Who’s the education candidate?

Bush proposed a five-year, $5 billion plan Tuesday that would ensure that “every child” could read by third grade.

Chris Lehane, spokesman for Al Gore, responded that Bush’s plan didn’t go nearly far enough. “We need smaller classrooms, more teachers, modernized classrooms and an emphasis on pre-kindergarten education,” he said, adding that Bush’s proposed tax cut — estimated at between $1.3 and $2 trillion over a decade — “leaves no money for domestic programs.”

But who has the better ideas for improving education? According to most experts, both candidates have part of the solution: Bush is right to emphasize accountability; Gore is right to emphasize significant investment in schools.

The press has done Gore wrong

The Washington Monthly takes a look at how the press has been treating Gore: An “examination of dozens of these articles, which purport to detail the chief cases of Gore’s exaggerations and lies, finds journalists often engaging in their own exaggerations or even publishing outright falsehoods about Gore.” Robert Parry blames the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major news outlets for taking out of context comments Gore made to make it look as though he had claimed to have discovered the toxic-waste problems at Love Canal, N.Y.

Can Bush lump Gore with Clinton?

Maureen Dowd weighs in with an answer: “If W. keeps banking on disgust with Clinton-Gore to propel him to the White House, he’ll lose.” She then quotes a Gore advisor as saying, “It won’t work to connect Gore to Clinton. It didn’t even work to connect Clinton to Clinton.”

Giuliani to appear in court

The New York Times reports that New York’s public advocate and candidate for the 2002 mayoral race, Mark Green, obtained a court order Tuesday directing Rudy Giuliani “to show by next week why he should not be held legally accountable for the release of Patrick M. Dorismond’s sealed court records.” (Dorismond is the unarmed civilian shot to death by New York police a few weeks back.) Immediately after the shooting, Giuliani released Dorismond’s criminal records — even juvenile reports — sparking a storm of protest. Giuliani responded Tuesday, noting that the law “says nothing about prohibiting the release of those records after a person is dead.”

Bush going for fund-raising record

The Associated Press reports that Bush is expected to collect a single-day record of $15 million for the Republican Party in a fund-raiser April 26.

“Soft money” ad hits California

The New York Times reports that a campaign ad funded by “soft money” has started airing in California. The ad features a game show patterned after “Jeopardy” called “Hypocrisy,” with the following exchange: “He says he supports campaign finance reform, but held an illegal fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple.” The contestant replies, “Who is Al Gore?”

Senate GOP agrees on a budget

The Washington Post reports that Senate Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, announced a $1.8 trillion budget, “largely along the lines of the plan approved last week by the House.” The budget calls for increased spending on the military and prescription drug coverage in Medicare while also calling for $190 billion in tax cuts over five years.

Talking heads

(All EST and all guests tentative)

More on the “veepstakes”
Gail Collins sounds off
for the New York Times on the “veepstakes” with this sound bit of wisdom “if none of your elected
officials are being talked about as potential veeps, there is probably something wrong with
your state, and you should consider moving elsewhere.”

Gore’s anti-money show
Al Gore proposed a sweeping reform plan for the campaign finance system Monday that, if implemented, would end soft money and direct donations to single candidates. George W. Bush’s campaign responded by questioning Gore’s credibility on the issue, and other observers wondered whether the American public really cares enough about the issue for it to give Gore much traction.

The New York Times quotes Carla Eudy, the top fund-raiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, as saying, “Al Gore is only proposing this because he wants to be John McCain.” McCain’s response was slightly more subtle: “The campaign-finance abuses of the current administration prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how badly reform is needed.”

The Washington Post says that Gore’s “new stridency on campaign finance reform is an attempt to neutralize the damage of his 1996 fund-raising lapses and seize the reform mantle in the wake of Sen. John McCain’s departure from the presidential race.”

While Gore trumpets his reform initiative, the Washington Post investigates how the Bush campaign is trying to raise more money after spending an estimated $66 million to defeat McCain in the primaries, leaving it with only an estimated $8 million.

