expect that the Pentagon budget will flatten out, forcing the government to rein in spending for new weapons programs, as it needs to put more money into the war in Iraq.

And all employers - but particularly the auto industry, which is footing the bill for health benefits for thousands of retirees - are worried about the brisk rise in medical costs and whether the administration has a realistic plan for dealing with the problem.

The telecommunications and media industries expect the White House and their regulators to continue to step back and allow greater industry consolidation, even as regulators are faced with major decisions about the future of Internet and telephone services.

But the biggest smiles yesterday came from Wall Street executives, who were pleased with the tax cuts in the first Bush term and hope for more of the same from the second.

AUTOS
Taxes and Health Costs Top Detroit's Wish List

DETROIT, Nov. 3 - Even though Michigan was one of the rare blue states between the coasts, many executives of the Detroit automakers were privately wary of Senator John Kerry because he was recently a co-sponsor of an ambitious Senate proposal to increase fuel economy standards substantially.

"Kerry's past projections on fuel economy were scary," said an executive from one of the Big Three Detroit automakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Kerry's proposal, also sponsored by Senator John McCain, was bitterly opposed by the industry and handily defeated in the Senate in 2002.

"We need somebody that's willing to work with us," the executive added. "Clinton was great to work with, he was a Democrat. Bush has been a good president to work with. Whoever gets in office, they realize we're a huge part of the economy, creating jobs, and as a politician you don't want to hamper the job producers."

The Bush administration has close ties to the industry - Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, served as G.M.'s top lobbyist in the 1990's.

Top items on the auto industry's wish list in the second term of the Bush administration will be renewing tax credits for advanced-technology vehicles, including hybrid cars, and relief on soaring health care costs, which have been a crippling competitive burden for domestic automakers. Automakers based in Japan and Germany do not have a similar burden of health care spending on retirees.

From the standpoint of showroom traffic, executives and industry sales analysts saw the election as a distraction that was good to put behind them.

"We always like to remove the uncertainty in the marketplace," said Paul Ballew, G.M.'s top industry sales analyst. "Having said that, even with this election bubbling along, sales have held up pretty well."

Gary Dilts, the top sales analyst at Chrysler, said, "the guys on the showroom floor think this has been a negative distraction." -- DANNY HAKIM

MILITARY
Investor Euphoria Could Be Short-Lived

Shares of military companies rose on news of the Bush victory yesterday, but the euphoria could be short-lived. While President Bush's re-election and the return of a Republican majority in Congress assure a robust approach to Pentagon spending, the growing budget deficit and the costs of the war in Iraq could begin to take their toll.

"We might be seeing a bit of a false dawn," said Nick Fothergill, a Banc of America Securities analyst based in London, referring to a rally yesterday that sent shares of most military contractors up 3 to 4 percent.

Mr. Fothergill said the Pentagon budget, which will come to $417 billion for the 2005 fiscal year, could come under pressure as early as 2006, as continued war costs and a rising deficit force lawmakers to make choices. "The Bush budget is likely to get cut a little early," he added.

Those sentiments were echoed yesterday by James Albaugh, head of the defense business at the Boeing Company, the nation's second-largest military contractor after Lockheed Martin. At a Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York, Mr. Albaugh predicted a flattening in military spending as the government attempts to rein in the deficit and balance the need for more troops against Pentagon weapon modernization plans, Bloomberg News reported. The 2005 Pentagon budget includes $25 billion for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"You're going to see a reprioritization of many of the programs that the government is funding," Bloomberg News quoted Mr. Albaugh as saying. "All big programs will come under scrutiny because of their size." Increased military spending over the last few years has contributed to a $413 billion federal budget deficit, which Mr. Bush has said he wants to cut in half.

A victory by Senator John Kerry probably would not have led to much of a change in Pentagon spending, given the Republican control of Congress and strong bipartisan support for military spending. For that reason, Byron Callan, a military industry analyst with Merrill Lynch, said the sell-off in military stocks in late trading on Tuesday, as surveys of voters leaving the polls showed Mr. Kerry ahead, was unwarranted.

One Pentagon program that Mr. Kerry singled out for cuts was missile defense. Mr. Kerry proposed using $9 billion from the program's annual budget to add 40,000 troops.

