Political Bulletin

WASHINGTON NEWS

GOP Delivers Vietnam Setback To Bush.

President Bush left for Asia last night, and as the AP puts it he did so "humbled by elections at home," with "some world leaders, particularly those who resented Bush's cowboy swagger and saw his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 as a dangerous act of unilateralism, might be gloating privately at the president's political misfortunes." USA Today notes Bush's tour of Asia includes stops in Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, "where he attends a summit of Asian-Pacific nation leaders." Bush's "plan to arrive in Hanoi with a pact normalizing trade hit a bump when the lame-duck GOP-controlled House failed to approve the measure on an initial vote Monday." Another USA Today story reports "Bush will show up for visit overseas empty-handed," after his "stunning setback" in the House. Administration officials, says the Wall Street Journal "were irritated, Democrats amused, but the moves mostly captured the fractious postelection alignment here. Smarting from losses in last week's midterms, Republicans are less eager to march to the beat of the president's drum." There is "rank-and-file resentment that Mr. Bush didn't announce the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld until after Election Day, and party leaders are more preoccupied with saving their jobs than moving the president's agenda."

Democrats Elect Senate Leadership.

Senate Democrats elected their leaders yesterday. Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, running unopposed, was selected as Majority Leader, with Sen. Dick Durbin as his deputy and New York's Chuck Schumer as Vice Chair of the Democratic conference, which the Los Angeles Times calls "the No. 3 position." The Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill notes Reid also appointed Sen. Debbie Stabenow "chairwoman of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee," replacing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "who will assume a new minor position as vice chair of committee outreach."

Schumer: No Alitos Under Democrats. The New York Observer, meanwhile, runs an article on Schumer's selection as the third-ranking Senate Democrat. Schumer "says that the single greatest failure of the Democrats as an opposition party was allowing Samuel Alito to join the Supreme Court." Schumer said yesterday, "One more justice would have made it a 5-4 conservative, hard-right majority for a long time. That won't happen." In addition, Schumer said, "I am writing a book, about how to build a permanent -- a long-term majority." Schumer's "book, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle Class Majority One Family at a Time, will be released right around the President's State of the Union address, and will fit neatly into the role that Mr. Schumer now envisions for himself as tactician in chief for the newly ascendant Democrats."

Bush Launches Review Of Iraq Policies.

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that President Bush "formally launched a sweeping internal review of Iraq policy yesterday, pulling together studies underway by various government agencies, according to U.S. officials. The initiative, begun after Bush met at the White House with his foreign policy team, parallels the effort by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to salvage US policy in Iraq, develop an exit strategy and protect long-term US interests in the region." The Post adds, "The two reviews are not competitive, administration officials said, although the White House wants to complete the process before mid-December, about the time the Iraq Study Group's final report is expected."

Meanwhile, there are a couple of new polls out dealing with public expectations about US policy in Iraq. The AP reports that a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds "a majority of the public did not detect a clear Democratic blueprint for ending the war. Fifty-seven percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do." And the CBS Evening New reported their new poll shows "72% of Americans expect the Democrats to try to reduce the number of troops in Iraq or pull them out altogether."

Reid To Seek Boost In Military Budget. Upon his election as Senate Majority Leader yesterday, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid gave an interview to the Washington Post. Democrats, he said, "must respond" to the public's "anger" about US policy in Iraq, "with hearings to keep the heat on the Bush administration, and with calls for a regional Middle Eastern conference and a revitalized Iraqi reconstruction effort. To that end, he said, one of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress will be a $75 billion boost to the military budget to try to get the Army's diminished units back into combat shape."

Pelosi Goes All Out For Murtha.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who will serve as House Speaker in the 110th Congress, has thrown her full support behind Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha in his bid for the majority leadership, the number two position in the House hierarchy. Pelosi's effort is seen as a bid to remove former rival, Rep. Steny Hoyer, from the leadership -- but the move has drawn fire from critics of Murtha's ethics. In a report that aired footage of Murtha taken during the Abscam operation, NBC Nightly News notes some critics say Pelosi's move undercuts her pledge to "turn this Congress into the most honest and open Congress in history." NBC reported, "Some Democrats and ethics experts say that promise was undercut when Pelosi endorsed" Murtha. The Hill, a congressional insider paper, says that by "throwing her full weight behind Murtha, Pelosi risks suffering an early setback with her colleagues if Hoyer wins; however, a Murtha victory would cement her total control." Congressional Quarterly, another insider publication, reports that one Democrat "aligned with Hoyer called Pelosi's decision to actively support Murtha 'egotistical hubris.'"