Perot faction back on top

The New York Times reports that a federal judge awarded control of the Reform Party to Pat Choate, a member of the Ross Perot faction, and denied the Jesse Ventura partisan, Jack Gargan, his claims to the position. But this may be just the first step in rehabilitating the Reform Party. The Post quotes Gargan on the witness stand as saying the party “looked to the outside world ‘like a bunch of clowns.’” The Post goes on to note that “when it comes to comic relief, the Reform Party never lets you down.”

New York Senate race to be a squeaker?

The latest Zogby poll on the New York Senate race shows Hillary Rodham Clinton pulling ahead of Rudy Giuliani, 45 to 42, for the first time, with 10 percent undecided. The Zogby survey notes, “Support for Giuliani has plummeted among several subgroups including Upstate voters, Hispanic voters and Jewish voters.”

In an article titled “Giuliani Takes Poll Slide in Stride,” the New York Post quotes Giuliani’s response to the results: “I don’t use polls to guide my activity as mayor.” The Post also quotes Long Island GOP Rep. Peter King as opining that “this race is going to be a roller coaster and in some ways it’s going to be Rudy running against Rudy. He could be his own worst enemy.”

Giuliani relents

The New York Times
reports
Rudy Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum of Art have agreed to drop their respective law suits for a status
quo ante bellum arrangement. The museum’s board of trustees chairman, Robert S. Rubin, said “The events of the past six months have
only made our institution stronger and
more dedicated to our mission.” For Rudy’s side of the story Michael D. Hess, the city’s corporation
counsel, said “The exhibit is closed, and at this point it was time to end the hostilities on both
sides in terms of court proceedings.”, “part of that exhibit was
obviously religion-bashing, and the mayor took exception to that, and rightly so.”

Black activist quits GOP

USA Today reports that Faye Anderson, vice chairman of the New Majority Council, established in 1997 by the GOP to reach out to minorities, quit her position on March 13. In her latest column for politicallyblack.com, Anderson cites as her reason the “recent spectacle of the two leading Republican presidential candidates … refusing to condemn the flying of the Confederate flag — a symbol of defiance of the first Republican president — over the South Carolina Statehouse. And Gov. Bush has yet to apologize to African Americans for failing to speak out against Bob Jones University’s ban on interracial dating.”

Talking heads

(All times EST and guests subject to change.)

The campaign finance reform plan would establish “an endowment fund from donations by individuals, corporations and unions, among others, to raise $7.1 billion over seven years … The interest from the fund would be used starting in 2008 to pay for the general election campaigns of House and Senate candidates, but only if they did not accept money from another source.” George W. Bush has rejected Gore’s plan as “a government takeover that replaces individual spending decisions with decisions made by an unelected government committee.”

Wide speculation on the “veepstakes”

Congressional Quarterly writers take a hard look in the Washington Post at the speculation surrounding the “veepstakes,” paying especially close attention to the possibilities in the Democratic field.

GOP likes boomer Bush because he can relate

The New York Times writes about Bush as the first baby boomer nominee in the Republican Party, noting that he represents a “changing of the guard.” The Times quotes a Republican strategist, Greg Mueller, saying, “There was a definite underlying, subliminal theme within the party that we needed to nominate a hip young conservative, somebody who can directly relate to baby boomers, who understands them.” Mueller cites as an example how Bush was able to “relate to voters of different ages without looking ridiculous or uncomfortable” in an off-camera exchange in Chicago between the presumptive GOP candidate and a 20-year-old woman with a pierced tongue. “Can you eat steaks?” Bush asked her.

Bush gets low key turnout in Arkansas
It didn’t go unnoticed during Bush’s trip to Little Rock Friday that there
were more students at a send-off rally supporting the presidential candidate
than at Central High School where Bush held an education forum. Only three
students were invited to meet the presidential candidate. Irony, indeed, on a
day when the school was holding its own student body elections.

