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Ruff Communications Anthony Anderson Promotes SB-600

2009-04-15T16:28:00.003-05:00

Burge Arrested On Civil Rights Charges In Florida

2008-10-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

Former Police Detective Commander Had Reputation For Torture

TAMPA, Fla. (CBS) ― Former Police Cmdr. Jon Burge — who has cast a long shadow over the Chicago Police Department because of accusations he tortured suspects for two decades — was arrested by FBI agents Tuesday morning on civil rights charges in his hometown near Tampa.

It was long believed Burge could not be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. But the FBI arrested Burge, 60, before dawn at his Apollo Beach, Fla., home on federal charges stemming from his conduct at the Chicago Police Department.

The arrest capped a long-running controversy over allegations that torture was used against suspects at Burge's Calumet Area violent crimes headquarters during the 1970s and 80s. He has been accused of torturing suspects by using cattle prods, bags over their heads and a "black box" that administered electric shocks.

Federal prosecutors in Chicago obtained a sealed indictment charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice when he answered questions about police torture. Specifically, the indictment charges that Burge lied in written answers to a civil rights lawsuit when he said he and other detectives hadn't participated in such activities as the "bagging" of a suspect -- covering his head with a typewriter cover until he couldn't breathe.

"There is no place for torture and abuse in a police station," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement issued after the arrest. "There is no place for perjury and false statements in federal lawsuits. No person is above the law and no person -- even a suspected murderer -- is beneath its protection."

Chicago FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert Grant added: "Every day Chicago Police Officers execute their sworn duties lawfully with great skill, courage and integrity. Sometimes they do so with great peril, as we have been sadly reminded in recent weeks and months. But police officers have a special duty which is underscored by today's announcement. Police officers don't serve the public as judge and jury and they have a special responsibility to care for those within their custody, regardless of their alleged crimes. Today's announcement brings great shame on the career of retired Commander Jon Burge."

Burge was arrested after federal prosecutors in Chicago obtained a sealed indictment charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice statements he made when answering questions about allegations of police torture in a civil lawsuit.

According to the indictment, Burge was asked whether he had been involved in the torture of homicide suspect Madison Hobley and said: "I have not observed nor do I have knowledge of any other examples of physical abuse and/or torture on the part of Chicago police officers at Area 2."

He repeatedly answered similar questions with flat denials.

Hobley claims he was tortured into giving a confession.

Burge was fired from the department in 1993 after the Chicago Police Board found he tortured accused police killer Andrew Wilson into giving a confession. Burge was never charged with a crime, and moved to Florida soon after his firing.

The former detective has continued receiving a city pension and taxpayer-paid legal representation.

Last year, the city spent nearly $20 million settling four cases lodged by men who were freed from Death Row after saying they were tortured into giving false confessions by or under Burge. The former commander was subpoenaed to give depositions in those lawsuits.

In 2006, a $7 million report by special Cook County prosecutors found that Burge, a Vietnam veteran, and his underlings tortured criminal suspects for two decades while police brass allegedly looked the other way.

The special prosecutors who authored the report concluded no charges could be filed because time had run out under the statute of limitations. Both special prosecutors, Robert Boyle and Edward Egan, have since died.

Late last year, five Chicago aldermen sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald calling on him to "investigate, indict and prosecute" Burge for torturing suspects.

In 2003, former Gov. George Ryan pardoned four men after deeming they were tortured into giving confessions by Burge or under Burge's command. One of those men, Aaron Patterson, is back in prison on an unrelated conviction. There is also a pending federal criminal investigation against Hobley.

An attorney who represents two men allegedly tortured by Burge's detectives called the arrest of "enormous symbolic importance" in Chicago, where the police department has long been dogged by allegations of misconduct.

"This has been a symbol of a pattern of racism and of police as an occupier in certain neighborhoods, and the federal government stepping in here just has enormous importance even if it only this one case," said Locke Bowman, of the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law.

The Rev. Al Sharpton says said Burge's arrest was long overdue Sharpton said Burge's arrest is a good sign, but he urged federal officials to continue investigating abuse allegations and who else might have been involved.

Chicago Police said in an official statement that department should not be judged based on Burge's actions.

"The Chicago Police Department has always supported the Special Prosecutor's investigation and has been committed to cooperating on every level," the statement said. "What occurred 20 years ago should not tarnish or diminish the dedicated service of 13,500 men and women who do a good job protecting the citizens of Chicago every day."

The statement added, "Today's news reinforces even further our obligation as law enforcement to reassure the public that the Department is moving forward in the right direction and that we continue to place emphasis on accountability and internal discipline like never before."

The two obstruction counts against Burge each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The perjury count carries up to five years. Each count also provides for a $250,000 fine.

Burge was scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon court appearance in Tampa, Fla. and tentatively scheduled to be arraigned in Chicago Nov. 27.

--Sun-Times staff reporters Natasha Korecki and Frank Main contributed to this report, via the STNG Wire. The Associated Press also contributed.

Powell endorses Obama as 'transformational'

2008-10-19T12:52:00.001-05:00

Mike Allen, Jonathan Martin Mike Allen, Jonathan Martin Sun Oct 19, 9:55 am ET

Retired General Colin L. Powell, one of the country's most respected Republicans, stunned both parties on Sunday by strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president on NBC's "Meet the Press" and laying out a blistering, detailed critique of the modern GOP.

Powell said the election of Obama would "electrify the world."

"I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said. "He is a new generation coming ... onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

As a key reason, Powell said: "I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration."

Powell, once considered likely to be the nation's first African-American presidential nominee, said his decision was not about race.

Moderator Tom Brokaw said: "There will be some ... who will say this is an African-American, distinguished American supporting another African-American because of race."

Powell, who last year gave Republican John McCain's campaign the maximum $2,300, replied: "If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, 10 months ago. I really have been going back and forth between somebody I have the highest respect and regard for, John McCain and somebody I was getting to know, Barack Obama. And it was only in the last couple of months that I settled on this."

"I can't deny that it will be a historic event when an African-American becomes president," Powell continued, speaking live in the studio. "And should that happen, all Americans should be proud — not just African-American, but all Americans — that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It would also not only electrify the country, but electrify the world."

Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said the two men spoke for 10 minutes at 10 a.m., and that the candidate thanked Powell for his endorsement and said "he looked forward to taking advantage of his advice in the next two weeks and hopefully over the next four years."

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign had not been told of the endorsement: "We didn’t know until General Powell spoke on 'Meet The Press' ."

Powell, making his 30th appearance on "Meet the Press," said he does not plan to campaign for Obama. He led into his endorsement by saying: "We've got two individuals — either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now — which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time.

"And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."

Powell said that he is "troubled" by the direction of the Republican Party, and said he began to doubt McCain when he chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"Not just small towns have values," he said, responding to one of Palin's signature lines.

"She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired," he said. "But at the same, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made."

The endorsement is likely to help the Illinois senator convince skeptical centrists that he is ready to handle the challenges of commander in chief, and undercuts McCain argument that he is better qualified on national-security issues.

The Arizona senator, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," sought to minimize the endorsement by noting his support from other former secretaries of state and retired military flag officers.

"This doesn’t come as a surprise," McCain said. "But I'm also very pleased to have the endorsement of four former secretaries of state ... and I'm proud to have the endorsement of well over 200 retired generals and admirals. I respect and continue to respect and admire Secretary Powell."

While McCain only reiterated his respect for Powell when asked about the move, others in the GOP were more candid.

One prominent conservative who knows both McCain and Powell said that for all the secretary of state's criticism of McCain and his praise of Obama, the move had less to do with the two candidates for president than the current occupant of the Oval Office.

"Powell cares a lot about his reputation with Washington elites and he thinks he was badly damaged by his relationship with the Bush administration," said this Republican. "So this is a way to make up for what he regarded as not being treated well by the Bush administration, not being given the due deferenece he thinks he deserves."

And that Powell would make his decision known in the closing weeks of the election, as it becomes increasingly clear that Obama is the favorite, reflects a calculated political move, says this source.

"Let's be honest – do we think Powell would be doing this if Obama had been trailing six or seven points in the polls?" the source asked, deeming Powell's endorsement "a Profile in Conventional Wisdom."

A friend of the former secretary of state sharply dismissed the idea that Powell's move had anything to do with making up for his service in the Bush years.

"Anybody who is making the argument about 'rehabiliation' was not listening to what he had say today," said the friend, suggesting Powell clear that he was unhappy with the state of the party. "It's absolute horseshit."

Rush Limbaugh suggested Powell's move was very much related to Obama's status as the first African-American with a chance to become president.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with.

"I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making HIM a 4-star and Secretary of State AND appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."

But others in the party were less dismissive, acknowledging the heft of the respected retired four-star general and the popularity he enjoys across the country.

"The Powell endorsement is a big deal," said Scott Reed, Bob Dole's campaign manager in 1996 and a close friend of McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. "It has been bantered about since August, and shows both Powell and Obama know how to make an impact in the closing days of a tight campaign."

"What that just did in one sound bite -- and I assume that sound bite will end up in an ad -- is it eliminated the experience factor," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, in an appearance on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "How are you going to say the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the former National Security Adviser, former Secretary of State was taken in?"

Powell, 71, also used his Meet the Press appearance to criticize McCain and his campaign for invoking the former domestic terrorist William Ayers.

"Sen. McCain says he a washed-up old terrorist—then why does he keep talking about him?" Powell asked.

"They're trying to connect [Obama] to some kind of terrorist feelings, and I think that's inappropriate," Powell said. "Now I understand what politics is all about — I know how you can go after one another. And that's good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift."

Powell said he has "heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion [that Obama's] a Muslim and might be associated with terrorists."

"This is not the way we should be doing it in America. I feel strongly about this particular point," Powell said. "We have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. And John McCain is as non-discriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

Powell, a four-star Army general, was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan; chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when George H.W. Bush was president; and was President George W. Bush’s first secretary of State.

Powell has consulted with both Obama and McCain, and the general’s camp had indicated in the past that he would not endorse.

Powell said that as he watched McCain, the Republican “was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we were having, and almost every day, there was a different approach to the problem, and that concerned me, sensing that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had."

Powell said a big job of the new president will be “conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world.”

“I think what the president has to do is to start using the power of the Oval Office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and to convince the world that America is solid, America is going to move forward … restoring a sense of purpose,” he said.

"This Powell endorsement is the nail in the coffin," said one Republican official, speaking anonymously to offer candid thoughts about the party's nominee. "Not just because of him, but the indictment he laid out of the McCain campaign."

From Clarence Thomas to Palin

2008-09-29T00:38:00.001-05:00

Palin and Thomas are both casualties of an effort to create a country that measures diversity only in terms of appearance.

Dahlia Lithwick
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 6, 2008

When it comes to the perils of affirmative action, there's nobody as eloquent as Justice Clarence Thomas. In both his legal writing and his autobiography, Thomas rails against affirmative action, not simply because it constitutes "reverse discrimination" but because of the crushing stigma it affixes to the "beneficiaries" (a word Thomas puts in quotation marks). In his autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," he concedes he was admitted to Yale Law School in part because of his race, but goes on to describe the humiliation of postgraduation interviews with "one high-priced lawyer after another" in which he was "asked pointed questions, unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated." He told ABC News that "once it is assumed that everything you do achieve is because of your race, there is no way out … it is irrebuttable and it is proved to be true. In everything now that someone like me does, there's a backwash into your whole life … because of race."

One can dispute whether Thomas's impression of a "backwash" is reasonable, but nobody can argue that his most personal, passionate legal writing vibrates with this shame and anger. In a sharp dissent in a 2003 case allowing race to be used as an admissions factor at Michigan Law School, Thomas described affirmative action as "a cruel farce" under which "all blacks are tarred as undeserving." In an earlier case he wrote that such programs "stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority."

Critics have scoffed at Thomas's tendency to view affirmative action exclusively through the narrow lens of his own life, but it's clear the "badge of inferiority" has tainted a lifetime of achievement. He will never forgive America for the chances he was given or for how small it made him feel. I can't help but wonder what Thomas would say to vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who is now suffering the same stigma of affirmative action, and who shows signs of the same defensiveness and outrage that have marred Thomas's career.

Like Thomas, Palin has been blasted for inexperience, and she has fought back with claims that she is being judged not on her merits but on her gender, just as he felt he was inevitably being judged on his race. While it's possible to assert that Sarah Palin was the most qualified person in America for the vice presidency, only approximately nine people have done so with a straight face. Palin was chosen not because she was the second-best person to run America, but to promote diversity on the ticket, even the political playing field, and to shatter (in her words) some glass ceilings. When she was selected, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes enthused: "As a 44-year-old woman, Mrs. Palin brings desperately needed diversity to the Republican ticket." That's a noble goal, but one most conservatives have disparaged for decades. The most savage bits of Thomas's Michigan Law School dissent warn against fetishizing "diversity" as an "aesthetic" concern of "elites." Thomas hates the notion of flinging the first minority you can lay hold of at a glass ceiling. The McCain campaign elevated it to priority one.

It's not just that the world mistrusts the abilities of the recipient of affirmative action, but that he learns to mistrust the world. Thomas's experience at Yale Law School taught him to doubt anyone who sought to help him, especially those "who offered you a helping hand so long as you were careful to agree with them, but slapped you down if you started acting as if you didn't know your place." Palin has also become a recipient of the know-your-place treatment, as she enters—at this writing—her 29th day of a near media blackout. Palin has been allowed to speak to three television reporters. No press conferences. Just photo ops in fabulous shoes, all of which smells of empty tokenism. Thomas would say that in its most toxic formulation, affirmative action demands its beneficiaries be seen and not heard, and that is precisely what Palin is experiencing. Where Clarence Thomas excoriated liberals for promoting token blacks so America might become a Benetton commercial, John McCain has mastered the fine art of turning women into campaign accessories: flag pins with nice calves.