Roll Call, another source widely read on Capitol Hill, reports the race "got nasty on Tuesday, as Murtha accused Hoyer's allies of spreading allegations that he was corrupt while Murtha tried to tie Hoyer to President Bush's policy on Iraq." Murtha "avowed Tuesday that he was a victim of 'swift-boating' by Hoyer and his allies via news stories linking him to the Abscam scandal of the early 1980s, as well as more recent reports that he did legislative favors for clients of his brother's lobbying firm and another firm where a former top aide worked." The Los Angeles Times reports Murtha "attacked his opponent for not backing a push last year for withdrawal of U.S. troops." Hoyer "disputed the criticism of his position on the war. Murtha's charge was an effort to turn an antiwar message central to Democratic gains at the polls last week into a wedge issue in determining the party's leadership as it prepares to take control of the House in January."

Rangel Won't Rule Out Income Tax Hike.

The CBS Evening News last night interviewed Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, in line to become chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. According to a new CBS poll, "one in three Americans think taxes will be going up" with Democrats in charge. Rangel told CBS that "the estate tax, which the Republican Congress temporarily reduced, could come back for the very rich. And also, he's not ruling out an income tax rate increase down the road, if it's needed."

Bush Meets With Big Three Automakers.

Before leaving for Asia, President Bush met with the head of the Big Three automakers. Media coverage, generally positive toward the Administration, emphasizes both the reportedly dire state of the US auto industry and the positive remarks of the attending executives after leaving the White House. Practically all print stories run President Bush's characterization of the meeting as a "constructive and meaningful dialogue." On Fox News Your World, GM CEO Rick Wagoner said of automakers' meeting with the President, "There were some areas that he agreed, that we had raised, to look into, which we appreciated, with his staff. I think, more than anything, he seemed to be very well informed on our issues. And we -- we had our say. We -- we told him what was important to us, and I felt, in a lot of areas, there was pretty good alignment in our thinking and his views." Wagoner also said that automakers "didn't bring up" a bailout during a meeting with Bush.

The Detroit Free Press reports Vice President Dick Cheney, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and other officials joined General Motors' Rick Wagoner, Chrysler Group Chief Executive Tom LaSorda and Ford CEO Alan Mulally in the hour-long Oval Office meeting with Bush." The AP notes Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Karl Rove were also present. Wagoner, Mulally and LaSorda "sat side by side on a couch in the Oval Office, while the president and vice president sat in armchairs."

Lott Said To Be Closing In On Minority Whip Job.

GOP insiders tell the US News Political Bulletin that they see the formal announcement to the press that Sen. Trent Lott has officially declared himself a candidate for minority whip in the Senate as a sign that he is close to having secured enough commitments to win the job. Insiders report that Lott was calling senators this weekend "checking his votes," and he is thought to have 22 or 23 commitments. With 49 Republicans in the Senate, Lott would need 25 votes to win the race for whip. Roll Call reports Sen. Lamar Alexander, the other senator in contention, said "he was using the last hours of campaigning to make sure Senators who already had committed to him were not switching" to Lott's "insurgent campaign." The vote will take place this morning.

Webb Says Class Division The Top Issue.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning, Democratic Sen.-elect James Webb of Virginia, a former Reagan official who defeated Republican George Allen, says "the most important -- and unfortunately the least debated -- issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country." Webb's message is reminiscent of themes put forth by former Sen. John Edwards during his ill-fated 2004 presidential run.

Abramoff Could Implicate Democratic Senators, Rove.

Jack Abramoff, the man at the heart of a monumental Washington scandal that helped Democrats win the Congress a week ago, will enter a Maryland prison today to start serving his sentence. On its online "The Blotter", ABC News reported yesterday afternoon that "sources close to the investigation say Abramoff has provided information on his dealings with and campaign contributions and gifts to 'dozens of members of Congress and staff,' including what Abramoff has reportedly described as 'six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators.'" The sources also say Abramoff "was about to provide information about Bush administration officials, including Karl Rove, 'accepting things of value' from Abramoff. "

Martinez Criticizes GOP On Immigration.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, expected to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, yesterday criticized his party's campaign message on immigration, describing it as a "harshness only" approach. The Washington Times reports Martinez said yesterday his goal will be to undo the election damage done by the border-enforcement-first message of most Republicans."

