Dems Rebuild Party on 'Change' Theme
Don't jump yet, gloomy Democrats. That suicidal feeling you've got over the party's failure to take advantage of the political woes plaguing President Bush and the GOP may soon have a cure. Strategists tell Whispers that party leaders are drawing up a theme of community and change aimed at seizing voters upset with what they see as government ineptness, selfishness, and cronyism.
"This is about being in it together," says Democratic National Committee pollster Cornell Belcher. His research--provided to Whispers--shows that even Bush voters are eager for change and anxious to rebuild that old community feeling, especially after Hurricane Katrina. "Americans didn't like what they saw," he says. "This isn't their idea of America." There's more, he says: From the war in Iraq, to energy prices, to the budget, those he polled felt "they were sold a bill of goods." Still, they don't want to play the blame game. "They want to roll up their sleeves and get to work," says Belcher. Hill Democrats have just started on the effort, offering new legislative proposals and assailing Republican cronyism. And look for party chief Howard Dean to expand the change theme with a call for "Democratic values": You know, that it's morally right to take care of the poor, provide healthcare and other stuff. The timing couldn't be better, says Belcher. "This is the opening for a sea change."
Scalia Asks: What Does France Know?
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is stepping up his campaign against judges using foreign laws to decide cases at home. And he's doing it with tart sarcasm. We ran into him last week at an American Spectator dinner, where he poked fun at fellow justices who like overseas opinions. "It will seem much more like real legal opinion if one can cite a foreign opinion to support the philosophic, moral, or religious conclusion or pronouncement," he said with a sneer. "You can put it right there in the opinion. It looks like legal opinion. It says so and so versus so and so." The justice considered the most conservative on the court added, "I dare say that few of us here would want our life or liberty subject to the dispensation of French or Italian criminal justice."
2008 Buzz-O-Meter Rockets on Allen
If the chatter over Sen. George Allen 's potential presidential run gets any hotter, we're going to have to dismiss the 2008 GOP primaries and go right to a general election campaign pitting the Virginia lawmaker against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Just last week, the right's leading media voices, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, blew him kisses on the air, and he tops our Whispers poll. What's to like? Republicans say he's most like Bush, right down to the cowboy boots, but enters the race with better conservative credentials--and he's a good fundraiser.
How Hillary Wins the White House
Many more Republicans than Democrats are talking up Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's chances in the 2008 presidential race. While Democrats say she's too polarizing to win, Republicans fear it's hers to lose. A House GOP leader explained it this way: First, she easily wins the states Sen. John Kerry took in 2004. Then all she has to do is pick off one or two politically split states, like Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, or Florida. Here, she can get some help by choosing a veep from one of those.
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