Liberals inclined to blindly support affirmative action would do well to contemplate the lessons of Palin and Thomas. Although the former exudes self-confidence and the latter seems crippled by self-doubt, both are frozen in a defensive crouch, casualties of an effort to create an America in which diversity is measured solely in terms of appearance. As a result of this simplistic sorting process, Thomas has learned to neatly divide the entire world into angels and demons. Palin casts everyone as either a supporter or a "hater." Thomas thinks that anyone who opposes him is a racist. Palin sees anyone who doubts her as sexist. There is much that is laudable about affirmative action, but its tendency to divide people in often crude ways is not. It can lead to "beneficiaries" who also see the world in crude ways, and to even cruder ways of talking about the very real gender and race disparities that continue to plague America.

Lithwick is a NEWSWEEK contributing editor and senior writer for Slate. A version of this column also appears on slate.com.

How to Cure This Sick System

2008-09-19T15:08:00.005-05:00

Fact and Comment

How to Cure This Sick System

Steve Forbes 10.06.08, 12:00 AM ET

Not even during the Great Depression did we witness what is now unfolding--a sizable number of big financial institutions going under. What enabled their taking on so much debt and so many questionable assets was, primarily, the easy-money policy of the Federal Reserve. Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke created massive amounts of excess liquidity. If the dollar had been kept stable relative to gold, as it was between the end of WWII and the late 1960s, the scale of the bingeing in recent years would have been impossible.

The first prescription for a cure is to formally strengthen the dollar and announce it publicly. A year ago August the price of gold was more than $650 per ounce. In late 2003 it had breached $400. The Fed should declare that its goal for gold is around $500 to $550. That would stabilize the buck--and stability is essential if animal spirits and risk taking are to revive.

Also of immediate urgency is for regulators to suspend any mark-to-market rules for long-term assets. Short-term assets should not be given arbitrary values unless there are actual losses. The mark-to-market mania of regulators and accountants is utterly destructive. It is like fighting a fire with gasoline.

Think of the mark-to-market madness this way: You buy a house for $350,000 and take out a $250,000 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Your income is more than adequate to make the monthly payments. But under mark-to-market rules the bank could call up and say that if your house had to be sold immediately, it would fetch maybe $200,000 in such a distressed sale. The bank would then tell you that you owe $250,000 on a house worth only $200,000 and to please fork over the $50,000 immediately or else lose the house.

Absurd? Obviously. But that's what, in effect, is happening today. Thus institutions with long-term assets are having to drastically reprice them downward. And so the crisis feeds on itself.
The SEC should immediately reverse its foolish decision to get rid of the so-called uptick rule in short-selling. That would provide a small road bump to the short-selling that's helping to destroy financial institutions.

At the same time the SEC should promulgate an emergency rule (which we thought was already the rule): No naked short-selling. That is, you have to own or borrow shares in a company before you can short it. The rules should make clear that short-sellers must have ample documentation proving they truly possess the shares at the time of the short sale. Otherwise, each violation will result in heavy fines. That wouldn't be a road bump but a wall of Everest-like proportions.

Regulators should also be told to instruct banks to keep their solvent customers solvent. The last thing the economy needs right now is for the banking system to seize up.
The federal government should also consider setting up a new Resolution Trust Corp., which was devised during the savings and loan crisis nearly 20 years ago as a dumping ground for bad S&L assets. Today's bad assets could then be liquidated in an orderly way. And, finally, the financial industry should be encouraged to create new exchanges for exotic instruments. This would result in the standardization of these things, which would mean more transparency.

These steps would quickly revive financial markets. Already mortgage rates are coming down. It won't be long before American homeowners start an avalanche of refinancings, which would be an enormous boon to confidence and the economy.

What Makes Our Ever Changing 400 List Possible

Prophet of Innovation--by Thomas K. McCraw (Harvard University Press, $35). An excellent, thorough and smoothly written biography of Joseph Schumpeter, the greatest economist of the 20th century. Too bad most politicos--and economists--don't fully grasp his insights.

Born in 1883 in a province of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire that is now part of the Czech Republic, Schumpeter recognized at a young age that the critical factor in economic progress was the entrepreneur, the innovator. To him it was the risk taker who brought about new products and services and more efficient ways of making and doing things. A free-market, capitalist economy, he emphasized, meant constant change, often disruptive and disorienting to traditional ways of doing things. Competition wasn't just the jousting of existing firms that had similar products but also encompassed the threat that came from a truly new product, new technology or new type of organization.

Schumpeter made the distinction between an inventor and an innovator: The innovator takes an idea or product and figures out how to produce it efficiently and profitably. His term describing one process, "creative destruction," has become a catchphrase of our own era.

Schumpeter's perceptions here were profound, although most of his time's economists--and politicians--downplayed or ignored them. Today, though, things seem different. Even Demo-crats occasionally pay lip service to the risk takers' and entrepreneurs' importance to economic growth. Yet Democratic policies, such as raising the cost of capital and reducing its availability, would devastate them. Similarly, while economists doff their caps to Schumpeter, their professional research downplays innovation because it is impossible to quantify and not conducive to mathematical models. So the appreciation of this genius is still superficial.

One drawback is that Schumpeter was not a "feel-good" economist like Keynes, whose apostles believed that properly manipulating government fiscal and monetary tools would generate perpetual prosperity, with nary a bust or a bout of irrational exuberance. Innovation, however, is not a smooth process but comes in fits and starts. That's why, Schumpeter pointed out, a healthy economy is subject to cycles of boom and bust.

In the early 1980s, for example, personal computers became the hot new product. Then came the inevitable shakeout. Many companies, such as Atari, Commodore and Osborne, bit the dust.

But PCs became more powerful. Innovators learned to network PCs, enabling them to easily replace expensive mainframe computers with the significantly cheaper and more versatile PCs.

In the early 20th century the automobile went through similar booms and busts: Before World War I there were more than 300 auto manufacturers in the U.S. Another vivid testimony to innovation's disruption and destruction is today's fast-shrinking newspaper industry, a victim of the Internet.

Schumpeter recognized that a dynamic economy creates wide inequality. A successful entrepreneur, his investors and even some of his employees (think Microsoft) will get rich.

However, this is not the kind of static inequality one sees in semifeudalistic, oligarchic economies that exist in South America and elsewhere, where the same handful of people are wealthy and everyone else struggles. A truly capitalist economy will see the players change repeatedly. Facts back up Schumpeter's insight. IRS data show that 75% of the very top income earners in the mid-1990s are no longer in that category.

Growing up in a turbulent part of Europe made Schumpeter realize that life did not follow a smooth-running, gentle path. In contrast, Britons such as John Maynard Keynes tended to see the economy in more static terms. Even American economists tended toward a rather static view of the world. Harvard's late, once renowned John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a book in the 1960s whose thesis was that major corporations such as Ford Motor Co. were the epitome of economic development and lived by their own laws rather than those of the marketplace. Today once formidable giants, such as Ford and General Motors, are struggling just to stay alive financially.

Schumpeter was a genius at dissecting the ideologies and prejudices of other economists. Karl Marx, for example, also observed the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial capitalism. But he mistakenly concluded that this kind of change would inevitably, inexorably impoverish the workers. Instead--as Schumpeter laid out time and time again--an entrepreneurial economy means more people earning more and enjoying a higher standard of living. Adam Smith celebrated the importance of free trade, low taxes, property rights, the enforcement of contracts in enabling people to get richer. But he had very little appreciation of the crucial role individual entrepreneurs and innovators play in the process.

Schumpeter acknowledged that governments would have to play a role--one hopes a constructive one--in creating conditions in which creative destruction could play out. In the U.S., for instance, farm subsidies helped ameliorate the political backlash when technology and manufacturing sharply reduced employment in the agricultural sector. A century ago one in 4
Americans made his or her living in agriculture; today it's fewer than one in 75.

What made Schumpeter especially insightful was that he was truly a multidisciplinary individual. He was well versed in politics, sociology and history. By the time he finished his secondary education he had mastered six languages. He would look upon the bulk of today's economists, with their obsession with numbers and regression analysis, as hideously narrow-minded and suffering from academic constipation.

As he grew older, Schumpeter became pessimistic about democratic capitalism. He observed that the sons and daughters of successful entrepreneurs often became leftists or outright socialists. His own varied life undoubtedly added to his gloomy outlook. He had moved numerous times and seen convulsions aplenty. World War I broke up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, creating, among other things, the state of Austria--what wags dubbed "a bureaucracy without an empire." After the war Schumpeter served briefly as its finance minister. It was a disastrous experience. Knowing the right things to do does not automatically make them politically possible.

He lasted less than a year in the job. Only when inflationary conditions worsened did subsequent ministers adopt some of his policies. The rise of Nazism in Germany--Schumpeter taught there until the early 1930s, at which time he accepted an offer from Harvard--was a personally vivid example of how a great nation can self-destruct and threaten civilization itself.

Schumpeter would certainly take a dim view of what many politicians in America are offering up these days. But the actual history of Britain and the U.S., after his death in 1950, might have lightened the darkness of his long-term outlook. As long as a society remains free, entrepreneurs can prevent ossification. The U.S.' great comeback under President Ronald Reagan is one vivid example, as is Britain's under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Once taxes were cut and structural reforms made, Britain morphed from the sick man of Europe into Europe's most dynamic large economy. Schumpeter would also have been astonished by the fall of the Soviet Union.

www.ruffcommunications.com

Affirmative action and the bar exam

2008-09-17T10:28:00.002-05:00

Affirmative action and the bar exam

A California professor studying affirmative action should have access to law school performance statistics.

September 17, 2008

Americans have been debating the fairness and efficacy of racial preferences in college and graduate school admissions for more than 30 years. Now a UCLA professor is seeking to test his hypothesis that affirmative action programs actually hurt the career prospects of minority law school graduates. But he has been hampered in his research by the indefensible failure of the State Bar of California to provide the statistics he needs.

The professor, Richard H. Sander, has requested data about the performance of white and minority law school graduates on the bar examination, along with information about the schools they attended and their grades. In resisting his request, bar officials cite the need to protect the privacy of test takers and to honor an agreement that test material will remain confidential. At the same time, some defenders of affirmative action have argued against releasing the data because they think Sander's project could have only one purpose: to discredit the idea of racial preferences.

The privacy and legal arguments strike us as spurious, a view shared by the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, which has joined Sander and his colleagues in asking the state Supreme Court to order the release of the information. Sander has promised that no individual student would be identified by the statistics, which would break down performance by law school.

It's also unfair to accuse Sander of seeking to dismantle racial preferences. True, his hypothesis is that affirmative action students are disserved because they derive less benefit from an elite law school than students who meet the usual admission standards. This is the "mismatch" theory, which suggests that students who are weaker than their classmates will often do better academically -- and on the bar exam -- if they attend a less-competitive school.

The mismatch theory may be mistaken. But suppose it were found to be valid? That wouldn't necessarily lead to the abolition of racial preferences. Another result might be the strengthening of mentorship and other programs to help less-well-prepared students achieve at higher levels.

An additional objection to Sander's project is that good marks on the bar exam don't guarantee success in the practice of law. Perhaps so. If the exam does a poor job of measuring the credentials of lawyers, it ought to be revised. But that has no bearing on Sander's request.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that carefully tailored affirmative action programs didn't violate the Constitution. California, when it approved Proposition 209 in 1996, exercised its right under that decision to outlaw racial preferences in public educational institutions. The debate over affirmative action continues.

Regardless of what we think of Sander's hypothesis, he should be given the data he seeks. Defenders of affirmative action should not fear a serious examination of how well it's working.

www.ruffcommunications.com

Battleground Update: The Red States Get Redder, The Blue States Get Purpler

2008-09-16T20:30:00.003-05:00

Andrew Romano

The current Real Clear Politics electoral map reflects the latest polls; it is not a prediction of the outcome

One week ago today, I launched Stumper's general-election coverage with an in-depth look at where the "Race for the White House" stood in the wake of the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. While the national polls had swung about 9 points in John McCain's direction since the Democrats left Denver, the Real Clear Politics electoral map still tilted every so slightly toward Barack Obama, 273 to 265. But the Illinois senator's slim lead was hardly set in stone--as I noted at the time. "No battleground state polls have been released since the second day of the Republican Convention," I wrote. "If the national surveys are right and McCain has in fact received a 5-point post-St. Paul bounce, that enthusiasm will almost certainly trickle down." I promised to revisit the map once the dust had settled.

Well, now it has. And what it shows is ... drumroll, please ... more of the same. According to Real Clear Politics, this week's map, posted above, is identical to last week's. Obama is still leading 273 electoral votes to 265.

Does that mean that Obama has emerged unscathed? Hardly. The Democratic nominee may have managed to maintain his razor-thin eight-vote margin--but he's done it by the skin of his teeth. Even if McCain has yet to flip a state, a closer look at the latest battleground polling reveals that the Arizonan's gains have, in fact, trickled down. They've had two effects. First, a handful of red states that Obama once hoped to win now seem either out of reach or more favorable to McCain, whether temporarily or permanently. And second, McCain is suddenly within striking distance in a group of Blue States where Obama until recently enjoyed a comfortable lead. The result: a campaign that once boasted about redrawing the electoral map by targeting an unprecedented 18 battlegrounds has been forced to focus on a more familiar swath of states--and even play defense in places it had hoped to win easily. In the last week, the Red States have gotten redder--and the Blue States have gotten purpler.

Take Montana and Georgia. In 2004, George W. Bush won the former by 20.5 percent and the later by 16.6 percent. But after clinching the Democratic nomination in early June, Obama put both states on his target list and deployed hundreds of volunteers and staffers to Atlanta and Helena to open field offices and register voters. He had reason for optimism. In early July, Rasmussen showed Obama ahead in Montana by 5 points; at the same time, an Insider Advantage poll put him a mere 2 points behind McCain in Georgia. But the latest surveys from those same firms tell a different story. According to an Insider Advantage sounding released last Thursday, McCain now leads 56-38 in the Peach State--an 18-point gulf. Meanwhile, the first postconvention poll by Rasmussen gives the Republican an 11-point advantage in the Treasure State, 53-42. Real Clear Politics has McCain ahead by an average of 13.4 percent in the former and 9.0 percent in the latter. Which means they may be out of reach.

