DebateGate

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE:  Wednesday 6:00 PM April 9, 2008

All references must be sourced WNBC/Marist Poll

?  Democrats? ?Dream Ticket? is a nightmare against McCain/Rice in New York

?  NYS voters take a wait and see approach to new governor

 

Contact:             Dr. Lee M. Miringoff

Dr. Barbara L. Carvalho

Marist College, 845.575.5050
This WNBC/Marist Poll of New York State reports:

 Presidential Campaign 2008
?              A McCain/Rice ticket would edge out both a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket for New York?s 31, usually true blue, electoral votes:  49% of registered voters in New York State support a John McCain/Condoleezza Rice ticket compared with 46% who support Hillary Clinton as president and Barack Obama as vice president.  The Democrats don?t fare any better in New York with Obama at the top of the ticket as president and Clinton as vice president.  McCain/Rice receives 49%, and Obama/Clinton has 44%.  Although an Obama led Democratic ticket does better against McCain/Rice among non-enrolled voters than a Clinton/Obama ticket, Clinton/Obama is stronger with women against the Republicans.

http://www.maristpoll.marist.edu/nyspolls/GV080409.htm

A "Typical White Person"?!

I've expressed admiration for Barack Obama's political skills, but maybe, in a time of stress, his inexperience is beginning to show. In an interview earlier today, he referred to his grandmother--the one he slandered in his speech on Tuesday--as a "typical white person."

Think about it: can you imagine any Presidential candidate, in any context, describing anyone as a "typical black person?" Or a "typical Asian person?" Worse, what Obama said was that the "typical white person" views others of different races with fear and suspicion. Obama appears to be digging himself in deeper and deeper.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020088.php

McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll.

Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent.

"It's not surprising to me that McCain's on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side," Zogby said

--------------

This is a big turnaround. The Dems were supposed to walk away with this thing. I guess not. Fresh polls have McCain even winning in Democrat strongholds Pennsylvania and Michigan.

McCain was not even my first choice for president in the primary, nor was he my second or even third. But with these crazy libs he's running against, he now has become my first choice. The Democrat party is now in total disarray. Who can save them? If the convention is deadlocked, do the delegates turn to Al Gore?

February 25, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor

Got a Problem? Ask the Super

By GERALDINE A. FERRARO

AS the race for the Democratic presidential nomination nears its end and attention turns to the role of so-called superdelegates in choosing the nominee, it is instructive to look at why my party created this class of delegates.

After the 1980 presidential election, the Democratic Party was in disarray. That year, Senator Ted Kennedy had challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination, and Mr. Kennedy took the fight to the convention floor by proposing 23 amendments to the party platform. When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-election walked away from the president and from the party. The rest of the campaign was plagued by infighting.

In 1982, we tried to remedy some of the party?s internal problems by creating the Hunt Commission, which reformed the way the party selects its presidential nominees. Because I was then the vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, Tip O?Neill, the speaker of the House, appointed me as his representative to the commission. The commission considered several reforms, but one of the most significant was the creation of superdelegates, the reform in which I was most involved.

Democrats had to figure out a way to unify our party. What better way, we reasoned, than to get elected officials involved in writing the platform, sitting on the credentials committee and helping to write the rules that the party would play by?

Most officeholders, however, were reluctant to run as delegates in a primary election ? running against a constituent who really wants to be a delegate to the party?s national convention is not exactly good politics.

So we created superdelegates and gave that designation to every Democratic member of Congress. Today the 796 superdelegates also include Democratic governors, former presidents and vice presidents, and members of the Democratic National Committee and former heads of the national committee.

These superdelegates, we reasoned, are the party?s leaders. They are the ones who can bring together the most liberal members of our party with the most conservative and reach accommodation. They would help write the platform. They would determine if a delegate should be seated. They would help determine the rules. And having done so, they would have no excuse to walk away from the party or its presidential nominee.