"Does Bush have a mandate to spend gobs more on defense?" asked Mr. Callan of Merrill. "I don't think so." Because of that, Mr. Callan said that yesterday's rise in the military sector was "more of a sigh of relief than a sign of a whole new direction for defense."

The Pentagon budget, while it may rise and fall under different administrations, has a momentum of its own that makes it hard for Congress to rein in. With the long periods of development required for major weapons systems and planning done in five-year increments, major changes in military spending cannot happen quickly.

"Because of Iraq, there might be some slowdown in procurement," said Paul Nisbet, a military industry analyst with JSA Research Inc., based in Newport, R.I. "But that will last for only a year or two." -- LESLIE WAYNE

WALL STREET
For Corporations, Their Kind of Guy

For Wall Street firms, a second Bush term represents a lush dividend on the millions that their chief executives began raising for the president in the early days of his first term. Led by Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, executives on the Street embraced the supply-side policies of President Bush - underscored by sweeping cuts in capital gains and dividend taxes - that brought the most pro-Wall Street moves since Ronald Reagan began cutting taxes in 1981.

Expectations are rife that the president's economic platform will be even better for business in his second term as he pushes for such initiatives as private Social Security accounts and continued emphasis on lower taxes.

"Sure there is a quid pro quo," said Mallory Factor, a merchant banker and fund-raiser for the president. "It's a pro-growth economy, lower taxes and less regulation. The market's reaction speaks for itself."

Wall Street's full-throated support for President Bush comes despite a certain coolness that the president has had for the Street. He is the first Republican president since Dwight D. Eisenhower not to have a Treasury secretary with a Wall Street pedigree, and in public speeches he has been quick to blame the excesses of the stock market boom and bust for the mini-recession he inherited in his first term.

Wall Street has remained a vigorous backer all the same. Four out of the top contributors to the president's campaign hail from Wall Street - Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Goldman raised close to $2 million among them.

But analysts warn that Mr. Bush's market-friendly tax policies will do little to lift Wall Street profits if fears of a growing budget deficit result in a sustained rise in interest rates. That, in turn, could result in lower earnings for Wall Street firms as the long bull market in bonds finally recedes. Wall Street firms have made billions in trading bonds since the collapse of the stock market in 2001.

For the time being, though, Wall Street firms are mostly applauding a second term; they expect that the temporary cuts in the capital gains and dividend taxes of Mr. Bush's first term will now be made permanent. Analysts also foresee merger and acquisition activity to be more robust under Mr. Bush than it would have been under John Kerry, given the Bush administration's tendency not to interfere with large corporate mergers.

"There is a relief that this is over," said Frank Fernandez, the chief economist for the Securities Industry Association, the industry lobby. "This administration has a good track record on pro-investment policies. We know where they stand." -- LANDON THOMAS JR.

ENERGY
A Prospect for Oil Prices to Help Shape Policy

President Bush's victory comes at a time of near-record oil prices, and the issue could end up shaping his administration's energy policy over the next four years.

Crude oil prices have risen more than 70 percent since Mr. Bush came to office in January 2001, pushing gasoline and heating oil to record levels.

With most of the world's oil producers pumping at capacity, high prices threaten to slow economic growth in the United States, weighing on business costs and adding hundreds of dollars a year to households' expenses.

To try to offset this, analysts said, the administration is expected to endorse drilling for oil in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and to take some steps to limit demand.

But squaring these goals with the president's calls to reduce American dependency on oil from the Middle East could prove a challenge, especially for an administration headed by two former oilmen.

J. Robinson West, the chairman of PFC Energy, an energy adviser in Washington, noted that "one of the biggest applause lines in both campaigns came when they mentioned energy independence from the Middle East and Saudi Arabia."

"Of course, energy independence is a meaningless concept," Mr. West said, "but they will clearly try to increase oil supplies in the United States and make an effort to deal with demand."

The administration, he added, could be expected in the second term to encourage the development of hybrid cars, alternative fuels like natural gas, and renewable energy to limit the country's energy dependency by slowing the growth in demand.

Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil, "The Prize,'' said: "The big challenge is the need to increase oil production over the next 20 years in very substantial volumes. We will see a focus on policies that encourage increased and diversified oil production."

The idea of more oil drilling in Alaska - part of the recommendations put forward by an energy task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001 - has been contested for years on the ground that it could harm the region's environment.