The news for Obama in the key Bush states of Ohio and Florida isn't any better. In late July, the battle for the Sunshine State was tied at about 45 percent on average, and after Denver, Obama trailed by as little as 2.6 percent. But in the post-St. Paul period, McCain's Florida numbers have skyrocketed. Since last Monday, four surveys have hit the wires, with PPP (McCain +5), Quinnipiac (+7) and Insider Advantage (+8) all showing a growing lead for McCain; only FOX News still puts Obama within striking distance. According to the RCP average, McCain now boasts his largest edge (5 percent) since late June. The McCainward shift in the Buckeye State looks much the same. Of the six polls released since St. Paul, five show the Arizonan ahead--boosting him to his biggest RCP lead in this crucial, close-run battleground (2.5 percent) since mid-May. Even Virginia, a Bush state where Obama had held McCain to a tie for much of the cycle, seems to have drifted right. There, McCain now leads by 2.6 percent, 49.3 to 46.7--the largest margin for either candidate since May. The Republican nominee has also edged ahead in the latest polls out of New Mexico and Nevada--both Red in 2004, both leaning toward Obama before St. Paul.

But the most troubling developments for the Dems are probably in two states Kerry won in 2004: Pennsylvania and Minnesota. At the end of July, Obama led in the Keystone State by a whopping nine points, 51.7 percent to 41.7 percent; at the start of September he was ahead by a healthy five, 47.4 to 42.4. The three polls released since St. Paul, however, show McCain closing fast. In the Quinnipiac survey, McCain trails by a measly three points after lagging by seven in mid-August; Strategic Vision and Rasmussen put him within two. Overall, Obama's average lead in Pennsylvania--2.3 percent--is his smallest since capturing the nomination. And while a CNN/Gallup poll released between the conventions gave Obama a 12-point lead in Minnesota, the two soundings out since the GOP left the state earlier this month suggest that McCain is either tied with Obama at 45 percent (Star Tribune) or trailing by a statistically insignificant 2-percent margin (Survey USA). Couple that with the surprising 46 Obama-43 McCain result in the latest Wisconsin survey, and the Rust Belt and upper Midwest are starting to look too close for Chicago's comfort.

It's not all doom and gloom for Obama. So far this month, he's seems to have solidified his narrow margin in Michigan and New Hampshire (states McCain is hoping to flip) while expanding his edges in the Bush states of Iowa and Colorado, where he now leads by 9.7 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively. If he wins these states in November--along with Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Mexico--he wins the White House. New Democratic registrations and Chicago's sophisticated field operation will surely help. But what the last week of polling has shown beyond any doubt is that McCain's successful convention and shocking choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate have shifted the map ever so slightly to the right, transforming a landscape that favored Obama into a landscape that favors, well, no one. For the next six weeks, then, expect Obama and Joe Biden to play defense (Pennsylvania, Michigan) as well as offense (Colorado, Virginia, Nevada) while focusing much of their attention on the king of all swing states: Ohio. But don't expect the final map to look all that different from 2004.

UPDATE, Sept. 16: Prof. Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin agrees with our analysis:

Among the strong Republican states, McCain has gained more than 8 points over Obama since shortly before the conventions, turning a 14 point lead into a 22.5 point margin, a huge gain. Among the strong Democratic states, the effect of the conventions is a tiny 2 point move in McCain's direction, from an Obama lead of 12 points before to 10 points now. But the rest of the states, rated lean or toss up, have also shown movement. These swing states had a 1.5 point Obama lead before the conventions, and that has now turned into a 3 point McCain lead, a 4.5 point shift.

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If You Like Michigan's Economy, You'll Love Obama's

2008-09-14T00:07:00.004-05:00

OPINION

If You Like Michigan's Economy, You'll Love Obama's
By PHIL GRAMM and MIKE SOLONSeptember 13, 2008; Page A13

Despite the federal government's growing economic dominance, individual states still exercise substantial freedom in pursuing their own economic fortune -- or misfortune. As a result, the states provide a laboratory for testing various policies.

In this election year, the experience of the states gives us some ability to look at the economic policies of the two presidential candidates in action. If a program is not playing in Peoria, it probably won't work elsewhere. Americans have voted with their feet by moving to states with greater opportunities, but federal adoption of failed state programs would take away our ability to walk away from bad government.

Growth in jobs, income and population are proof that a state is prospering. But figuring out why one state does well while another struggles requires in-depth analysis. In an effort to explain differences in performance, think tanks have generated state-based economic freedom indices modeled on the World Economic Freedom Index published by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation.

A TAX TO GRIND

Personal-income growth suffers when states adopt a tax-and-spend approach to fiscal policy. (Read more.)

The Competitiveness Index created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) identifies "16 policy variables that have a proven impact on the migration of capital -- both investment capital and human capital -- into and out of states." Its analysis shows that "generally speaking, states that spend less, especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less, particularly on productive activities such as working or investing, experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more."

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.

The rewards for success were huge. Texas gained 1.7 million net new jobs, Florida gained 1.4 million and Arizona gained 600,000. While the U.S. average job growth percentage was 9.9%, Texas, Florida and Arizona had job growth of 18.5%, 21.4% and 28.9%, respectively.

Remarkably, a third of all the jobs in the U.S. in the last 10 years were created in these three states. While the population of the three highest-performing states grew twice as fast as the national average, per-capita real income still grew by $6,563 or 21.4% in Texas, Florida and Arizona. That's a $26,252 increase for a typical family of four.

By comparison, Illinois gained only 122,000 jobs, Ohio lost 62,900 and Michigan lost 318,000.

Population growth in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois was only 4.2%, a third the national average, and real income per capita rose by only $3,466, just 58% of the national average. Workers in the three least successful states had to contend with a quarter-million fewer jobs rather than taking their pick of the 3.7 million new jobs that were available in the three fastest-growing states.

In Michigan, the average family of four had to make ends meet without an extra $8,672 had their state matched the real income growth of the three most successful states. Families in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois struggled not because they didn't work hard enough, long enough or smart enough. They struggled because too many of their elected leaders represented special interests rather than their interests.

What explains this relative performance over the last 10 years? The simple answer is that governance, taxes and regulatory policy matter. The playing field among the states was not flat.

Business conditions were better in the successful states than in the lagging ones. Capital and labor gravitated to where the burdens were smaller and the opportunities greater.

It costs state taxpayers far less to succeed than to fail. In the three most successful states, state spending averaged $5,519 per capita. In the three least successful states, state spending averaged $6,484 per capita. Per capita taxes were $7,063 versus $8,342.

There also appears to be a clear difference between union interests and the worker interests. Texas, Florida and Arizona are right-to-work states, while Michigan, Ohio and Illinois are not.

Michigan, Ohio and Illinois impose significantly higher minimum wages than Texas, Florida and Arizona. Yet with all the proclaimed benefits of unionism and higher minimum wages, Texas, Florida and Arizona workers saw their real income grow more than twice as fast as workers in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Incredibly, the business climate in Michigan is now so unfavorable that it has overwhelmed the considerable comparative advantage in auto production that Michigan spent a century building up. No one should let Michigan politicians blame their problems solely on the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Yes, Michigan lost 83,000 auto manufacturing jobs during the past decade and a half, but more than 91,000 new auto manufacturing jobs sprung up in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

So what do the state laboratories tell us about the potential success of the economic programs presented by Barack Obama and John McCain?

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to know something about the "infamous" top 1% of income tax filers:

In order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich, it isn't the Rockefellers they're talking about; it's the companies where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the end of his first term. Mr.
Obama's program offers no hope, or even a promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.

Mr. Gramm is a former Republican senator from Texas. Mr. Solon founded the consulting firm Capitol Legistics.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

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Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive

2008-09-12T15:36:00.002-05:00

September 12, 2008

Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive

Democrats’ double-digit lead on the “generic ballot” slips to 3 points

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters' "generic ballot" preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.

As is true for the current structure of voting preferences for president, Democratic voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Democratic candidate in their congressional districts (92%), Republican voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Republican candidate (94%), and independents are closely split, with 44% backing the Democrat and 40% the Republican.

The new results come from a Sept. 5-7 survey conducted immediately after the Republican National Convention and mirror the resulting enhanced position of the Republican Party seen in several other indicators. These range from John McCain's improved standing against Barack Obama in the presidential race to improved favorability ratings of the Republicans, to Republican gains in party identification. The sustainability of all of these findings is an open question that polling will answer over the next few weeks.

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup's "likely voter" model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

If these numbers are sustained through Election Day -- a big if -- Republicans could be expected to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

As Gallup's long-term "generic ballot" trend shows, the Democrats held a sizable lead on this measure from the time they won back control of Congress in the fall of 2006 through last month. If the current closer positioning of the parties holds, the structure of congressional preferences will be similar to most of the period from 1994 through 2005, when Republicans won and maintained control of Congress.

Congressional Approval Also Troubling for Democrats

With only 18% of Americans in August saying they approve of the job Congress is doing, similar to the average 20% approval rating for Congress all year, the Democrats in Congress have additional cause for concern. This scant level of approval could signal that voters are in the mood for change, disproportionately hurting Democratic incumbents.

The last time the yearly average for approval of Congress approached this low a level was in 2006, when the Republicans lost majority control of Congress after 12 years in power. The previous occasion was in 1994, when the Republicans wrested control from the Democrats. In both of these midterm election years, the average congressional approval score was 25%. However, with an 18% approval rating for Congress in 1992, the Democrats succeeded in holding their majority in Congress. That was a presidential year in which the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, won.

The issues raised by today's low approval ratings of Congress are reinforced by recent Gallup Poll findings that relatively few voters generally believe "most members" of Congress deserve re-election. That figure was only 36% in July, much lower than the 51% or better reading found in recent election years when the party of the sitting majority in Congress maintained power.

Bottom Line

The new USA Today/Gallup measurement of generic ballot preferences for Congress casts some doubt on the previously assumed inevitability of the Democrats' maintaining control of Congress.

Until now, the dark shadow cast by George W. Bush's widespread unpopularity has suppressed Republican Party identification nationwide, as well as voters' willingness to support the Republican candidate running for Congress in their district.

Now that the symbolic leadership of the party is shifting away from Bush and toward the suddenly popular Republican presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, things may be changing. This shrinks Bush's shadow over the Republicans, revealing more of the Democrats' own shadow stemming from high disapproval of Congress. The key question is how much of this is temporary because of the tremendous bounce in support for the Republicans on many dimensions coming right off of their convention. The degree to which the Republican bounce is sustained, rather than dissipates, in the weeks ahead will determine whether the 2008 race for Congress could in fact be highly competitive, rather than a Democratic sweep.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,022 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Sept. 5-7, 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 959 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

Results for likely voters are based on the subsample of 823 survey respondents deemed most likely to vote in the November 2008 general election, according to a series of questions measuring current voting intentions and past voting behavior. For results based on the total sample of likely voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points. The "likely voter" model assumes a turnout of 60% of national adults. The likely voter sample is weighted to match this assumption, so the weighted sample size is 613.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com.

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Economic Woes Seen Greeting President

2008-09-12T15:28:00.003-05:00

ECONOMIC FORECASTING SURVEY

Economic Woes Seen
Greeting President

By PHIL IZZO and KELLY EVANS
September 11, 2008 9:00 p.m.; Page A13

The next U.S. president will be confronted with slow growth, high unemployment and an economy teetering toward recession, say 51 private economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

If they are correct, pumping up the economy will the first challenge facing either Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain. That is likely to place tax cuts and government spending high on Washington's agenda, and push back costly measures such as reforming health care and fighting global warming.

The Wall Street Journal's latest monthly survey paints a gloomy picture of the outlook through the first half of 2009. The economy is on course to post four straight quarters of annualized economic growth below 2%, the longest stretch of subpar growth since the 2001 recession.

The respondents saw a 60% chance of an outright recession, expect the economy to shed 19,000 jobs a month for a year, and say the jobless rate, which jumped in August to 6.1%, will keep rising, to 6.4% by midyear, passing the 6.3% seen after the last recession.

The worst stretch will be the next few months, the economists say, coming as elections shift into high gear. Annualized growth in the gross domestic product is projected at 0.7% in the fourth quarter. A few months ago, forecasters thought the economy would be growing at a much faster clip by then.

By inauguration day, Jan. 20, the situation won't have improved much, they say. Growth in the first quarter is projected at a 1.3% annual rate.

CHARTS AND FULL RESULTS

See and download forecasts for growth, unemployment, housing and more. Plus, views on another stimulus package, a consumption slowdown, where the economy will be on election day. Survey conducted Sept. 5-8.

• Real Time Econ: Will Winning in 2012, Be Harder Than 2008?

"Rapidly rising unemployment, rebates behind us, falling house prices, falling stock prices, general loss of confidence and much tighter credit conditions. None of it looks good," said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics.

Not all the news is bad. Inflation is expected to moderate. Economists forecast oil prices to be down to about $102 a barrel by the end of this year, and below $100 a barrel by June, potentially helping to take pressure off stretched households.

Even so, consumers are likely to be hurting. They have been stung not only by rising food and energy prices, but also by a deteriorating job market, tighter credit and falling home prices.

Yvette Perera, 39 years old, of Vallejo, Calif., was laid off in January from her job handling help-wanted ads for a small local paper, and has since been unable to find work. Her unemployment benefits end Nov. 1. "I'm looking for anything," she said. "Anything." On supermarket runs, she tries to limit herself to spending $40.

Sen. McCain has proposed cutting corporate taxes to 25% from 35%, and retaining all the Bush tax cuts on individuals, figuring that would give a boost to business. Sen. Obama would increase tax rates for those making more than $250,000 and use the proceeds for tax cuts aimed at moderate-income workers. Helping them would pump up the economy through consumer spending, his advisers argue.

ABOUT THE SURVEY

The Wall Street Journal surveys a group of 56 economists throughout the year. Broad surveys on more than 10 major economic indicators are conducted every month. Once a year, economists are ranked on how well their forecasts have fared. For prior installments of the surveys, see: WSJ.com/Economists.

On average, the survey respondents expect a 0.1% contraction in consumer spending during the third quarter. It would mark the first such retrenchment by consumers in 17 years. Consumers kept spending during the last recession, to the surprise of many economists. The respondents expect 0.1% growth in consumer spending in the fourth quarter as the holiday shopping season kicks into gear.