It worked. In 1984 I headed the party?s platform committee. We produced the longest platform in Democratic history, a document that stated the party?s principles in broad terms that neither the most liberal nor the most conservative elected officials would denounce. It generated no fights at the convention. It was a document that no one would walk away from. We lost in 1984, big time. But that loss had nothing to do with Democratic Party infighting.

Today, with the possibility that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will end up with about the same number of delegates after all 50 states have held their primaries and caucuses, the pundits and many others are saying that superdelegates should not decide who the nominee will be. That decision, they say, should rest with the rank-and-file Democrats who went to the polls and voted.

But the superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country. I would hope that is why many superdelegates have already chosen a candidate to support.

Besides, the delegate totals from primaries and caucuses do not necessarily reflect the will of rank-and-file Democrats. Most Democrats have not been heard from at the polls. We have all been impressed by the turnout for this year?s primaries ? clearly both candidates have excited and engaged the party?s membership ? but, even so, turnout for primaries and caucuses is notoriously low. It would be shocking if 30 percent of registered Democrats have participated.

If that is the case, we could end up with a nominee who has been actively supported by, at most, 15 percent of registered Democrats. That?s hardly a grassroots mandate.

More important, although many states like New York have closed primaries in which only enrolled Democrats are allowed to vote, in many other states Republicans and independents can make the difference by voting in Democratic primaries or caucuses.

In the Democratic primary in South Carolina, tens of thousands of Republicans and independents no doubt voted, many of them for Mr. Obama. The same rules prevail at the Iowa caucuses, in which Mr. Obama also triumphed.

He won his delegates fair and square, but those delegates represent the wishes not only of grassroots Democrats, but also Republicans and independents. If rank-and-file Democrats should decide who the party?s nominee is, each state should pass a rule allowing only people who have been registered in the Democratic Party for a given time ? not nonmembers or day-of registrants ? to vote for the party?s nominee.

Perhaps because I have endorsed Mrs. Clinton, I have noticed that most of the people complaining about the influence of the superdelegates are supporters of Mr. Obama. I can?t help thinking that their problem with the superdelegates may not be that they?re ?unrepresentative,? but rather that they are perceived as disproportionately likely to support Mrs. Clinton.

And I am watching, with great disappointment, people whom I respect in the Congress who endorsed Hillary Clinton ? I assume because she was the leader they felt could best represent the party and lead the country ? now switching to Barack Obama with the excuse that their constituents have spoken.

I may be a cynic, but I?m a fairly knowledgeable political cynic. If Mr. Obama wins the nomination, those members are undoubtedly concerned that they would be inviting a primary challenge in their next re-election campaign by failing to support his candidacy.

But if they are actually upset over the diminished clout of rank-and-file Democrats in the presidential nominating process, then I would love to see them agitating to force the party to seat the delegates elected by the voters in Florida and Michigan. In those two states, the votes of thousands of rank-and-file party members will not be counted because their states voted on dates earlier than those authorized by the national party.

Because both states went strongly for Mrs. Clinton, standing up for the voices of grassroots Democrats in Florida and Michigan would prove the integrity of the superdelegate-bashers. The people of those states surely don?t deserve to be disenfranchised simply because the leaders of their state parties brought them to the polls on a day that had not been endorsed by the leaders of our national party ? a slight the voters might not easily forget in November.

As it happens, the superdelegates themselves can solve this problem. At this summer?s Democratic national convention in Denver, the superdelegates could assert their leadership on the credentials and rules committees. That is, after all, one of the reasons they were created in the first place in 1982.

----------------

Geraldine A. Ferraro, a lawyer and a former member of Congress, was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/opinion/25ferraro.html

Racial Undercurrent Is Seen in Clinton Campaign

By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
PLAYERS and PLAYERS
Sunday, December 23, 2007; Page A02

It has unfolded mostly under the radar. But an important development in the 2008 Democratic battle may be the building backlash among African Americans over comments from associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that could be construed as jabs at Sen. Barack Obama's race.