"They'll want to put the issue in front of the American public," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the PIRA Energy Group in New York. "But I don't think it will go through. There are still a lot of people in Congress opposed to it, and the new administration won't have the ability to break a filibuster."

One policy the president is not expected to change is his opposition to releasing oil from the strategic reserve to bring down prices. Quite the opposite, analysts said. Mr. Bush is expected to keep filling the reserve.

The administration's foreign policy will affect its energy policies - in particular, relations with Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"Energy security in the United States is still focused on the Middle East," said Ian Bremmer, who heads the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. -- JAD MOUAWAD

HEALTH CARE
Mounting Costs and Tax Breaks

In a second term, the Bush administration expects the nation's burdensome health care bill to continue mounting at a brisk pace - from an estimated $1.79 trillion, or $6,167 a person, in 2004 to a projected $2.39 trillion, or $7,928 a person, in 2008.

As in its first term, the administration will seek to restrain the growth in spending and improve health quality by providing tax breaks, free-market incentives and greater choice for individuals in shopping for their own care.

At the same time, the administration says it will have only a limited role in regulating prices for drugs, medical devices and health services. Senator John Kerry had proposed a larger role for government in both paying for health care and controlling prices.

With the Bush victory, the shares of pharmaceutical makers like Pfizer, Merck and Eli Lilly, and for-profit health maintenance organizations like United HealthCare, Aetna and Wellpoint rose sharply yesterday. "We're seeing a big collective sigh of relief from those companies," said Kenneth Thorpe, a health care economist at Emory University.

But no matter who is in the White House, big policy challenges remain. Roughly 45 million people are uninsured in the United States, and an estimated 70 percent of them are employed. To increase coverage, the Bush administration supports creating tax credits and health savings accounts and associated health plans for small businesses. Those strategies are intended to reduce the cost of health insurance for small employers and individual workers. But those kinds of health plans typically require sizable out-of-pocket payments by individuals.

"Conservatives want to see universal health care by using tax credits and health savings accounts, and that should and will be on the agenda," said Robert Goldberg, director of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy group.

But a major expansion of tax credits and plans with tax incentives would be very costly. Many analysts are skeptical that the Bush administration will make a major commitment to expanding these programs when it has made maintaining income tax cuts for individuals its priority and the nation is running a huge budget deficit.

While health savings accounts will probably be expanded in the new Congress, according to Frank B. McArdle, a health policy specialist at Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm, he noted that "there will be no big shift, but a continued gradual shift toward an individual consumer marketplace."

Another change may come on the medical malpractice front. With a larger majority in the Senate, the Bush administration, analysts say, may well be able to win approval for legislation capping medical malpractice payouts, which Democrats have thwarted in the past.

Support for medical liability limits seems to be gaining ground nationally, with Florida, Nevada and Oregon passing state referendums capping malpractice payments on Tuesday. The votes on Wyoming's malpractice referendum were still being counted yesterday afternoon.

Despite the Bush victory, many industry experts expect a greater government role in health care in the long run. The pharmaceutical industry offers a good example. By the end of 2006, when the new Medicare drug benefit program is in full operation, the government will be paying for half of all prescription drugs purchased in the United States, Richard Evans, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, estimated.

The appeal of using that buying power to curb price increases may prove irresistible, Mr. Evans said. "Bush isn't going there for political or ideological reasons, but he may eventually go there for economic reasons," he said. "For the pharmaceutical industry, I think the Bush re-election means we're taking the long road to government price influence instead of the short road under Kerry." -- STEVE LOHR and MILT FREUDENHEIM

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Bigger, Faster, and Less Regulated

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 - Significant technological advances are rapidly changing the telecommunications and media industries, and giving a bigger role to Washington policy makers in determining industry winners and losers.

In the coming months, the Bush administration and its appointees at the Federal Communications Commission face major decisions about telephone services over the Internet, new wireless services and making broadband service more widely available.

As a result of the election results, those policy makers will probably embark on a course that continues to favor the four regional Bell companies and the nation's largest media conglomerates.

Tuesday's outcome also significantly increases the chances that Congress will begin to overhaul the Telecommunications Act of 1996 next year. The landmark law, which reshaped the regulatory landscape, has already begun to come under heavy assault in regulatory decisions and court rulings.