Rumsfeld Investigated By Germany For "War Crimes."

German prosecutors have launched an investigation over whether outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld committed "war crimes." The New York Times says German lawyers filed a suit asked for a probe of "Rumsfeld and other American officials" for "suspected war crimes stemming from the treatment of prisoners in military jails in Iraq and Cuba."

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POLITICAL NEWS

Tight House Races Near Conclusion.

Democrat Challenger Apparent Winner In CT2. The AP reported late last night that with all votes tallied, challenger Joe Courtney (D) appears to have defeated CT2 Rep. Rob Simmons (R) by 91 votes out of nearly 250,000 cast. However, Simmons' campaign "raised concerns about the vote tallies in Norwich, New London and Chester, where it appeared more people voted than were checked off by the poll workers on Election Day or filed absentee ballots." Apparently, "9,543 ballots were cast, but only 9,125 voters were logged -- a 418-vote difference, the campaign said."

Recount Ends In FL13 With GOP Candidate Ahead. The St Petersburg Times that the first recount has ended in the FL13 race, confirming Vern Buchanan's (R) win over Christine Jennings (D) by about 375 votes. However, a second recount is pending, which will examine why a significant number of voters did not choose to vote in only the House race. The Miami Herald reports, "If it turns out that the nonvotes -- called 'undervotes' -- were the result of voter oversight and bad ballot design, that probably spells doom for" Jennings. The Herald adds that "a human-error scenario likely would blunt calls by activists who want paper ballots." After the audit is conducted "the case will likely end up in court, where Jennings will have a tough time petitioning for a revote. Jennings needs all the votes in Sarasota because it's the only county she won."

Recount Expected In NC8. Roll Call reports that in the NC8 district, challenger Larry Kissell (D) "is ready to ask for a recount in his close contest with" Rep. Robin Hayes (R). "More than 1,400 provisional ballots should be counted by Friday. In a news release Tuesday, Kissell said a recount is 'inevitable' and that he is ready to demand a 'hand-eye' recount to challenge the results that currently show Hayes leading by 462 votes."

Pataki Undecided On 2008.

New York Gov. George Pataki (R) on Tuesday said "he's not running for anything 'yet,' but he wouldn't say whether he would form a presidential exploratory committee, as fellow New Yorker Rudy Giuliani did this week," the AP reports. Asked at an event at Harvard University yesterday if there was room for two New York moderates in the GOP field, Pataki said, "Anyone who has governed successfully in this era should be looked at positively. There's plenty of room in the Republican Party for people across the spectrum who share our core philosophies."

Lieberman A Democrat For Now.

The Hartford Courant reports that upon his return to the Senate on Tuesday, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) "got a standing ovation from his Democratic colleagues." Even those "who had spent the summer and fall sniping at Lieberman...were his buddies again." Meanwhile, Lieberman "explained to reporters that while he'd stick with Democrats at the moment, he was not ruling out a switch." Lieberman said, "I'm not going to threaten in any way to leave the [Democratic] caucus. ... I hope and expect to remain a member of the caucus." Yet, "asked if he would head for the GOP...Lieberman did not hesitate." Lieberman said, "Sure it's possible, but I hope we never get to that point."

Democrats Look To Net For Dole Foe.

The Raleigh News & Observer reports that North Carolina Democratic Chairman Jerry Meek "has turned to the Web to get names of someone who can beat" Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) in 2008. The "plea" is "part gesture to the power of political blogs and part acknowledgment that he has no strong candidate in sight."

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POLITICAL HUMOR

The Latest From Late Night Comedians.

Jay Leno: "This is pretty serious. Germany is filing a war crimes lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld because they say he tortured prisoners. Yeah. And they're going to throw the book at him, believe me. It's the book they wrote, so they know what they're talking about."

Jay Leno: "Earlier today, President Bush met with the three big US automakers at the White House. Give you an idea of how well things are going -- the three big US automakers are now Tonka, Matchbox and Hot Wheels."

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