These officials, including Clinton aides and prominent surrogates, have raised questions or dropped references about Obama's position on sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powder cocaine offenses; on his handgun control record; and on his admitted use of drugs as a youth. The context was always Obama's "electability." But the Illinois senator's campaign advisers said some African American leaders detect a pattern, and they believe it could erode Clinton's strong base of black support.

Here's a sample of how the issue is playing out:

From the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," Dec. 14:

Tom Joyner: "Yeah, man, they are coming after you now. So the story about the Clinton campaign putting out this statement not to vote for Barack Obama because he used drugs, and then yesterday I understand that she apologized and the campaign worker quit."

Obama: "Well, I think everybody knows, because I wrote about it in a book 10 years ago. . . . and part of the reason I wrote about it and I talk about it in schools is because I want young people out there to know that if they make the same kinds of mistakes that I made that they can get over it and that they can move on. . . ."

From columnist Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe, Dec. 15:

"That leaves open as to how far the Clinton campaign, whose poll leads have evaporated in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, will go to stereotype Obama as not only naive, but cast him in a sinister light in a nation where black drug use and criminality is exaggerated in the media . . . ."

" 'I don't think these strategies are very subtle,' Obama said. 'I won't speak to the racial element of it because I think, you know, if I were a white candidate, obviously, somebody suggesting falsely they were a drug dealer, it's never good.' But in sum, Obama, who has written about his teenage drug use in his memoirs, said, 'There's been a series of these kinds of tactics that at some point we've just got to send a clear signal this is not what we're about.' "

From Black Star News of New York, Dec. 19:

"So the Clinton campaign decided to use the race card. A senior campaign official, Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire, warned voters that Obama might not be the suitable candidate because were he to win the Democratic nomination, those nasty Republicans could bring up the fact that Obama has admitted to using marijuana and cocaine in his youth. Might the Republicans not even ask whether Obama had also been a drug dealer? This was clearly playing to the deep seated stereotype that some white people harbor -- of Blacks as natural born criminals and drug dealers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/22/AR2007122201762.html

The Secure America Plan

A 9-Point Strategy for Immigration Enforcement and Border Security

Overview: Implement a broad-based strategy that commits the resources of the federal government to the enforcement of our immigration laws and results in the attrition of the illegal immigrant population.

1. Build the Fence

Ensure that an interlocking surveillance camera system is installed along the border by July 1, 2010.
Ensure that the border fence construction is completed by July 1, 2010.

2. Increase Border Patrol

Increase the number of border patrol agents.
Fully support all law enforcement personnel tasked with enforcing immigration law.

3. Prevent Amnesty

Policies that promote or tolerate amnesty will be rejected.
Propose to provide all illegal immigrants a 120-day window to register with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and leave the country. Those who register and return to their home country will face no penalty if they later apply to immigrate or visit; those who do not return home will be, when caught, barred from future reentry for a period of 10 years.

4. Enforce the Law on Employers

Employment is the chief draw for most illegal immigrants and denying them jobs is the centerpiece of an attrition strategy.
Impose steep fines and penalties on employers that violate the law.
Institute a universal, mandatory citizenship verification system as part of the normal hiring process.
Prevent the IRS and the Social Security Administration from accepting fraudulent Social Security numbers or numbers that don't match the employees' names.*

  5.  Establish an Economic Border

Move toward passage of the FairTax.
The FairTax provides an extra layer of security by creating an economic disincentive to immigrate to the U.S. illegally.
 

 6.  Empower Local Authorities

Promote better cooperation on enforcement by supporting legislative measures such as the CLEAR Act, which aims to systematize the relationship between local law and federal immigration officials.
Encourage immigration-law training for police. Local authorities must be provided the tools, training, and funding they need so local police can turn illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities.

7. Ensure Document Security

End exemptions for Mexicans and Canadians to the US-VISIT program, which tracks the arrival and departure of foreign visitors. Since these countries account for the vast majority of foreigners coming here (85 percent), such a policy clearly violates Congress' intent in mandating this check-in/check-out system.
Reject Mexico's "matricula consular" card, which functions as an illegal-immigrant identification card.