Retailers posted weak August same-store sales -- sales at stores open at least a year -- amid a disappointing back-to-school season. On Friday, the Commerce Department is set to release official retail sales numbers for August. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect an anemic monthly advance.

Nearly one-third of economists surveyed said the consumer retrenchment may not be reversed for years, a problem that could quickly rise to the top of the next president's agenda.

The Federal Reserve already has cut interest rates sharply, meaning any future stimulus might need to be driven by the White House. But choosing a fiscal-policy course will be tricky. A rising budget deficit could constrain the next administration. Meantime, tax rebates proved to be only a fleeting help.

Two-thirds of economists said a second stimulus package, currently being debated in Congress and supported by Sen. Obama, isn't the right move. Most support extending or making permanent President George W. Bush's tax cuts, as does Sen. McCain.

Among the economists who support a new stimulus, none said it should primarily be based on rebates to individuals, as Sen. Obama would do. His $115 billion plan includes $65 billion in rebates and $50 billion split between aid to state and local governments, and infrastructure spending. He would pay for the rebates by taxing oil-company profits. Sen. McCain has said he is open to a stimulus plan, but hasn't committed to any specific proposal.

Thirteen percent of the economists who support a stimulus plan said it should include infrastructure spending, which some argue carries more bang for the buck, while 2% said it should focus on extending unemployment insurance and food stamps. Nineteen percent said it should include some mix of rebates, infrastructure spending and benefits.

"You can't afford to bail out the financial system and the real economy at the same time," said Mr. Ashworth.

Write to Phil Izzo at philip.izzo@wsj.com and Kelly Evans at kelly.evans@wsj.com

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Democratic Illinois gov defends Palin's experience

2008-09-12T14:17:00.002-05:00

Friday, September 12, 2008

Democratic Illinois gov defends Palin's experience

CHICAGO Gov. Rod Blagojevich backs Illinois' Barack Obama, but he said Thursday that it is a mistake for fellow Democrats to discount GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's experience as Alaska governor.

The executive job of governor is like the presidency because the officeholder has to make decisions, Blagojevich said. Lawmakers do different things like "debate and...pass their bills back and forth," he said.

Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, was a state senator before being elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois.

"But governors make decisions, and I think it's a tactical mistake for the Democrats to question Gov. Palin's experience when she's been a governor of a state," Blagojevich said on WGN-AM's "Spike O'Dell Show."

Palin has also been the mayor of a small town in Alaska. Her running mate, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, has never served as a governor. He has spent two decades as a U.S. Senator.

Obama's campaign did not comment on Blagojevich's statements. But during a recent interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Obama ducked when asked whether he believed Palin had enough experience to be president.

"I'll let Gov. Palin answer that," Obama said with a smile. "I'm sure she'll be appearing on your show."

Blagojevich said to help Obama win, Democrats should focus on why President Bush's policies need to change.

"I'm for Obama, and I think Barack Obama is gonna do great things for America, and he's gonna change things," Blagojevich said. AP

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Black Voters Fret Over Obama

2008-09-12T14:08:00.002-05:00

Black Voters Fret Over Obama

Close Election Spurs
Nervousness, Anger;
A Boon to Turnout?

By GARY FIELDS and JONATHAN KAUFMAN
September 12, 2008; Page A8

An anxious murmur is rising among black voters as the presidential race tightens: What if Barack Obama loses?

Black talk-show hosts and black-themed Web sites are being flooded with callers and bloggers reflecting a nervousness -- and anger -- over the campaign. Bev Smith, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, devoted her entire three-hour show Monday night to the question: "If Obama doesn't win, what will you think?"

"My audience is upset," she said in an interview. "Some people said they would be so angry it would be reminiscent of the [1960s] riots -- that is how despondent they would be."

Warren Ballentine, another nationally syndicated talk-show host, said: "Once Sarah Palin was picked and African-Americans saw the Republicans ignited again, they got worried. We are scared now."

The worries aren't universal. New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, acknowledged the concerns about race. "I am hearing those jitters," he said. But he said many Democratic candidates have lost the presidential race in recent decades and "they were white candidates. African-Americans need to remember that."

Black nervousness could help Sen. Obama, the first African-American to head a major-party ticket, by boosting black turnout in November. One caller to Ms. Smith's show Monday said she was so worried that she planned to go to her church to begin working on a voter-registration drive.

If Sen. Obama loses, "African-Americans could be disappointed to the point of not engaging in the process anymore," or consider forming a third political party, said Richard McIntire, communications director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Initially skeptical of Sen. Obama's bid, a majority of blacks supported Sen. Hillary Clinton before the primaries began. They began to flock to Sen. Obama's camp following his win in Iowa. The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows 88% of blacks backing Sens. Obama and Joe Biden. Black voter registration has surged.

"There is so much about this campaign that people are taking very personally," said Lynette Clemetson, managing editor of Theroot.com, a Web site that she said attracts African-American professionals in their 30s and 40s. "A large part of this hope surrounding Obama is generational -- that he can crack through what some have long considered basic barriers. If he wins, it's the 'Hallelujah Chorus.'"

But the racial undertone of the campaign has some blacks -- and some whites -- unable to envision the Illinois senator losing the election without racism playing a role.

"If he loses, it will shake the very ground that we stand on mentally as far as what we need to be to succeed," said Robert Gordon, a 48-year-old engineering surveyor from Dallas. "From day one, we've been told to be a certain way, to be neat, intellectual, speak clearly. He is the symbol of what we were told to be by our parents and by society as a whole. If this doesn't work, what does that do to our psyche? What do I tell my sons?"

Twyla Griffin, who works for a health-care company outside Detroit, said she was feeling optimistic about the country's racial progress as she watched Sen. Obama's nomination-acceptance speech on television two weeks ago. But with excitement surging over Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee and polls showing the race to be close, she said she now finds herself asking: "Can people bring themselves to go into a voting booth and pull the lever for a black man?"

Melvin Thomas, a professor at North Carolina State University and past president of the Association of Black Sociologists, said black response to the election likely will depend on "how African-Americans will see a vote against Mr. Obama. What does the racial distribution of that vote look like? If the answer for African-Americans to the question of why Obama lost is race, an Obama loss will have the potential to deepen the racial cut."

Don Moses, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said while he supports Sen. Obama, attributing a loss to race would be an oversimplification and unfair to voters who have legitimate concerns about the candidate. Those concerns include his age and shorter resume, as well as his alienation of "some strong members of the old guard in the Democratic Party," Mr. Moses said. Concluding that the election may be decided by race also would ignore the reasons some might have to support Sen. John McCain, including his military history, he said.

"I would hope if Obama is not elected, black America will not lose sight of the lessons learned and move forward," he said.

Write to Gary Fields at gary.fields@wsj.com and Jonathan Kaufman at jonathan.kaufman@wsj.com

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Obama Can't Win Against Palin

2008-09-12T14:06:00.002-05:00

OPINION

Obama Can't Win
Against Palin

By KARL ROVE
September 11, 2008; Page A13

Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?

It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president.

Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.

Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him "the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states.

If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin résumé, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him -- not her.

Consider Mr. Obama's response to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked him about Republican claims that Mrs. Palin beats him on executive experience. Mr. Obama responded by comparing Wasilla's 50 city workers with his campaign's 2,500 employees and dismissed its budget of about $12 million a year by saying "we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." He claimed his campaign "made clear" his "ability to manage large systems and to execute."

Of course, this ignores the fact that Mrs. Palin is now governor. She manages an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital expenditure budget, and nearly 29,000 full- and part-time state employees. In two years as governor, she's vetoed over $499 million from Alaska's capital budget -- more money than Mr. Obama is likely to spend on his entire campaign.

And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign's day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president?

A debate between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin over executive experience also isn't smart politics for Democrats. As Mr. Obama talks down Mrs. Palin's record, voters may start comparing backgrounds. He won't come off well.

ABOUT KARL ROVE

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Then there was Mr. Obama's blast Saturday about Mrs. Palin's record on earmarks. He went at her personally, saying, "you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person."

It's true. Mrs. Palin did seek earmarks as Wasilla's mayor. But as governor, she ratcheted down the state's requests for federal dollars, telling the legislature last year Alaska "cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." Her budget chief directed state agencies to reduce earmark requests to only "the most compelling needs" with "a strong national purpose," explaining to reporters "we really want to skinny it down."

Mr. Obama has again started a debate he can't win. As senator, he has requested nearly $936 million in earmarks, ratcheting up his requests each year he's been in the Senate. If voters dislike earmarks -- and they do -- they may conclude Mrs. Palin cut them, while Mr. Obama grabs for more each year.

Mr. Obama may also pay a price for his "lipstick on a pig" comment. The last time the word "lipstick" showed up in this campaign was during Mrs. Palin's memorable ad-lib in her acceptance speech. Mr. Obama says he didn't mean to aim the comment at Mrs. Palin, but he deserves all the negative flashback he gets from the snarky aside.

Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women." This is a mistake. Mr. Obama is already finding it difficult to win over independent women and Hillary Clinton voters. If it looks like he's going out of his way to attack Mrs. Palin, these voters may conclude it's because he has a problem with strong women.

In Denver two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." That's what he's trying to do, only the object of his painting is Sarah Palin, not John McCain.

In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly.

Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

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Black Star Brings T.I. to Prologue, Charles Houston and Winnie Mandela Alternative High Schools in Chicago

2008-09-11T08:54:00.003-05:00

Black Star Brings T.I. to Prologue, Charles Houston and Winnie Mandela Alternative High Schools in Chicago

Rapper T.I. surprises North Side students
by Kathy Chaney

In town to promote his upcoming album, "Paper Trail," southern rapper T.I. surprised an auditorium full of students Thursday at a North Side high school.

The Atlanta-born rapper/actor, whose name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., told more than 100 students at Prologue Early College High School on North Cleaver Street to think before they act and not make the same mistakes he's made.

While on his quest to become a well-known lyricist, T.I., also known as the "Rubberband Man," said he's gotten into his share of trouble on the streets and most recently was tangled in legal woes stemming from federal firearm charges.

When asked by a few students if he thought about the bad things he did before he did them, he replied, "Yes, and I did it anyway. That's what you call being dumb."

He told them to not follow in his footsteps and abandon the notion that music influences what you do. Entertainment is just that--entertainment, he told them, it's not reality. What he and others rap is a reality for them, but entertainment for others, he said.

Wearing a "Respect My Vote" T-shirt from his new clothing line, AKOO (A King Of Oneself), T.I. said, "Don't get it twisted. Find out who you are what you like to do. Don't follow behind anyone else. And if you do find yourself getting in trouble, don't blame me and my music for it. I'm in enough trouble. I don't need any help," he said in a joking but serious manner.

T.I. told them that there is nothing wrong with listening to "so-called" gangster rap, but there should be a balance in what you listen to.

"If you think some of my music is negative, then why can't you also listen to Kanye (West), Common and Lupe (Fiasco)? They are all positive and very good.
Listen to them to get some inspiration," he said.

After speaking at Prologue, he went to Chicago State University for a "barbecue on the yard."

T.I. has appeared in the films ATL and "American Gangster." His new album is scheduled to be released Sept. 30 on his label, Grand Hustle Records.

______
Copyright 2008 Chicago Defender.

For more information about joining the efforts of The Black Star Project, please call 773.285.9600.

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Community Organizers Applauded as Great Patriots and Great Assets to America

2008-09-11T08:50:00.006-05:00

Community Organizers Applauded as Great Patriots and Great Assets to America
THE HUFFINGTON POST

MONROE ANDERSON

Palin, GOP find community challenges a real hoot

At the expense of Barack Obama, community groups and their organizers were a running joke in St. Paul last week at the Republican National Convention.

Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani and much of the rest of the GOP apparently believe that small town mayoring is oh-so-important while community organizing is a real thigh-slapper.

Like much of what goes on among American conservatives, I suspect the marginalizing of the community organizing is just one more coded race reference. And, like much what goes on among the Republicans, George W. Bush and the Palin McCain campaign, it's obvious that this is another topsy-turvy twist on reality.

To assure that the community organizers are removed from the GOP's one-liner lists and moved back into the important things-to-do column, the AfroSpear, a collective of black bloggers across America, has called for a day of blogging in support of community organizing. I'm just one of dozens. This is my contribution.

Small town government, of course, does call for responsibilities. But, like volunteer fire departments, in many small towns, running it is only a part-time job--or should be. Community organizing in Chicago, on the other hand, is a full-time challenge that impacts lives of American citizens by the tens of thousands.

No one knows this to be true more than Phillip Jackson. At one time Jackson was the head of the Chicago Housing Authority. One of the housing projects he was in charge of, Robert Taylor Homes, was where 100,000 of Chicago poorest residents called home. When Jackson left the CHA in the mid-1990s, he founded The Black Star Project, a community group with a daunting task: to improve the quality of life in Black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.

Jackson boasts that The Black Star Project successfully spearheaded the Million Father March 2008 that "took place in 475 cities with about 600.000 men taking children to school--because of communities organizers in these cities."

If Palin, McCain, Giuliani and the gang think Jackson's mission is a laughing matter, then they've got another think coming. Although he's just one of a countless number of dedicated, patriotic citizens trying to improve the lot of the less fortunate in one great American city, his message is worth exploring.

Here's the latest of what Jackson, a community organizer, has had to say in his latest commentary:

Without High School Diplomas,
Young Black Men in America Are Expendable!

By Phillip Jackson, Executive Director of The Black Star Project

Less than fifty percent of young Black men graduated from high school in the United States during the 2005-2006 school year, according to a new report commissioned by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

Dropping out of high school sentences young Black males to menial jobs, street-corner hustling, illicit activities, fathering children out of wedlock, drugs, gangs, crime, prison, violence, death and worse - these young Black men are literally being prepared to destroy the Black communities in which they live.

Inability to achieve becomes hopelessness. Hopelessness becomes despair. Despair becomes destruction.

Dropping out of school annihilates the concept of family in the Black community because young Black men without high school degrees seldom become good providers for their families and strong anchors for their communities. The fabric of the Black community becomes unwoven.

This is an unnatural disaster and a national disgrace with little-to-no effective response from the U.S. government or the Black community where this destruction is taking place.