The Senate Commerce Committee, a central player in crafting any legislation, will now come under the control of Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, who has a close working relationship with the new senior Democrat on that committee, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. (The current Republican head of the committee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, is stepping down as chairman, and the ranking Democrat, Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, is retiring.)

Many telecommunications regulations defy traditional partisan politics, and regulatory issues arose only briefly in the presidential campaign when Senator John Kerry said he opposed the administration's efforts to relax the ownership rules that had prevented the nation's largest media companies from expanding. For his part, President Bush said throughout the campaign that he was committed to making broadband service ubiquitous by 2007, although he and his aides offered few specific plans to achieve that goal.

Both the administration and its appointees in important regulatory positions have maintained for months that they intend to relax regulations to encourage investment in new technologies and to provide incentives for companies to expand high-speed Internet services.

In the coming weeks, the F.C.C., in response to an appeals court decision, is expected to issue new wholesale telephone rate rules that are all but certain to be significantly more favorable to the regional Bells than the old rules. Officials said the outcome might have been significantly less favorable to the Bell companies had Senator Kerry prevailed.

Administration officials, as well as top regulators at the F.C.C., have also said they prefer to take a deregulatory approach to rules governing telephone services over the Internet.

The administration has also supported efforts to relax rules that have restricted the nation's biggest media companies from expanding and entering new markets.

Last June, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ordered the commission to reconsider its rules, issued last year, that would ease the way for media companies to grow. The commission has yet to respond to the order, either by announcing an appeal to the Supreme Court or by re-examining the rules.

The administration is expected to continue its policy of approving most proposed corporate mergers as the telephone and other technology industries continue toward consolidation. -- STEPHEN LABATON

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Overhauling Tax Code and Social Security Are Among Priorities

The New York Times
November 4, 2004

Overhauling Tax Code and Social Security Are Among Priorities
By MARIA NEWMAN

A day after declaring victory in an especially divisive election, President Bush said at a news conference that "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals,'' adding that "I earned capital in this election, and I'm going to spend it.''

Mr. Bush called his campaign against terror one of his highest priorities, but also said that he planned to use his political capital to improve the economy in this country. He listed a familiar array of campaign issues - Social Security, education, overhauling the intelligence system and simplifying the tax code - that he said he wanted to work on in his second term.

"With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results,'' the president said. On Tuesday, Mr. Bush captured 51 percent of the popular vote, compared with just under 48 percent in 2000.

Arriving at the news conference at the Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, after meeting with his cabinet, Mr. Bush said he had made no decisions about which members would stay on for a second term, or who would go, in spite of speculation about some departures.

"I have made no decisions on my cabinet and/or White House staff,'' he said. "There will be some changes. I don't know who they will be. It's inevitable there will be changes. It happens in every administration. To a person, I am proud of the work they have done. And I fully understand we're about to head into the period of intense speculation as to who is going to stay and who's not going to stay.''

Indeed, there is already talk that Attorney General John Ashcroft and the secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, are the most likely to relinquish their posts for what administration officials have said are personal reasons. Mr. Bush said he was going to Camp David this afternoon and "I'll begin the process of thinking about the cabinet and the White House staff.''

Mr. Bush, looking rested after a rigorous fight for re-election that had both candidates departing from tradition and making campaign appearances on Election Day, was jovial with the press corps, but tried to regiment the exchanges by limiting reporters to one question each, with no follow-ups.

He talked about what he wanted in a cabinet for his second term, when some current members will inevitably be replaced, and he said that in spite of his reputation for surrounding himself with "yes people,'' he actually preferred to have around him those who will not be intimidated by the Oval Office.

"They're getting ready to come in and tell me what for and they walk in and get overwhelmed by the atmosphere, and they say, 'Man, you're looking pretty,' " he said. "And therefore you need people to walk in on those days when you're not looking so good and say, 'You're not looking so good, Mr. President.' ''

Mr. Bush, asked about the war in Iraq, would not say how much more he thought it would cost the American people, nor whether the conflict would require higher troop levels.

"Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions,'' he said. As for additional funds, he said he would work with military leaders and budget officials "to bring forth to Congress a realistic assessment of what the cost will be.''

The president was asked how he would work toward a spirit of bipartisanship after an election campaign that portrayed a country bitterly divided and the two parties far apart philosophically. The president said that some of the divisiveness was endemic to Washington, and was fed by leaders of both parties and the news media.