Bush also told the state’s GOP leaders that he will return to the state in
the near future to campaign for Arkansas Republicans seeking office this
fall. He made it clear to the event’s planners that he wasn’t in the state to
show his support for any GOP candidates, but rather to speak about his
education reforms–and of course, raise money. Some GOP candidates didn’t
even bother to attend the $1,000-a-plate luncheon.
(By Suzi Parker)

Tight race for the House

The New York Times takes a look at the race for the House of Representatives and finds it very tight. The Washington Post reports on how the Republican leadership is trying to get cash-rich incumbents not facing a serious challenge to loosen their money belts for the benefit of the party.

Poll positions

Presidential race:

The Post also notes that the presidential campaign has shifted into high gear much earlier than usual, possibly, according to Democratic consultant James Carville, because of the widespread belief that Bob Dole lost the 1996 presidential election by losing momentum between the primaries and the conventions. That, Carville said, has “got everyone believing that you can’t let the other side get a leg up. We’ve got too much testosterone going on here.”

In an interview with USA Today, McCain advises Bush to “go back to the message that he was transmitting at the beginning of the campaign. That was a unifying and inclusive message.”

More baggage from Monica Lewinsky

Monica Lewinsky made her return to the headlines Wednesday when she unveiled her line of purses in New York.

Is Giuliani sinking his own ship?

Rudy Giuliani’s accusation that Hillary Rodham Clinton was guilty of “projection” for her remarks about his response to the Patrick Dorismond shooting in New York is only the most recent example of his obsession with psychobabble as a smear tactic.

The New York Times writes that Giuliani’s attacks on Dorismond over the weekend are “causing bewilderment among members of his own party.” The Times quotes ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond as saying, “I don’t think she can beat him, but he can beat himself.” A New York Republican county chairman said, “I think he’s coming really close to crossing a line he ought not to cross.”

Giuliani may face competition before he officially squares off against Clinton. MSNBC reports that New York’s powerful Conservative Party chairman, Michael Long, is mulling another candidate for the Republican nomination. No word on who it is, but according to Long, “People will recognize the name.”

Did the White House cut a sweetheart deal with Smith & Wesson?

Not everyone believes the recent deal between the White House and Smith & Wesson broke any significant new ground, noting that the changes the gun manufacturer agreed to were already in practice or planned. Elisa Barnes, a New York attorney who won a negligence suit against gun manufacturers, said, “This was a terrible settlement.” Continued Barnes: “It does absolutely nothing. It requires Smith & Wesson to either do what they have already done for years or what they are already required to do by law.”

The Washington Post explains how Andrew Cuomo, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the man credited with negotiating the deal, and a group of city and county representatives are trying to force other gun manufacturing companies to comply with the same package of gun safety regulations and restrictions that Smith & Wesson agreed to last week. But they may meet legal problems. The Post notes that “a senior Treasury Department official later acknowledged that implementing such a policy could be complicated by a thicket of laws,” among other obstacles.

Meanwhile, USA Today reports that two major gun manufacturers, Glock and Browning, have turned down a deal similar to the one the White House struck with Smith & Wesson.

House nixes tougher oil legislation

The New York Times reports that House Republicans first considered a strong measure that would have required the president to cut foreign and military aid to countries that fix oil prices, but then gutted the bill because “lawmakers from oil states who are satisfied with the high prices had exercised their clout.” On the same issue, the Wasington Post reports that the bill was gutted “after intense lobbying by aerospace and defense contractors in California and Texas.”

Trial lawyers gunning for Bush

The New York Times writes that trial lawyers, who gained large shares of recent tobacco settlements, are donating big sums of money to the Democratic Party with the explicit goal of gaining a Democratic majority in Congress and defeating Bush. They fear the tort reform measures Bush has launched in Texas and supports on a national level. According to a Common Cause report, in 1999 trial lawyers donated $2.7 million in soft money to the Democratic Party, giving only $2,800 to the Republican Party.