The media and many foundations ignore this problem. The United States responds to catastrophes in China, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Sudan, Georgia and other parts of the world, but the media and our government will not constructively respond to the genocide of young Black men that is happening here in the United States. Young Black men in America have become expendable!

The poor quality of education for young Black men is an impending national catastrophe for the United States with international ramifications. The rest of the world sees the hypocrisy of the "rhetoric of concern" in the United States verses the lack of difference-making action. Why aren't we outraged? Why won't we do something?

Before information on the educational status of Black males in America was available, the question could have been, "Why don't we know this?" Now that we know, the question becomes "Why don't we care?"

Please see the estimated graduation rates for Black males in the lowest 28 districts in the United States with Black male enrollments of 8,000 or more during the 2005-2006 school year versus White male graduation rates in those cities and the 2003-2004 Black male graduation rates:

Black Male Black White Black Male
District Enrollment Male Male Gap 2003-04
Indianapolis, IN 11,539 19% 19% 0% 21%
Detroit, MI 59,807 20% 17% -3% 31%
Norfolk, VA 12,672 27% 44% 17% 30%
Rochester, NY 11,270 29% 36% 7% 32%
Pinellas County, FL 11,319 30% 50% 20% 21%
Richmond County, GA 12,091 31% 43% 12% 30%
Baltimore City, MD 38,966 31% 37% 6% 31%
Buffalo, NY 10,666 31% 50% 19% 33%
Milwaukee, WI 26,818 32% 46% 14% 34%
New York City, NY 159,555 32% 57% 24% 26%
Chatham County, GA 11,218 32% 42% 10% 25%
Palm Beach County, FL 26,259 33% 0% 26% 29%
Birmingham, AL 14,956 33% 21% -12% 38%
Charleston County, SC 11,489 34% 66% 32% 44%
Dade County, FL 51,188 34% 55% 21% 31%
Atlanta, GA 21,722 34% 58% 24% 35%
Cleveland, OH 20,894 34% 35% 1% 33%
St. Louis, MO 16,705 35% 38% 3% 37%
Memphis, TN 52,720 35% 64% 29% N/A
Clayton County, GA 19,605 36% 26% -10% 33%
Orange County, FL 25,367 37% 58% 21% 27%
Chicago, IL 102,185 37% 62% 25% 35%
Nashville-Davidson, TN 17,792 38% 60% 22% N/A
Broward County, FL 52,537 38% 55% 17% 36%
Jackson City, MS 15,736 38% 42% 4% 44%
Minneapolis, MN 8,044 38% 76% 38% N/A
Cincinnati, OH 12,834 38% 49% 11% 25%
Duval County, FL 28,608 38% 55% 17% 26%

Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young Black men:

Short term
1) Teach all Black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education.
2) Provide strong, positive Black male role models for Black boys.
3) Create a stable home environment for Black boys that includes contact with their fathers.
4) Ensure that Black boys have a strong spiritual base.
5) Control negative media influences on Black boys.
6) Teach Black boys to respect all girls and women.

Long term
1) Invest as much money in educating Black boys as in locking up Black men.
2) Help connect Black boys to a positive vision of them in the future.
3) Create high expectations and help Black boys live into those high expectations.
4) Build a positive peer culture for Black boys.
5) Teach Black boys self-discipline, cultural awareness and racial history.
6) Teach Black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning.

Let's compare Palin's mayoral goals and accomplishments with Jackson's and then can decide who deserves the last laugh.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com

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Barack Obama takes daughters Malia and Sasha to School

2008-09-11T08:46:00.003-05:00

Like 600,000 Other Fathers that Participated in the Million Father March 2008, Senator Obama Takes His Children to School

Barack Obama takes daughters Malia and Sasha to School

September 8, 2008

FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama held his daughters' hands when he escorted them to their first day of school on Monday.

The girls arrived at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in a five-SUV motorcade after a short drive from their South Side home.

It was the first day of classes for 10-year-old Malia, a fifth grader, and 7-year-old Sasha, in second grade. They'd spent some of their summer on the campaign trail with their dad.

"The fifth grader didn't really want me to go up to the classroom, but I went," Obama said with a smile at an event a few hours later in Flint, Mich. "She's still daddy's girl."

Clad in a black track suit, Obama walked his daughters through the side doors of the ivy covered school building just before 8 a.m. before heading to a gym.

The Million Father March 2008 was sponsored by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. The National PTA and the National Fatherhood Initiative were partners in the Million Father March 2008. Approximately 600,000 men in 475 cities participated in the Million Father March 2008. If Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama can find the time to take his children to school, shouldn't you? We are expecting 800,000 men to take their children to school for the Million Father March 2009. Call The Black Star Project at 773.285.9600 for more information about the Million Father March or the new, year-long Million Father Movement.

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Greenspan: Don’t use Fed as a ‘magical piggy bank’

2008-09-10T20:41:00.004-05:00

Greenspan: Don’t use Fed as a ‘magical piggy bank’

by Jeannine Aversa

WASHINGTON–Troubled by the Bear Stearns debacle, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is advocating a new way of dealing with government bailouts of companies whose sudden collapse could wreak havoc on the country's economic and financial stability. Greenspan says Congress needs to give the government new powers to handle troubled companies to minimize any potential losses to American taxpayers.

A self-described libertarian Republican, Greenspan has a reputation for being wary of giving the government extra powers. However, in crisis situations, there needs to be a clear process for handling bailouts, rather than depending on the Fed to do so, he reckons.

A high-level panel of financial officials should be given broad authority to quickly determine whether a failing company poses a sufficient threat to the entire U.S. economy, he recommends. If so, the company would be shut down.

“We need laws that specify and limit the conditions for bailouts–laws that authorize the Treasury to use taxpayer money to counter systemic financial breakdowns transparently and directly rather than circuitously through the central bank as was done during the blowup of Bear Stearns,” Greenspan wrote in a new epilogue to the paperback edition of his memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

Greenspan envisions the formation of a group akin to the Resolution Trust Corp. to step in, take a troubled company into conservatorship, wipe out the equity, impose some charge or “haircut” on its debts before guaranteeing them and then selling its assets. The RTC was created in 1989 to deal with the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis. It disposed of the assets of failed savings and loans and then went out of business.

Costs to taxpayers would still be a concern, he acknowledges. As with the RTC, however, the public cost could be minimized, he says. Critics in Congress, in academia and elsewhere worry that the Fed’s unprecedented actions - including financial backing in March for JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s takeover of Bear Stearns Cos.–are putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars of potential losses.

They also say it encourages “moral hazard,” that is, allowing financial companies to gamble more recklessly in the future. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who took the helm after Greenspan, has repeatedly defended the Fed’s actions, saying they were necessary to avert a meltdown of the entire financial system, which would have devastated the U.S. economy. Bernanke’s Fed also has taken a number of unconventional–and some controversial - actions to shore up the shaky financial system and to get credit, the economy’s lifeblood, flowing more freely.

It agreed in March to let investment houses draw emergency loans directly from the central bank. And, in July, the Fed said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also could tap the program. For years, such lending privileges were extended only to commercial banks, which are subject to stricter regulatory supervision.

Greenspan, 82, who ran the Fed for 18 1/2 years and was the second-longest serving chief, says he is concerned that Capitol Hill will look to the Fed’s actions “as a wondrous new font of seemingly costless federal funding –a magical piggy bank.” The United States has long “abandoned the notion that we should leave crises to be resolved solely by the marketplace,” Greenspan says in making the case for new powers in this area.

The ex-Fed chief says he is skeptical of a sweeping plan, put forward by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, that would turn the Fed into a uber cop of sorts - responsible for policing financial market stability. “Much as we might wish otherwise, policymakers cannot reliably anticipate financial or economic shocks or the consequences of economic imbalances,” Greenspan says.

Greenspan calls the current crisis “one of those rare, once in a century or half-century events.” The full closure on this crisis is “a way off,” he says. The U.S. economy, he observes, appears to be “on the brink of recession.” And, worldwide inflation, he warns, is creeping, which will pose a challenge to central bankers, he says.

Looking back, Greenspan says governments and central banks probably could not have altered the course of the once high-flying housing market and broken through investors' fevered euphoria. He believes that the government should have gone after fraudulent mortgage practices, however. “Bank regulators, who are expert in accounting, banking law and risk management, are not equipped for this job,” he says.

“It requires law-enforcement professionals.” Greenspan has taken much criticism for failing to crack down on dubious lending practices that eventually came to roost with the subprime meltdown and for failing to act as a forceful banking regulator. He also has been blamed for keeping interest rates too low for too long, feeding the housing bubble.

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Productivity up strongly while labor costs dip

2008-09-10T20:40:00.006-05:00

Productivity up strongly while labor costs dip

by Martin Crutsinger

WASHINGTON–Americans’ productivity soared in the spring while labor costs declined, two welcome outcomes that should relieve concerns that inflation is getting out of hand. The Commerce Department reported recently that productivity, the amount of output for every hour of work, jumped 4.3 percent at an annual rate in the April-June quarter, a full percentage point higher than economists expected.

At the same time, labor costs fell at an annual rate of 0.5 percent, slightly better than expected. While rising wages and benefits are good news for workers, if those gains outstrip the increase in productivity, it raises the risk that inflation could surge. But the newest productivity report should be welcome news at the Federal Reserve, which has been worried that a big jump in energy and other commodity prices earlier this year could lead to a boost in inflation pressures.

Many private economists believe the central bank has overstated the inflation threat. They argue that the weak economy and rising unemployment will keep the lid on wage inflation, the area that represents the biggest threat to a sustained rise in inflation. The 4.3 percent rise in productivity in the second quarter was nearly double the initial estimate released a month ago.

The higher figure reflected the big upward revision the government made to overall growth for the second quarter, pushing the gross domestic product to a rate of 3.3 percent, revised from an initial figure of 1.9 percent. GDP represents the economy’s total output of goods and services. A higher GDP figure, if the hours of work remain essentially unchanged, means a much better performance for productivity.

The 4.3 percent rate of increase for productvity followed a more moderate 2.6 percent rise in the first quarter, and was the biggest gain since a 5.8 percent spurt in the third quarter of last year. It also was far better than the moderate productivity growth of 1.4 percent for all of 2007. The 0.5 percent drop in unit labor costs followed a 1.2 percent rise in the first quarter and was the first decline since a 2.4 percent drop in the July-September quarter of last year.

The Fed from September 2007 through April was aggressively cutting interest rates to make sure the worst housing slump in decades and a severe credit crisis did not push the country into a steep recession.

However, the central bank has left rates unchanged since the April meeting as Fed officials have expressed rising worries that the surge in the price of energy and other products could trigger higher inflation pressures even as the economy was battling sluggish growth.

The central bank wants to avoid a return of the “stagflation” that beset the country during the 1970s when successive oil price shocks set off a wage-price spiral that pushed inflation to double-digit levels at the same time economic growth stagnated. In its latest survey of economic conditions nationwide, the Fed said Wednesday that the economy is stuck in a period of slow growth while facing inflation pressures from higher costs for energy and food.

The Fed survey described wage pressures as moderate, reflecting the weak labor market as unemployment has climbed to a four-year high of 5.7 percent and nearly half-a-million jobs have been lost since January.

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Productivity up strongly while labor costs dip

2008-09-10T20:40:00.005-05:00

Productivity up strongly while labor costs dip

by Martin Crutsinger

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What happens ‘If you died tomorrow...?

2008-09-10T20:34:00.002-05:00

What happens ‘If you died tomorrow...?’

by Michael G. Shinn

The untimely deaths of Bernie Mac (age 50), Issac Hayes (age 65) and Ohio Cong. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (age 58) are poignant examples of the fragility of our existence in the world. Our undefined timeline on earth will by definition leave our mission incomplete, our relationships unfinished and create a general sense of loss when our life ends.

If you died tomorrow, what will be your legacy and what will happen to your estate? What is your legacy? A legacy is something handed down from one generation to another. A legacy can be either of a spiritual or material form and include lessons, principles and insights on life and living. Every one leaves a legacy. Our very existence has had an impact on the world in one way or another. A formal way of recording a legacy is through an Ethical Will, which is focused on conveying the writer’s values and principles to the next and subsequent generations.

Creating your own Ethical Will allows you to tell your life story, identify what values are important to you and to communicate your legacy to the next and possibly subsequent generations. The State of your Estate Your estate is everything you own or have an ownership interest in. This includes tangible assets such your home, automobiles, jewelry, collectibles, personal property, etc.

It also includes your intangible assets such as bank accounts, stocks, bonds, pension plans, life insurance, etc. When you die, your estate is still here and has to be distributed either according to a plan you created or one directed by the state government. A basic estate plan consists of a Will, durable power of attorney and a health care directive. These documents will help minimize confusion and conflicts during a time of family stress.

You should also make sure that the named beneficiaries on pension plans, insurance policies, IRA’s and similar contracts are current. A Will directs what will happen to an individual’s assets when they die. An executor is appointed to make sure that the Will is processed correctly and that its terms are carried out. In addition, if there are minor children, a guardian should be named for their care until they become adults.

If a person dies without a Will, their death will be considered “intestate.” State laws of descent and distribution will determine how their estate will be distributed to surviving relatives. If there are no living relatives, the property will go to the state. Also, if there are minor children, the state will appoint a guardian.

A durable power of attorney allows an individual to appoint someone to handle their financial affairs, should they become incapacitated or unable to manage their finances. Having a valid durable power of attorney can help the family avoid having a guardian or conservator appointed by the court during an individual’s illness. The most common health care directive is the living will.

If an individual is terminally ill and cannot make medical decisions on their own, a living will describes the type of medical care they do or do not want to prolong life. Also, in some states, an individual can appoint someone to make medical care decisions. Live as if you are going to die tomorrow and plan as if you are going to live forever. Begin today to make sure that the legacy and estate that you leave is in accordance with your desires.

Arrange a meeting with your attorney to get the process started.

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Clintons instigating a fight where all Dems will lose

2008-09-10T20:31:00.003-05:00

Clintons instigating a fight where all Dems will lose

by Lou Ransom

Obviously, the Clintons, Bill and Hillary (not George), are harder to get rid of than gum on the bottom of the shoe.