"One of the disappointments of being here in Washington is how bitter this town can become and how divisive,'' he said. "I'm not blaming one party or the other. It's just the reality of Washington, D.C. - sometimes exacerbated by you, because it's great sport. It's really - it's entertaining for some. It also makes it difficult to govern at times.

"But nevertheless, my commitment is there,'' he continued. "I am fully prepared to work with both Republican, Democrat leadership to advance an agenda that I think makes a big difference for the country.''

Mr. Bush cited as an example of bipartisanship the No Child Left Behind Act, passed early in his first term, and said he would like to replicate that spirit of cooperation on other issues. (Democrats and other critics have complained, however, that the education reform bill has never been properly financed by the administration or the Republican-controlled Congress.)

Mr. Bush won re-election with the support of many people who told exit-pollsters that moral values were their top priority in choosing a president, especially voters who called themselves Evangelicals. He was asked at the news conference about the concerns of some Americans about the role the president's Christian faith plays in his decision-making.

"My answer to people is, I will be your president regardless of your faith,'' Mr. Bush said. "The great tradition of America is one where people can worship the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, you're just as patriotic as your neighbor.''

He went on to say: "I am glad people of faith voted in this election. I don't think you ought to read anything into the politics, the moment, about whether or not this nation will become a divided nation over religion.''

The president was also asked about criticism throughout the campaign, and even from some within his own party, of growing federal budget deficits.

"The key to making sure that the deficit is reduced is for there to be on the one hand spending discipline,'' he said, adding that he would like the president to have line-item veto power. "The other way to make sure that the deficit is decreased is to grow the economy.''

Mr. Bush would give no hint of whom he might nominate to the Supreme Court, a question that has taken on greater significance with the disclosure that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is ill with cancer.

"First of all, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court, and I will deal with the vacancy when there is one,'' he said. "And when I told the people on the campaign trail that I'll pick somebody who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law - you might have heard that several times - I meant what I said.''

During the campaign debates with his opponent, Senator John Kerry, Mr. Bush was asked what kind of standards he would use in picking judicial candidates, and whether he would use the abortion issue as a litmus test. Today he alluded to that.

"If people are interested in knowing the kind of judges I'll pick, look at the record,'' he said. "I've sent up a lot of judges - well- qualified people who know the law, who represent a judicial temperament that I agree with, and who are qualified to hold the bench.''

That has not always been the view on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have worked hard to block a handful of nominees for the federal bench that they considered too rigidly conservative.

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IRAQ NEWS

abcnews.go.com

IRAQ NEWS

Gunmen Seize Five in Two Iraq Kidnappings
Gunmen abducted a Lebanese-American contractor who worked with the U.S. Army from his Baghdad home, Iraqi officials said Wednesday, while four Jordanian truck drivers were seized by assailants in a separate kidnapping. (AP)

Senior Iraqi Oil Official Killed
Gunmen have shot dead a senior figure in the Iraqi oil ministry on his way to work, officials have said. (BBC)

Car Bomb Attacks in Iraq Leave 8 Dead
At least eight people were killed in a string of car bomb attacks across Iraq that targeted symbols of the US-backed government yesterday, as saboteurs blasted its vital oil industry to the north leaving pipelines in flames. (AFP)

Captors Threaten Hassan Handover
Gunmen holding hostage Margaret Hassan said they would hand her to militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if British troops do not leave Iraq within 48 hours. (BBC)

Hungarian Troops To Exit Iraq In March
Hungary's new Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has said the country's 300 troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March 2005, a government spokeswoman said. (Al Jazeera)

G.I. in Abu Ghraib Abuse Is Spared Time in Jail One of the first seven American soldiers charged in connection with the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq will be spared jail time under an agreement approved last week by a military judge. (NY Times)

Insurgents Blow Up an Iraqi Oil Pipeline
A severe blow was dealt to the national economy, even as car bombs and gun battles across the country left at least 12 Iraqis dead (NY Times)

Saddam's Family Dismisses Head Of Defense Team
Toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's family on Tuesday sacked the head of his defence team amid bickering over the handling of his case, as they await his trial on charges of crimes against humanity. (AFP)

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An astonishing but accurate statement

From blogforamerica.com

More Americans voted against George Bush than any sitting president in history.

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Kerry concedes without a fight

Americans on both sides of the political aisle are in shock at the failure of John Kerry to wait until all votes have truly been counted, as he promised he would in the campaign, before declaring victory or conceding defeat.