8. Discourage Dual Citizenship

Inform foreign governments when their former citizens become naturalized U.S. citizens.
Impose civil and/or criminal penalties on American citizens who illegitimately use their dual status (e.g., using a foreign passport, voting in elections in both a foreign country and the U.S.).

9. Modernize the Process of Legal Immigration

Eliminate the visa lottery system and the admission category for adult brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens.
Increase visas for highly-skilled and highly-educated applicants.
Expedite processing for those who serve honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Improve our immigration process so that those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American dream.  Governor Huckabee has always been grateful to live in a country that people are trying to break into, rather than break out of.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=26

Pardon Me?

Hillary Clinton Takes Cash From Recipients of Husband's Controversial Pardons

By JAKE TAPPER
Nov. 15, 2007
Font Size
   
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety.

"It does raise the appearance that this is payback," Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=3866786&page=1

Clinton Campaign Accused for the Second Time of Planting a Question at a Public Appearance
Saturday, November 10, 2007

By Major Garrett

Fox News

SIOUX CITY, Iowa ?  For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances, FOX News has learned.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, said he was approached by Clinton campaign worker Chris Hayler to ask a question about how she was standing up to President Bush on the question on funding the Iraq war and a troop withdrawal timeline.

The encounter happened before an event hosted by Iowa State Sen. Gene Frais on a farm outside Fort Madison, Iowa.

Clinton's Iowa campaign confirmed to Fox News that one of its staff discussed questions with Mitchell before her April 2 event, but denied attempting to plant a pro-Clinton question.

Mo Elliethee, spokesman for Clinton's campaign in Iowa, told Fox that Hayler and Mitchell "had a previous relationship" and that a discussion about Clinton arose out of a normal conversation between two people who knew each other well.

"They had a previous relationship and were talking before the event and the topic of the senator's position on Iraq came up and Geoffrey said he had some questions," Elliethee said. "Chris suggested Geoffrey ask a question."

Mitchell, however, said that he and Hayler did not know each other personally before the event.

"I had no previous relationship with him," said Mitchell. "I knew his name and by name only as some who worked for Sen. Evan Bayh. But we didn't know each other and I had never met him before this event."

Mitchell told Fox the Clinton campaign wanted to contrast Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama who had recently said the president would probably prevail in the Iraq funding battle with Congress.

Mithell said he refused to ask the question.

"I told Chris I had other issues I wanted to raise with Sen. Clinton," Mitchell said.

Asked what those were, Mitchell said, "I wanted to ask her why she voted for the Iraq war and why she didn't consider that a mistake."

Mitchell told FOX News, for that Hayler, the Clinton campaign worker, was unhappy and moved on to others.

"I know he tried to have others ask that question," Mitchell said.

Asked if the Clinton campaign denied Mitchell's unequivocal assertion that Hayler tried to plant a question about Clinton trying to stand up to Bush on Iraq war funding, Elliethee declined.

"I'm not going to comment on what he said," said Elleithee said, referring to Mitchell. "I'm going to discuss what our interpretation is. They had a previous relationship, the subject came up and there's nothing more to it tha that. It's not newsworthy. It's innocent. It's not yesterday."

That was a reference to Clinton's campaign admitting, first to FOX News, that it planted a question on global warming at a Newton, Iowa, event on Tuesday.

Click here to read a report on the Iowa incident.

Ultimately, Clinton took no questions from the crowd at the Fort Madison event that Mitchell attended. Elliethee said the campaign ran out of time to take questions.

Mitchell told Fox News he is an Obama supporter but cannot participate in the Iowa caucus.

Mitchell is a minister in Hamilton and said he was reluctant to come forward because of the scrutiny he and his congregation might receive.

"But I thought this was important to get out and I want people to know what happened."

When contacted by FOX News and read Clinton's interpretation of events, Mitchell said: "I stand by my story. Completely."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310417,00.html