Sen. Barack Obama, on his way to his christening as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, still has a considerable wad of Clinton under his shoe, and it looks like he’ll have to carry it all the way through the Democratic National Convention and into the general election.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Obama tallied the most delegates, won the most states and raised the most money. For two months now, he has been the “presumptive” nominee. But Clinton supporters, and at least one of the Clintons, believes we presumed too much.

The Clintons bargained hard and threw their considerable Democratic weight around, and finagled not only prime speaking spots during the convention but also got Obama to agree to allow a roll call vote on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Her supporters, who have lost none of their ardor despite their candidate’s defeat, will get a chance to cast a vote for Clinton at the convention.

The Clintons argue that such a vote will allow her supporters to have their voices heard. Hillary also said that it will be some sort of “catharsis” (releasing strong or repressed emotions) for her supporters.

Frankly, what has been heard loud and clear since the end of the primary season are the voices of Hillary supporters, vowing never to vote for Obama or worse, to switch their Democratic votes to Republican John McCain.

They have burned up the blogs and overpowered the op-eds on their way to expressing:

1. Hillary was done in by a sexist media.

2. Hillary was done in by the sexist Democratic leadership.

3. Hillary was done in by the media’s infatuation with and kid gloves treatment of Obama.

4. All of the above.

But some Clinton supporters, and perhaps the Clintons themselves, are hoping for a do-over. They are poised to make noise at the Democratic Convention, but it is not clear what they want. Do they want the roll call to declare Clinton the winner? That’s not likely, but if it did, it would rip the Democratic Party asunder because it would seem that the nomination was stolen from the “presumptive” nominee, Obama. His supporters would then have a hard time supporting another nominee. Do they want Clinton on the Obama ticket? That isn’t likely either because it would amount to a co-presidency and would set up four years of controversy and competition within the White House. In effect, the Clintons would accomplish what Rev. Jesse Jackson only whispered about.

It is clear that some Clinton supporters will never vote for Obama. They would rather stay home.

And what does Bill Clinton want? He wants his “legacy” rehabilitated. He wants better relations with Black voters, who sharply rebuked him for his behavior during the primaries. He wants to reclaim the moniker of “first Black president” despite his absence of melanin. It may not happen. He may have gone too far. He still hedges when asked if Obama is qualified to be president. This from a man who spent the last two years of his presidency answering charges of a tryst with a female White House intern.

So now we are on the verge of a convention during which a floor fight is promised, and some of the delegates plan to be quite vocal in their support of someone other than the presumptive nominee.

That is hardly the kind of unity Hillary and Barack talked about in Unity, New Hampshire. It is not the kind of unified party that would strike fear into the Republicans. It is not the type of unity that points to a viable future for the Democratic Party. It is far short of the kind of unity that will be necessary to put a Democrat in the White House after eight horrendous years of George Bush.

This is a telling point for Obama. He is being watched to see if he is presidential timbre. His actions at this convention are the first real test of his leadership. He should not falter here.

Obama needs to man-up and reclaim this convention. It is supposed to be “Obama time” not Clinton redux. He should make sure that his voice is the voice of the Democratic Party, and all those disgruntled Clinton supporters should fall in behind him or they can bet the party will simply just fall behind.

Lou Ransom is executive editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached via email at lransom@chicagodefender.com.

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Meeks, don’t use our children as pawns

2008-09-10T20:30:00.002-05:00

Meeks, don’t use our children as pawns

by Rev. Luther Hicks

I have always admired Rev. James Meeks’ zeal for helping Black people. However, there are aspects of the second phase of his group’s proposed boycott that I find to be very disturbing. And I have not heard anyone talking about it.

On September 3-5, they want our children to attend ‘classes’ in the lobbies of places such as the Chicago Stock Exchange and Chase Bank. At a rally in the Loop, Rev. Meeks was quoted as saying, “I dare the business community to arrest our children and send them to jail because all they want is a quality education... If they won’t let us in (to their lobbies), we won’t go in, but I guess we’ll just sit on the sidewalk. That’s when we’ll protest. We’ll picket because then business will be showing their insensitivity to this crisis.”

We may all agree with getting better school funding, but it should bother us to see our children placed on the frontline, possibly against the police department, as was evident from Rev. Meeks’ personal ‘dare.’ Dr. Martin Luther King, and his ministers, never put children out front in matters of civil disobedience. Instead, Dr. King and other adults willingly accepted the arrests and the jail time for themselves. Perhaps the male ministers leading this venture should do likewise. It is certain that if anything happens to one of those children at the hands of a cop, even if by accident, all the ministers will be screaming bloody murder for decades. So, they would do well not to involve our youngsters in activities where unnecessary stress or stigma could befall them.

Besides, the children won’t be interloping into the lobbies of skyscrapers because of their own desire. The idea of sitting on germ-infested, cold, hard, marble or concrete floors—for four hours—is not their own! And, if our boys and girls “just sit on the sidewalk,” as Rev. Meeks said, then one couldn’t imagine them finding a filthier seat in too many other sections of our city. Aren’t they worth hauling in a sufficient number of tables and chairs for their physical and emotional comfort?

Further, the younger ones have a short attention span. They’ll need some breaks to use the bathroom or have a snack. What then? Will they be divided into groups to use the corporations’ public washrooms? Are the ministers going to buy all of them McDonald’s Happy Meals so they can eat lunch on the floor or sidewalk? Will the buildings’ security forces have a problem with all of that?

Additionally, Rev. Meeks’ army of retired teachers presumably are qualified but will know nothing about these students. That’s why they need to be where their year-long instructors, regular classmates, academic records and the teaching plans for their advancement are located. Even financially strapped schools have an established curriculum and lesson plan that is better geared toward their educational development than generic, makeshift ‘lessons’, which may not be of any value.

Our youth need their regular lunchrooms and bathrooms. They need to be among familiar faces, not a sea of unfamiliar people and personalities. Furthermore, our youngsters’ concentration will be distracted by the constant stares of thousands of strange, curious and, possibly, hostile passersby. Do we want them to be made into a spectacle? Will our darlings want to go back for a second and third day of such drama?

Finally, corporations are not obligated to finance public education. Our government is. Thus, Meeks’ individual desire for businessmen to help in “crafting a solution” may be regarded as totally irrelevant. Even if they personally are sensitive to our plight, their professional decisions must be based upon an overriding sensitivity to the wishes of stockholders and corporate bosses. That’s why clogging up their lobbies for three days will only antagonize them. They can’t be forced to contribute big bucks to the schools unless other, more powerful people agree. And, those other people are not likely to cower at coercive tactics that depend upon the use of our children.

It is my hope that this particular aspect of the boycott will be scrapped immediately or ignored by parents who see there is no point in turning their children over to such an endeavor. Our precious youth should not be used in such a reckless and cavalier fashion. They should not miss three days of legitimate school work to suffer such an uncomfortable and degrading experience.

Rev. Luther S. Hicks is an Attorney at Law.

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Education, economic opportunity best defense against violence

2008-09-10T20:26:00.004-05:00

Education, economic opportunity best defense against violence

by Cheryle R. Jackson

A 10-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet as she knelt down to tie her blind sister’s shoes. A 13-year-old girl visiting Chicago fatally was wounded only hours before she was to board a bus with her family back to her East Coast home. A 16-year-old boy was shot in the back as he played basketball on a court a stone’s throw away from his house.

All three of these victims were caught in the crossfire of gang violence that seems to have erupted anew across the city. And all three, according to news reports, were looking forward to the first day of school. They never made it.

As I read these tragic stories, I was reminded again of the critical link between education and economic opportunity, or lack thereof, and the violence robbing our communities of our most precious resource: our children.

Last week, in his acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention, I was glad to hear Sen. John McCain say that education is the No. 1 civil rights issue of the 21st century. I agree with him wholeheartedly, but I would add to that economic opportunity–access to job training, good-paying careers and capital for start-up businesses–as essential to ending the cycle of violence in poor communities.

I am not making excuses for violent behavior, but violence, I believe, is a direct byproduct of undereducated people with no economic opportunities. We don’t need research studies to prove this point. We see it every day in neighborhoods around Illinois where schools are inadequately funded by a system that rewards students living in well-to-do communities and short changes everybody else.

Education funding reform is essential to reversing the cycle of violence in urban communities that are largely segregated by race. That is why the Chicago Urban League, together with the Quad County Urban League, filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Education last month asking the court to declare unconstitutional the state’s funding formula that leaves so many African American and Latino children behind.

McCain offered school choice as a solution. While the Chicago Urban League supports the innovation and success of charter schools with smaller class sizes, it is imperative that we fix the public education for the majority of children, not just a lucky few.

If we do not fight for equity in our schools, we will continue to set our children on a pathway leading to a life of crime, violence, poverty, drugs, unwanted pregnancy and long-term unemployment. In order to solve the violence problem, we have to concurrently tackle the problems of a poor educational system and lack of economic opportunities that breed violent offenders.

Students need better schools, true, but their parents also need better-paying jobs in order to create stable home environments for children to thrive in after the school bell chimes.

The Chicago Urban League is working hard to connect people to economic opportunities by creating job training programs, helping small businesses build capacity to create new jobs and smoothing the pathway to jobs in the corporate world. But all our efforts will be in vain if people do not have the basic educational skills to leverage those opportunities.

I want the best for Chicago’s children – all of them – and I believe that our lawsuit is an important step to changing the culture of violence that takes our attention away from the important issues to focus solely on survival.

The way I see it, the only thing worse than not fighting for our children’s education and for economic opportunities that will sustain them as adults is not fighting to ensure our children’s safety. What’s painfully clear is that you cannot have one without the other.

I pray that those in power will wake up and realize that reforming the state’s discriminatory educational funding system plays no small part in creating pathways to a better future for those who so desperately want to believe that the good life is within their reach.

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Black delegates at GOP convention decline 78 percent

2008-09-10T20:25:00.002-05:00

Black delegates at GOP convention decline 78 percent

Chicago Defender

After seating a record number of African American delegates in 2004, last week’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. had the lowest Black representation in 40 years, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Blacks and the 2008 Republican Convention, a guide released last week by the nonpartisan research institution that focuses on minority issues, said that African Americans will comprise only 1.5 percent of the total number of GOP delegates, substantially below the record setting 6.7 percent in 2004.

The 36 Black delegates in 2008 represent a 78.4 percent decline from the 167 Black delegates at the 2004 GOP convention.

Based on extensive polling and analysis of African American voters nationwide, the Joint Center’s guide, while noting Sen. John McCain’s efforts to reach out to Black organizations such as the NAACP and the National Urban League outlined the difficulties he will have running against the first African American to secure a major party nomination.

“John McCain is very likely to receive a historically low share of the Black vote,” the guide says, adding that this is not attributable to any experiences Sen. McCain has had representing Black constituents, but rather it is “a reflection of Senator Obama’s historic candidacy, the deep and genuine enthusiasm for him in the Black community and Senator McCain’s association with President Bush, an exceptionally unpopular figure among African Americans.”

The Joint Center has prepared similar volumes for both the Republican and Democratic conventions every four years since 1972. Written by the organization’s senior political analyst, David A. Bositis, the guides are intended to help African American convention participants carry out their responsibilities and to inform political analysis and partisan activities, as well as to enhance the understanding of trends among Black voters.

The guide includes an insert, prepared by the Joint Center’s Health Policy Institute, comparing the health care reform plans of the two major party candidates and the implications for racial/ethnic minorities.

“This guide scientifically documents the historical shift of Black voter allegiances over the past 50 years and places Black voter attitudes and preferences in the context of the pressing issues of our day,” said Ralph B. Everett, president and CEO of the Joint Center. “We hope that delegates to the Republican National Convention will find this information useful in understanding the concerns of Black voters and how they will influence the upcoming election.”

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Senator Obama, You are served on behalf of Philip Berg, Esq.

2008-09-07T22:34:00.005-05:00

OBAMA AND DNC SERVED TODAY WITH BERG LAWSUIT:

Lawsuit questions Obama's eligibility for office

Citizenship claim at issue

Jennifer Haberkorn THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Pennsylvania's former deputy attorney general and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter Philip J. Berg has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania accusing presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of lying about his U.S. citizenship, which would make him ineligible to be president.

Mr. Berg is one of a faction of Clinton supporters who haven't heeded the party's call for unity, filing the suit just days before the opening of the Democratic National Convention, which will nominate Mr. Obama as the party's presidential candidate.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia last week, also names the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission and says Mr. Obama´s mother went to Kenya late in her pregnancy and ended up giving birth there. It also claims that later in life, Mr. Obama declared himself a citizen of Indonesia.

The Obama campaign has firmly said the Illinois Democrat is a natural-born citizen. Last month, the campaign posted on Mr. Obama's Web site a copy of his "certification of live birth." It says he was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, two years after Hawaii was named the 50th state.

Mr. Berg said he was contacted about filing the lawsuit by a member or associate of the group PUMA, which was formed to support Mrs. Clinton shortly after she withdrew from the race. Its mission includes denouncing the Democratic Party and Mr. Obama's nomination.

"I really do not believe he is a natural-born citizen," said Mr. Berg, adding that he is not connected with Mrs. Clinton or her campaign.

Just over one-quarter of Clinton supporters say they're now backing Mr. McCain, up from 16 percent in late June, according to a CNN poll conducted after Mr. Obama announced Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., of Delaware, as his running mate. Two-thirds of Clinton supporters are now backing Mr. Obama.

Mrs. Clinton, for her part, encouraged her supporters this week to back Mr. Obama.

"Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines," she said during her address to the convention Tuesday.

Mr. Berg, who says he donated about $200 to Mrs. Clinton's campaign, may represent the fringe of the pro-Hillary faction that hasn't warmed to Mr. Obama.

He has filed suits for clients against President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, claiming they knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks before they happened. He also publicly asked Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor to disbar themselves for their decision in the controversial 2001 case Bush v. Gore.

Mr. Berg has posted documents on his Web site, ObamaCrimes.com, he says back up his claims. But he said he doesn't know where they originated.

Backers of the idea that Mr. Obama isn't a natural-born citizen say Mr. Obama's certification of live birth doesn't quell the issue. They say a certification can be obtained after birth.