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The press is failing to publicly and loudly investigate election fraud

The press is failing to publicly and loudly investigate election fraud
and corruption in Florida, Ohio, and other states. Why? There were many
problems throughout the country. In Florida there were many reports of
voters using touch screen voting machines who voted for Kerry but the
screen confirmed their votes for Bush! There were hundreds of thousands
of Democratic votes that were thrown out by Republican operatives in
various states, especially in Florida and Ohio. Where is the press? Why
isn't this the top news of the day?

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JOHN KERRY: "WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR ME"

USA Today

JOHN KERRY: "WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR ME"

First, we’ll create good-paying jobs and lower taxes for hardworking Americans. We’ll stop rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding ones that keep and create them here in America. And we’ll give families tax credits to help pay for college, health care and child care. We’ll cut the deficit in half and restore fiscal responsibility.

Second, we’ll ensure that health care is a right — not a privilege — for all Americans, affordable and accessible. That means covering all of our children and giving families access to the same private health insurance as members of Congress. It means allowing our seniors to import safe, FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada. And it means lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research so that our scientists can pursue cures and treatments for Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

Third, we’ll fight to save Social Security, because when you work hard and pay in for a lifetime, America owes you what you’ve earned. I will not privatize Social Security, I will not cut benefits, and I will not raise the retirement age.

Finally, we’ll make America independent of Middle East oil within 10 years. We’ll invest in alternative energy sources and in cars and SUVs you have to fill up only once a month, not every week. It’s high time America relied on its own ingenuity and innovation instead of the Saudi royal family.

If you join with me today, together we will protect our country and fight for America’s middle-class families. We will unite Democrats and Republicans to succeed in Iraq and restore America’s leadership in the world. We will once again stand up for the middle class and all of those struggling to join it. And together, we will lift up the nation we love with the confidence that our best days are still ahead.

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V O T E ! ! ! !

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Faith in America

The New York Times
November 2, 2004

Faith in America
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Florida's early polling was designed to make voting easier, but enormous voter turnout swamped the limited number of early polling sites. Over the weekend, people in some polling places had to stand in line for four, five, even six hours, often in the hot sun. Some of them - African-Americans in particular - surely suspected that those lines were so long because officials wanted to make it hard for them to vote. Yet they refused to be discouraged or intimidated.

Here's what a correspondent from Florida wrote to Joshua Marshall, of talkingpointsmemo.com: "To see people coming out - elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc. - and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours ... Well, it's humbling. And it's awesome. And it's kind of beautiful."

Yes, it is. I always get a little choked up when I go to the local school to cast my vote. The humbleness of the surroundings only emphasizes the majesty of the process: this is democracy, America's great gift to the world, in action.

But over the last few days I've been seeing pictures from Florida that are even more majestic. They show long lines of voters, snaking through buildings and on down the sidewalk: citizens patiently waiting to do their civic duty. Those people still believe in American democracy; and because they do, so do I.

In truth, I wasn't sure what would happen in Florida this year. After all that has gone wrong with voting in that state, it seemed all too possible that many people would simply give up and stay home.

But it's already clear that the people of Florida - and, I believe, America as a whole - have refused to give in to cynicism and spin.

Far from being discouraged by what happened in 2000, they seem to realize more than ever - and better than those of us in the chattering classes - what a precious thing the right to vote really is. And they are determined to exercise that right.

And it's not just in Florida. Similar stories are coming in from across the country, wherever early voting is allowed: everywhere, huge numbers of voters are coming to the polls, determined to exercise their democratic rights.

Of course, most Americans won't get their chance to vote until today, but I have no doubt that they will turn out in record numbers. I don't think the rain that will blanket some parts of the country will deter them. Regardless of their politics, most Americans understand that this is a crucial election, and that never before has their vote mattered so much for the nation's destiny.

The talking heads on TV will no doubt frame all of this in partisan terms: light turnout favors one party, heavy turnout favors the other. True enough.

But this isn't a zero-sum game: the more people vote, the more vital is our democracy.

By coming to the polls, citizens are literally giving a vote of confidence in American democracy. And in so doing, they are proving themselves wiser than some of those they elected.

Those who govern us seem to have learned little from the 2000 electoral debacle: voting machines are still unreliable, voting officials are still unforgivably partisan.