Reformer by day …

The New York Times notes that while Gore raised $700,000 at a single fund-raising event Wednesday, “he refrained entirely from mentioning his newfound ‘priority’ of eliminating the large, unregulated contributions known as soft money.”

Talking heads

(All EST and all guests tentative)

Amid these recriminations, others argue that the time has come for New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir to go.

Jack Newfield, writing for the New York Post, notes that while Giuliani defended his release of Dorismond’s arrest record on the basis of the public’s right to know, his own support of that right is “sporadic and selective.” Eric Fettmann, also writing for the Post, says that Giuliani has been overly defensive of the police — to the point of “demonizing the victim” — and notes that if Dorismond’s arrest record is relevant to the coverage of his shooting, then so is the history of Anthony Vasquez, the police officer who shot Dorismond. Vasquez, Fettman notes, “has shot a neighbor’s dog, pulled a gun in a bar fight and been accused of domestic abuse by his wife (who dropped the complaint).”

Newsday reports that the release of Dorismond’s juvenile arrest record may have broken the law because his “1987 case was sealed under the law governing Family Court.”

The Associated Press reports that Kevin Kaiser, a friend of Dorismond’s who was at the scene of his shooting, says that the police “taunted” Dorismond before Kaiser saw “Detective Vasquez throw the first punch … Patrick did nothing to cause the officer to strike him. At or about the same time, I heard the gun go off.”

Slow day for McCain

The New York Times writes that John McCain’s return to the Senate was a subdued affair that focused on reconciliation with the Republican leadership: “McCain and Republican leaders were playing down their differences in part by giving the widest possible meaning to the word ‘reform.’” The Washington Post adds that McCain blasted Al Gore for claiming to be a reformer and described his 1996 run with President Clinton as an example of “incredible abuses of the institutions of government.”

Candidates smoking the product?

Both George W. Bush and Gore had quick responses to the Supreme Court opinion striking down Food and Drug Administration purview over tobacco products. The New York Times notes that while Gore supports FDA regulation of tobacco products and Bush “was not prepared” to address the question, both candidates have senior campaign advisors with close ties to the tobacco industry.

Gore gathers up Bradley supporters

Gore obtained the support of many key Bill Bradley supporters in New Jersey Tuesday, the New York Times reports, including Doug Berman, Bradley’s campaign chairman, Bradley’s New Jersey chairman and a former state governor. Berman told Tuesday’s gathering, “I am strong in my support for the vice president.” Similar endorsements of Bush have not come from the McCain camp.

It’s Pat!

The Washington Post writes that Pat Buchanan is a man “History” has seized upon to enliven the current presidential race. Indeed, in his stump speeches, Buchanan likens himself to a “troll still out there under the bridge” and describes Bush as someone “who doesn’t know anything” and Gore as someone “who doesn’t know who he is.”

Congressional candidates pony up their bank accounts

The Congressional Quarterly via the Washington Post takes a look at the number of wealthy candidates who are pouring their personal fortunes into this year’s congressional races: “Candidates in 39 House and Senate races loaned their campaigns at least $100,000.” In some cases, the amounts were even higher, such as New Jersey candidate for the Senate Jon Corzine, who lent his campaign $3.2 million in 1999. The total raised by congressional candidates in 1999 was $318.4 million, a record for a non-election year.

As for what all this means, CQ notes that Corzine’s entry “into the Democratic primary contest is seen by some observers as having contributed to the decision by Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman not to run.”

Also noteworthy is the race for Illinois’ 10th District. Out of the 11 Republicans who have entered the race, two have lent their campaigns more than $1 million and a third has lent more than $300,000.

Bush and Gore continue primary sweeps

The Associated Press reports that Bush and Gore won their parties’ respective Illinois primaries. The additional delegates cement Bush’s nomination; Gore already had enough.

Talking heads

(All EST and all guests tentative)