But the Hawaii State Department of Health said Monday that there is no difference between a certificate and a certification of live birth in the eyes of the state. For instance, either can be used to confirm U.S. citizenship to obtain a passport or state ID, said Alvin Onaka, a research and statistics officer at the Department of Health.

In Hawaii, only the person named on the certificate or his family can request the certificate of live birth.

Several fact-checking groups, such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com have determined that the certification posted on Mr. Obama's Web site is authentic.

Mr. Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has faced questions about his qualification as a "natural-born citizen" as well.

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father, a Navy officer, was stationed.

Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general who is advising the McCain campaign, said in February that he's confident Mr. McCain meets the constitutional requirement. Legal scholars say there is no precedent on the subject because all previous presidents have been born within the 50 states or territories that became states.

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Black Republicans, Obama, JC Watts, Armstrong Williams, African-American Republican Leadership Council in Texas,

2008-09-02T20:00:00.004-05:00

Why black Republicans support Obama

Posted: July 05, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

© 2008

I don't necessarily like his policies; but … history thrusts me to really seriously think about it [voting for Obama]. … Black conservatives tell me privately it would be very hard to vote against him in November.
– Armstrong Williams, talk show host

Recent comments by well-known black Republicans J.C. Watts and Armstrong Williams that they're conflicted about the upcoming presidential elections and are contemplating voting for Barack Obama have sent shock waves through the Republican Party.

I'm hearing many black Republicans echoing similar sentiments. They say that because of the historical significance of casting a vote for the first legitimate black presidential candidate, they may cross party lines.

These statements don't surprise me.

So, how did black Republicans get to a point where they're willing to abandon their own "values" to vote for a socialist?

To get an understanding of this phenomenon, I recently interviewed several black Republican leaders on my radio program.

Calvin Stephens, chairman of the African-American Republican Leadership Council in Texas, said that he's voting for Obama because this is a "black pride moment!"

Can you imagine if a white person in a similar position even hinted at voting for a candidate because it was a "white pride moment"? That person would be castigated, labeled a "racist" and fired.

Other black Republicans came on my program and repeated the Obama mantra of "change" without defining what that change meant.

I understand now that there's a major difference between a black conservative and a black Republican. A black conservative votes Republican because the party agrees with his values: pro-life, lower taxes, strong defense and strong families, etc.

A real black conservative could never vote for Obama. On the other hand, a black Republican could vote for Obama because he identifies more with color than character.

Because black Americans have long been catered to by liberal Democrats, most still feel like they're owed something. Even the staunchest black Republican believes that his party owes him.

A new breed of black Republican has infiltrated the GOP with the intent to wield black influence over both the parties. They may agree with the Republican Party on taxes and other economic issues, but that's it! At their core they're dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrats.

Until some 20 years ago, I used to be a liberal Democrat too. I followed Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and the NAACP. In my anger I believed what these so-called "black leaders" told me: that white racism was keeping me down.

I became a conservative after a deeply profound spiritual awakening at which point I repented of my anger, and God allowed me to see reality. I was then able to recognize that these liberal black leaders were no friends of decent black Americans. I could no longer identify with the liberal Democrat platform or their Godless "values."

I identified with conservative values and I joined the Republican Party to promote those values. I didn't join seeking to find what the party could do for me.

Understandably, white conservatives are bewildered and upset about the prospect of black Republicans voting for candidates based on race rather than values.

The Hispanic community already outnumbers blacks, and they're competing for representation within the GOP. Black Republicans' support of Obama will no doubt create a bigger rift between Republican leadership and blacks, and serve to close the window of opportunity blacks have had open to them to gain leadership in the party.

But what about "history"?

Let's examine the "history" argument. Is it right to vote for Barack Obama to make "history" while ignoring his record? Consider that Sen. Obama:

believes in abortion on demand, and has told Planned Parenthood that sex-ed for kindergartners is "the right thing to do" (as long as it's "age appropriate");
has announced his intention to gut our defenses including our nuclear arsenal and strategic missile defense programs;
has said he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran and others without preconditions;
wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, which would lead to chaos in the region and endanger Israel;
seeks to raise taxes across the board including on oil company profits, yet opposes drilling domestically.

It would be nice to have a black president. But shouldn't it be someone who believes in the values that made this country great and is ready to protect and serve the American people?

I hear many blacks say that an Obama presidency will be the dawn of a new day for black America. Really?

Americans have elected black members of Congress as far back as the late 1800s.

We've had two black Supreme Court justices. We have blacks represented in the highest stratosphere of private and government sectors. Trust me, if all these accomplishments haven't persuaded and uplifted the masses, electing the first black president won't do it either.

Barack Obama is not black America's messiah. But the only way for black Americans (including those who identify themselves as Republicans) to see that reality is to drop their un-American identification with race and be willing to hear the truth about the issues from any American, regardless of color.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "The Seven Guaranteed Steps To Spiritual, Family, and Financial Success" guide. He's also host of "The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show." For more information, visit www.bondinfo.org.

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Obama's bounce smaller than others

2008-09-02T19:56:00.003-05:00

Obama's bounce smaller than others

David Paul KuhnMon Sep 1, 10:38 PM ET

Barack Obama’s post-Democratic National Convention bounce in the polls appears to be slightly smaller than the norm of past conventions, and it's gradually depreciating.

The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the convention, Obama has risen 4 percentage points in the polls, to lead McCain 49 percent to 43 percent today. That's a slightly smaller uptick in the polls than the 5- to 6-point bounce earned by a typical party nominee, by Gallup’s measure, since 1964. Obama and McCain were evenly split at 45 percentage points apiece prior to the Democratic convention, according to Gallup.

That outcome comes despite Obama’s speech before more than 80,000 people at Invesco Field in Denver on Thursday night, a political event that was also seen by about 40 million television viewers. It also comes as the Republican convention quietly got under way in St. Paul, and the national media gaze focuses southward to Hurricane Gustav.

Daily tracking polls by Gallup and Rasmussen Reports demonstrate that Obama has taken his greatest lead since July, if not the general election. But while Obama’s support remains significantly stronger than weeks ago, it appears that the post-convention bounce he earned may have already peaked.

On Saturday, Gallup reported Obama was ahead by 8 percentage points. By Monday, that lead had shrunk to 5 points. Rasmussen pegs Obama’s standing as relatively stable in recent days, with a 49 percent to 46 percent lead over McCain when “leaners” are included, a small but statistically insignificant improvement for McCain of 1 percentage point since Saturday.

CBS News reported Monday that Obama is now ahead in its poll, 48 to 40 percent, a 3-point uptick in Obama’s standing compared to its poll prior to the Democratic convention. Obama’s 3-point bounce exceeds that of John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 who did not rise in the polls following his convention. But Obama’s bounce is less than a third of what Al Gore received in 2000 and Bill Clinton received in 1992. Even Bob Dole, following the 1996 Republican convention, received a 4-point bounce in the polls, 1 point more than Obama.

But any Obama bounce, if it is sustained, could be said to be a victory for Democrats. In the days since Obama gave his address, the news cycles have been captured by the unveiling of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, the opening of the Republican convention and the threat posed by Hurricane Gustav.

There have been only three previous back-to-back conventions, most recently in 1956. The effect of the GOP convention on the polls will not be known for days.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll and a Zogby Interactive flash poll, both completed over the weekend, have found the presidential race is in a dead heat. According to both polls, Obama attained no statistically significant convention bounce.

Whether Obama is ahead or tied with McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee will now come into the Republican convention with his best opportunity yet to break through his own ceiling and take a lead in the presidential race.

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John McCain Has a Tax Plan To Create Jobs

2008-09-02T19:54:00.004-05:00


September 2, 2008

John McCain
Has a Tax Plan
To Create Jobs

By MARTIN FELDSTEIN and JOHN B. TAYLOR
September 2, 2008; Page A23

John McCain's tax policies are designed to create jobs, increase wages and allow all Americans -- especially those in the hard-pressed middle class -- to keep more of what they earn. His plan achieves these goals in three important ways.

First, he proposes a package of tax incentives that will create jobs and raise earnings by inducing firms to invest more in the U.S. Second, he is strongly committed to blocking any increase in tax rates while doubling the personal exemptions for families with children, which will reduce the tax burden on working Americans. Third, he proposes a new, refundable tax credit that will increase health-care coverage, reduce the cost of health care, and provide more funds for families and individuals to purchase health care.

Here's how the three components of Sen. McCain's tax plan will work in practice.

To create jobs, Mr. McCain will reduce the corporate tax rate -- now at 35% the second highest among all industrial countries -- to one that doesn't penalize firms for doing business here. To encourage small businesses to expand, he will fight against higher tax rates on their income.

To increase wages, Mr. McCain will provide incentives to raise productivity, which leads to higher wages. To increase productivity, he will provide incentives for developing and applying new technologies by expanding the tax credit for research and development, and by making that credit permanent.

More savings and investment in businesses also raise productivity. Mr. McCain will stimulate saving by keeping tax rates low on the returns to saving in the form of dividends and capital gains. He will also allow faster depreciation of assets, which encourages investment. And he will strengthen the incentive to save by reducing the maximum estate tax rate, with a substantial, untaxed exemption.

In stark contrast to Barack Obama, Mr. McCain believes that tax policy should be used to foster the creation of jobs and higher wages through economic growth, rather than to redistribute incomes. The economy is not a zero-sum game in which some people can enjoy higher incomes only if others are made worse off.

Mr. McCain's plan will significantly ease the tax burden on American families with children by doubling the personal exemption to $7,000 from $3,500. This means a larger percentage tax reduction for families with smaller taxable incomes, and specifically helps families in the middle income levels. And a President McCain will enable people to keep more of their earnings by preventing Congress from raising tax rates.

Mr. McCain's overall tax policy will also expand health-insurance coverage, and make health care more efficient. Most taxpayers will also pay less in tax. Here's how it will work. His plan includes a refundable tax credit of $2,500 for single individuals and $5,000 for couples, if they receive a qualifying health-care policy from an employer (one that includes adequate coverage against large medical bills), or buy a qualifying policy on their own. The credit will replace the current tax rule, which excludes employer payments for health insurance from employees' taxable incomes.

This tax credit will be available to everyone, including the self-employed and the employees of businesses that do not provide health insurance. Thus it will lead to a major expansion of health-insurance coverage. The tax credit will of course be available to people who are between jobs, or have retired before they're eligible for Medicare.

Since any part of the credit not used to pay for insurance could be invested in a health savings account, individuals will have an incentive to choose less costly health-insurance policies. This will improve the efficiency of health care, to everyone's benefit.

Importantly, the tax credit will be a clear gain for most employees. Consider a married taxpayer whose employer now pays $10,000 for a health-insurance policy. Ending the exclusion will raise that individual's taxable income by $10,000 -- but the $5,000 tax credit will exceed the extra tax liability whether the marginal tax rate that individual pays is 10% or 35% or anywhere in between. Indeed, the lower the taxpayer's income, the more of the credit that will be available to pay for health care that's not reimbursed by insurance.

Sen. Obama was at best disingenuous in his convention speech when he criticized the McCain plan for taxing health benefits. The health insurance tax credit exceeds the extra taxes on existing benefits.

Mr. Obama also criticized Mr. McCain on the grounds that he doesn't cut taxes on 100 million families. But this ignores the fact that Mr. McCain's health-insurance credits would benefit most taxpayers and that many people who are not currently eligible for the increased personal exemption will become eligible when they have children. When these features are taken into account, the vast majority of today's 140 million taxpayers would pay lower taxes under the McCain plan.

Tax revenues will increase robustly over the next few years with Mr. McCain's overall tax strategy as the economy grows -- even with conservative economic growth assumptions. And by maintaining strong control over the growth of government spending, Mr. McCain will bring the budget into balance. His long record of fighting against excessive government spending, his plans to veto earmarks and reverse the spending binge of the past few years, and his strong commitment to balancing the budget can make this goal a reality.

Mr. McCain's tax policy stands in strong contrast to Mr. Obama's ever-changing tax proposals. Although it is difficult to know just what Mr. Obama would do if he were elected, it is clear that he wants to raise taxes on personal incomes, on dividends, on capital gains, on payroll income and on businesses -- all of which will hurt the U.S. economy. He regards the tax system as a way to redistribute income, and disregards the resulting adverse incentive effects that reduce employment and economic growth.

Mr. Obama's claim to being a big tax cutter defies credibility. His assertion that he would cut taxes on 95% of families reflects his one-time $1,000 rebate payouts, and a variety of new government spending handed out through the tax system.

Mr. McCain, on the other hand, has been clear that he wants to preserve the favorable incentive effects of the existing low tax rates -- and to reduce taxes in other ways that will strengthen the economy, create jobs and help current taxpayers, including those without health insurance.

Messrs. Feldstein and Taylor are economic advisers to John McCain and professors of economics at, respectively, Harvard and Stanford.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal¹.

And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum².

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Sarah Palin represents John McCain's new focus on reform

2008-09-01T11:46:00.004-05:00

Like Hillary Clinton before him, McCain decides the experience argument is not the way to beat Obama. Palin helps personify his new message.

By Robin Abcarian and Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL, MINN. -- With his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain is giving his campaign a political makeover: Rather than selling himself as a war hero with national security credentials, he is donning the mantle of the reformer.

The new approach borrows a page from the playbook of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who late in the Democratic primary campaign framed herself as a hero of the struggling middle class.

McCain, like the New York senator, has apparently decided that being the candidate of experience is not the formula for beating Barack Obama.

The 44-year-old Palin, with her union-member husband, her staunch conservatism on social issues and her limited foreign policy resume, personifies the new McCain theme.

Republicans conceded Sunday that her presence on the ticket undercuts McCain's argument that Democratic rival Obama lacks the experience to lead in a time of war.

But the surprising pick reflects an acknowledgment by McCain that the old strategy needed fixing at a time when economic woes have overshadowed the foreign policy issues that were once seen as the Arizona senator's greatest strength.

"It's a one-two punch," said John Hinderaker, who helps run Power Line, a popular conservative blog.

Hinderaker said he was initially dismayed, thinking that Palin would diminish McCain's experience argument, but said he had begun to feel that she could help the presumptive Republican nominee.