But the public seems to have learned a lesson. Instead of becoming cynical, people seem to have become motivated. After an election in which a few hundred votes determined the fate of the nation, after four years of an administration that has demonstrated, for good or ill, that it matters a lot who becomes president, citizens know that their votes matter. And they are determined to cast those votes.

What will happen when they do cast those votes? I don't know; neither does anyone else. That's how democracy works.

Regular readers won't be in any doubt about who I want to win, though New York Times rules prevent me from giving any explicit endorsement. (Hint: it's the side that benefits from large turnout.) Above all, though, I want to see democracy vindicated, and the stain of 2000 eradicated, by a clean election in which as many people as possible get to cast their votes, and have those votes counted.

And all the evidence says that's what the American people want, too. May all of us get our wish.

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Vote, No Matter What

The New York Times
November 2, 2004

Vote, No Matter What

Urging Americans to vote on Election Day should be a motherhood-and-apple-pie editorial topic. But nothing is simple in the post-2000 political world. We all know the difference between a swing state and one that's long been consigned to the column of sure things. If you happen to be living in Ohio or Florida, nobody has to explain why it is important for you to go to the polls today. But citizenship is more complicated in places like New York and California, or Utah and Georgia, where electoral votes were all but conceded by last spring.

Still, every vote counts. Including the ones that already feel counted.

On the presidential level, the popular vote really does matter, despite the Electoral College. Those of us in the deep-dyed blue or red states vote to register our bit of the national will, to help confer a mandate on our chosen candidate or withhold one should the other side triumph. We vote because the very act of turning out shows that we believe that this election is critically important, and we don't want to give even the slightest impression that it doesn't matter to us who wins.

We vote because the rest of the world has become disillusioned enough about the American political process. If people can ride donkeys over mountains in Afghanistan to choose among the decidedly imperfect candidates they were offered last month in their first democratic election, we can stand in line and force election officials to make sure our vote is recorded. And if people can find the location of their voting place in Kandahar, we can call up the board of elections or go on the Web to make sure we're heading for the right site here.

And once we find the right polling place, we're going to vote to make sure that our election officials are doing their job properly and to reassure the shocking numbers of our fellow Americans, especially first-time voters or minorities, who believe they will be prevented from casting a ballot or that it will not be counted. Here in New York, for instance, we have seen plenty of evidence that it is only the wide margins in most races that have been saving the state's creaky voting system from a meltdown that would make Florida look like Athens in the age of Pericles. If we start complaining now, perhaps we can fix things before it's too late.

We're going to vote because in many places there are other matters - ballot propositions, state legislative races, Congressional contests - that deserve our attention.

And even if all of those contests seem like foregone conclusions as well, we can vote to send a message. An incumbent state legislator who is used to getting 70 percent of the vote every year will feel a thrill of terror if this season's opponent comes within 10 percent, and may well be inspired to try to improve the political status quo that's causing dissatisfaction.

Most of all, we're going to vote because this is our country, our election, our national future. It's not possible to make up enough rules or roadblocks to discourage us.

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Days of Shame

The New York Times
November 1, 2004

Days of Shame
By BOB HERBERT

Overseas, our troops are being mauled in the long dark night of Iraq - a war with no end in sight that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,100 American troops and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent Iraqis.

At home, the party of the sitting president is systematically stomping on the right of black Americans to vote, a vile and racist practice that makes a mockery of the president's claim to favor real democracy anywhere.

This will never be seen as a shining moment in U.S. history.

There is a hallucinatory quality to the news as Americans prepare to vote tomorrow in what is probably the most critical election the country has faced since 1932. Osama bin Laden made his bizarre cameo appearance on Friday, taunting the president who once promised to get him dead or alive. Commentators have been compulsively reading the tea leaves ever since, trying to determine who was helped by the video, George W. Bush or John Kerry.

On Saturday, as if to take our minds off the sideshow, nine more American marines were killed in the Iraq slaughterhouse. It was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in six months. The death toll for Iraqis, which the U.S. government has tried mightily to keep from the American people, is flat out horrifying. Unofficial estimates of the number of Iraqis killed in the war have ranged from 10,000 to 30,000. But a survey conducted by scientists from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad compared the death rates of Iraqis before and after the American invasion. They estimated that 100,000 more Iraqis have died in the 18 months since the invasion than would have been expected based on Iraqi death rates before the war.

The scientists acknowledged that the survey was difficult to compile and that their findings represent a rough estimate. But even if they were off by as many as 20,000 or 40,000 deaths, their findings would still be chilling.

Most of the widespread violent deaths, the scientists reported, were attributed to coalition forces. "Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces," the report said, "were women and children."

That people are dying by the tens of thousands in a war that did not have to be fought - a war that was launched by the United States - is mind-boggling.

Also mind-boggling is the attempt by Republican Party elements to return the U.S. to the wretched days of the mid-20th century when many black Americans faced harassment, intimidation and worse for daring to exercise their fundamental right to vote. A flier circulating extensively in black neighborhoods in Wisconsin carries the heading "Milwaukee Black Voters League." It asserts that people are not eligible to vote if they have voted in any previous election this year; if they have ever been found guilty of anything, even a traffic violation; or if anyone in their family has ever been found guilty of anything.

"If you violate any of these laws," the flier says, "you can get ten years in prison and your children will get taken away from you."

In Philadelphia, where a large black vote is essential to a Kerry victory in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House, John Perzel, is hard at work challenging Democratic voters. He makes no bones about his intent, telling U.S. News & World Report:

"The Kerry campaign needs to come out with humongous numbers here in Philadelphia. It's important for me to keep that number down."

That's called voter suppression, folks, and the G.O.P. concentrates its voter-suppression efforts in the precincts where there are large numbers of African-Americans. And that's called racism.

These are days of shame for the United States. No one writing a civics text for American high school students would recommend this kind of behavior for a great and mighty nation. We have to figure out a way to extricate ourselves from Iraq and rebuild a truly representative democracy here at home. Right now we have a mess on both fronts.

It was Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, who said that "America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."

That's as good a thought as any to carry with you into the voting booth tomorrow.

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Rebuffing G.O.P., 2 Judges Bar Challengers at Polls in Ohio

The New York Times
November 1, 2004

Rebuffing G.O.P., 2 Judges Bar Challengers at Polls in Ohio
By TERENCE NEILAN

In a double blow to the Republicans on the final day of campaigning in the presidential race, two federal judges today barred challengers representing any political party from polling places in Ohio during Tuesday's election.

United States District Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati found that the application of Ohio's statute allowing challengers at polling places was unconstitutional and that allowing any candidates other than election judges and other electors into the polling place would place "an undue burden upon voters" and impede their rights to vote.

In a similar case, United States District Judge John R. Adams of Akron said poll workers should be the ones who determine if voters are eligible.

The rulings apply to all Ohio's 88 counties, a spokesman for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, Carlo LoParo, told The Associated Press.

With the rulings, the judges made clear that they did not want partisan challengers to voters' ballots inside the polling places, and that the disruption that such challenges would create outweighed any potential voting fraud, which Republicans had cited as the reason for the challengers.

Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, said after the ruling by Judge Dlott and before the ruling by Judge Adams that the Republicans would ask the Sixth United States District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to overturn it, The Associated Press reported.

The findings were issued as President Bush and Senator John Kerry planned a last sweep for votes. Mr. Bush was traveling to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico, ending up late today in Dallas. Mr. Kerry, after an early-morning appearance in Florida, was heading off to Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Before the two contenders left on the last stages of their campaign, Judge Adams said in his finding: "In light of these extraordinary circumstances, the contentious nature of the imminent election, the court cannot and must not turn a blind eye to the substantial likelihood that significant harm will result not only to voters, but also to the voting process itself, if appointed challengers are permitted at the polls.''

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps on Oct. 22 to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the elections.

But an African-American couple from Cincinatti, who took the case before Judge Dlott, said the Republicans were deploying challengers in largely black precincts in Hamilton County in an effort to intimidate and block black voters.

Judge Dlott said that the evidence did not indicate that the presence of additional challengers "would serve Ohio's interest in preventing voter fraud better than would the system of election judges.''

In a separate case last week, Judge Dlott temporarily halted election board hearings on challenges.

The state G.O.P. had challenged 35,000 registrations because mail to those addresses came back undelivered.

Democrats said the Republicans were trying to keep the poor and minorities, who move more often, from voting.

Ohio election officials said last week that they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges.

They said they were scrambling to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.

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