"You have to have the base turning out and motivated," he said, but noted that Palin would also attract blue-collar voters because of her middle-class roots and taste for hunting and fishing.

Many GOP strategists and voters said they were still digesting Palin's selection and what it meant for McCain's chances. New surveys conducted since Friday's announcement were inconclusive about whether she would have a meaningful effect on the vote.

Campaign officials said Palin could help them woo a constituency that was important to Clinton and remains skeptical of Obama -- so-called hockey moms and other working-class voters. And she has already proved effective in energizing evangelical leaders, some of whom had been threatening to withhold support from McCain.

The Palin announcement was a shock to many Republicans, who had expected McCain, a 72-year-old cancer survivor, to choose someone who complemented his strengths and could easily assume the presidency should something happen to him.

But as McCain and Palin wrapped up their first weekend as a team, it was clear the campaign had changed focus. Palin represents the culmination of a weeks-long search for the best way to blunt Obama's themes of hope and change.

And Palin has quickly been thrust from political obscurity into a starring role.

At the Minnesota State Fair, a hub of political culture in this battleground state, the McCain campaign booth was adorned with a large color portrait of the Alaska governor. There was no comparable McCain photo in sight.

And, while top Republicans such as President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney canceled their scheduled appearances tonight at the Republican National Convention, Palin was dispatched to Minnesota at the last minute to rally the party. The symbolism was clear: Palin, a national newcomer, was now a standard-bearer for the party.

"They had to pivot away from experience," said Republican consultant John Weaver, a former McCain advisor. "In a change election, they have to give that up now."

As recently as Wednesday, in the midst of the Democratic National Convention, a McCain television ad dismissed Obama as "dangerously unprepared to be president." But by this weekend, McCain senior advisor Charles Black was downplaying the idea that experience had ever been a central McCain theme. "We never used experience as the big argument," he said.

And Sunday in St. Paul, the site of this week's Republican National Convention, House GOP leader John A. Boehner dismissed the importance of experience.

"We've all started new jobs from time to time in our career," he said. "And most of you can remember the first day that you spent on almost every one of those new jobs. Because when you got it, you thought, 'Oh my God, how am I going to do this?'

"Nobody's qualified on the first day," he continued. "I don't care whether it's Barack Obama or whether it's John McCain sitting in the White House."

McCain, despite more than a year of casting himself as the best-prepared to be commander in chief, used a Fox News interview to describe the nationally unknown Palin as his "soul mate" for her work as a reformer in Alaska.

"In all due respect to my friends [who think] that she has never been on some of the inside-the-Beltway activities, I say thank God," McCain said.

The McCain shift mirrors Clinton's primary campaign tactics when, trailing Obama, she pushed hard to win support from white middle-class voters with whom Obama failed to connect. The change was not enough to help Clinton overcome Obama's advantages, such as his dominance among African American voters excited about his historic candidacy.

McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds insisted Sunday that McCain's themes had been consistent for months, using the catchphrase "reform, prosperity and peace" to describe the agenda adopted by the GOP since it became clear Obama would be the Democratic nominee.

And Bounds said that experience remained an important issue, noting that Clinton's attempts to exploit it failed only in the context of a Democratic primary decided by liberal voters. "Hillary Clinton's arguments . . . were not illegitimate, ill-founded or ineffective," he said. "It was just a different election."

At the Minnesota fair, many said they were impressed by Palin's unusual credentials, but interviews with a number of voters showed it remained uncertain whether her appeal would translate into support for the Republican ticket.

Tamar Fenton, 45, of suburban Minneapolis, said she admired Palin, a mother of five, and was not bothered by the governor's relative lack of experience. "If you can go up against a teenaged kid," said Fenton, "you could go up against a world leader."

Nevertheless, Fenton said, she could not support a candidate such as Palin who opposes abortion rights and gun control.

Times staff writers Bob Drogin, James Hohmann and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

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$10 Million Woman: Palin a Hit with GOP Donors

2008-09-01T11:43:00.003-05:00

$10 Million Woman: Palin a Hit with GOP Donors

McCain Campaign Raises Over $10 Million Since Palin Tapped as Running Mate

By BRIAN ROSS

Sept. 1, 2008—

The McCain campaign raised more than $10 million in the two and a half days after Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was named as the vice presidential running mate, bringing the total raised in the month of August to more than $47 million, campaign officials tell ABC News.

The final, official figures are expected to be reported in the next few days, but the amount appears to be a record for the McCain campaign, almost twice as much as it has raised in any other single month.

"We're still counting," said campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

"We were blown away," said one top McCain official. "She has energized our base and when we see the money flowing like that we know we have a hit," said the official.

As a result, the official said, Palin will be asked to spend at least 80 per cent of her time raising money between now and the election.

Under federal election laws, the McCain campaign cannot spend any of the privately raised funds after today, Sept. 1, because the candidate has opted to take $87 million in public funds.

The McCain campaign official said any excess money will be steered to various state committees and other candidates, as provided for under the law.

Click Here for the Investigative Homepage.

GOP convention turns to plea for hurricane aid

2008-09-01T11:40:00.004-05:00

GOP convention turns to plea for hurricane aid

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago

Republicans hurried to turn the opening day of their national convention into a fundraising drive for hurricane victims, with presidential candidate John McCain's wife and first lady Laura Bush appealing for Gulf Coast help. McCain visited a disaster relief center in Ohio.

Party officials in St. Paul kept a watchful eye on still-dangerous Hurricane Gustav Monday to decide next steps for their shortened convention. They said they still expected McCain to address the convention at Thursday night's finale.

McCain's wife, Cindy, and Mrs. Bush were expected to address the abbreviated session on relief efforts.

Mrs. Bush told Texas delegates she and Cindy McCain would talk about "what people around the country, as well as the people here — the delegates here — can do to help specific states."

President Bush, whose administration was widely accused of a botched handling of the Katrina disaster three years ago, traveled to Texas rather than to St. Paul, where he had been scheduled to speak on the opening night of the Republican National Convention. Bush planned visits to Austin and San Antonio to visit staging grounds for hurricane response efforts. There was no word on whether he would address the convention at some point by satellite.

Democrats also swung their attention to the hurricane.

Presidential nominee Barack Obama altered his campaign schedule to return to his Chicago headquarters to monitor the storm's progress. His 16 campaign offices in North Carolina solicited non-perishable goods for Gustav's victims. Other state campaign organizations may do the same, Obama aides said.

Obama has said he may visit storm-damaged areas once things have "settled down."

Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden canceled plans to march in a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh to monitor storm developments. "Our focus right now should be on what's happening in the Gulf," he said.

The Republican convention remained in limbo on its first day. At McCain's behest, party leaders called off the usual festivities and planned only a truncated meeting in the afternoon.

Gustav weakened somewhat to a Category 2 storm as it neared landfall along the mostly evacuated Louisiana coast. The National Hurricane Center said the storm, with 110-mph winds, should hit somewhere southwest of New Orleans by midday.

In Waterville, Ohio, McCain visited a disaster relief center, and helped pack cleaning supplies and other items into plastic buckets that will be sent to the Gulf Coast area.

Linda Green, who runs the center, thanked McCain for directing Republicans to avoid "hoopla" at the convention and respecting the needs of storm victims instead.

"Each one should use whatever gift he or she has received to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms," the Arizona senator said, reading from Green's business card.

"And as the hurricane strikes Louisiana as we speak, all Americans I know will be motivated by those words of serving others and using whatever gifts we have to help our fellow Americans," McCain told reporters.

McCain, who visited Mississippi on Sunday, said that while there is now better coordination among federal, state and local authorities, there are still problems.

"There's still, I think, not as much communications equipment as we want. There's still not enough search-and-rescue capabilities, although they're trying to fix that. It's not perfect, but I think that it's dramatically different than it was in response to Katrina," McCain said in an interview broadcast on NBC's "Today" show. The interview was taped on Sunday.

Cindy McCain and his new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, arrived in the convention city Sunday night.

Laura Bush made a round of delegates breakfasts. She told Texas delegates at her first stop that she's proud to finally get her wish to vote for a Republican woman on a presidential ticket.

While she and the president had been surprised by McCain's pick Palin, "We know what kind of women Alaska produces. We know how tough and strong she is," Mrs. Bush said.

The mood among the Louisiana delegation remained upbeat as the storm approached. Speaking at a breakfast Monday, former Gov. Buddy Roemer told home-state delegates: "The early returns from Louisiana are good, to put it in political terms." But he added, "I've won and lost elections in the last hour and the same is true with hurricanes — it's not over 'til it's over."

Party officials were attempting to refocus convention efforts, at least in part, toward raising funds for relief efforts.

The Ohio delegation held a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi Sunday night as planned, but turned the event into a relief fundraiser. Kevin DeWine, deputy GOP chairman for Ohio, said some $20,000 was raised.

Concerned about negative images of partying delegates while Gulf Coast residents suffer, the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign were trying to police activities on the convention sidelines.

That included a warning to Louisiana delegates against traditional alcohol-laced "hurricane parties" — following reports of a late-night celebration on Sunday ahead of the storm's landfall on Monday.

The GOP also is overseeing an effort by the American Red Cross and the Minneapolis-based Target department store chain to assemble comfort packs for Gulf Coast residents at the Minneapolis convention center on Monday.

GOP Chairman Robert "Mike" Duncan said on Sunday that certain legal requirements had to be met despite the decision to truncate the convention in order to legally place McCain and Palin's names in nomination.

One piece of business slated for Monday was of special interest to delegations from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina: a rule to cement their leadoff status for the 2012 campaign. It declares that no state can hold its primary or caucus before the first Tuesday in March, except for Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

They, in turn, cannot hold their votes before the first Tuesday in February, a stark contrast to this year, when Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3, and New Hampshire and South Carolina held their primaries on Jan. 8 and Jan. 19, respectively.

"It pushes back the calendar and it slows it down, and that's a big gift for us," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire delegate and member of the Credentials Committee.

Protesters planned to go forward with a peace march that had been expected to draw 50,000 people to the state capital.

"Our voices will be front and center, and it will be the main news that is happening," said Jess Sundin, spokeswoman for the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War. Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

www.ruffcommunications.com

A lesson from Cindy McCain

2008-09-01T11:34:00.006-05:00

A lesson from Cindy McCain

Dawn Turner Trice

September 1, 2008

I'm still amazed at the number of people who brand Michelle Obama as an angry black woman who's un-American. But those who don't like her, or her husband, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, won't no matter what. I suppose that's OK.

But this isn't so much about Michelle Obama as it is about the other woman who may be our first lady: Cindy McCain.

At some point this week during the Republican National Convention, as Sen. John McCain gets ready to accept his party's nomination for president, the McCain clan will take the stage. For those who don't already know, one child looks a wee bit different from the others.

She has dark hair and deep caramel-colored skin. Bridget McCain is 17 and was born in Bangladesh. She was the subject of a nasty smear campaign by Republicans during the 2000 primary. They said Bridget was McCain's love child, the product of an affair.

Dawn Turner Trice

As the true story goes, Cindy McCain was traveling in Bangladesh when she came upon two children who needed medical help. McCain decided to bring both back home. She and her husband adopted Bridget. Another couple, at Cindy McCain's urging, adopted the other child.

I know we've heard a lot of other things about McCain, but that she adopted a child in need speaks volumes about her. That she adopted a brown child (long before Angelina and Madonna made it trendy and hip), and didn't let that child's skin color obscure her need, rounds McCain out even more.

Everybody knows Cindy McCain is loaded. But this isn't about money. Such an adoption asks your family, including your children, to extend themselves in a way that lends more than lip service to the idea of colorblindness.

It's one thing to believe one way when it comes to race. But when you get your children involved, that's quite another.

I remember during President George W. Bush's first term when he wanted to nominate Judge Charles Pickering, a conservative Republican, to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This time it was the Democrats launching a smear campaign that accused Pickering of being a racist who had made some racially insensitive rulings.

During a profile on CBS' "60 Minutes," some of those complicated rulings were explained. But what spoke volumes about Pickering and race was that when his Mississippi school district began to integrate, he and his wife decided not to send their children to private schools as their friends were doing. Their children attended the public school, which soon became mostly black.

I consider myself open-minded when it comes to race. But I've always believed that I will be tested when (years and years and years from now) my daughter brings home a man of a different race and introduces him to her parents as the man she hopes to marry.

Will I say: "Oh . . . him? Really?"

Or will I say to her, as my mother said to me: "Honey, if he treats you well, you have my blessings."

To be clear, I'm not saying that McCain or Pickering is totally free of prejudice. We do live in a country where it's impossible to avoid the taint.

The point is that people are complicated. And if we sit in our little partisan echo chambers, we don't get enough information to see any of these people with more clarity. Conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, wealthy heiresses and black women with Ivy League educations don't fit into neat boxes.

But neither do civil rights leaders often accused of race-baiting and chasing television cameras. Last week, during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, I spent some time with the controversial Rev. Al Sharpton.

Check out my essay, "An hour with 'Uncle Al' " at Exploring Race at chicagotribune.com/race.

www.ruffcommunications.com

Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama

2008-09-01T11:30:00.004-05:00

September 01, 2008

Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama

By Gerard Baker

Democrats, between sniggers of derision and snorts of disgust, contend that Sarah Palin, John McCain's vice-presidential pick is ridiculously unqualified to be president.

It's a reasonable objection on its face except for this small objection: it surely needs to be weighed against the Democrats' claim that their own candidate for president is self-evidently ready to assume the role of most powerful person on the planet.

At first blush, here's what we know about the relative experience of the two candidates. Both are in their mid-forties and have held statewide elective office for less than four years. Both have admitted to taking illegal drugs in their youth.

So much for the similarities. How about the differences?

Political experience

Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.

Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state's government.

Political Biography

Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party's internal politics: "community organizer", law professor, state senator.

Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs - sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans..

Political history

Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn't even live in the state.

Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party.

Appeal

Obama: A very attractive speaker whose celebrity has been compared to that of Britney Spears and who sends thrills up Chris Matthews' leg

Palin: A very attractive woman, much better-looking than Britney Spears who speaks rather well too. She sends thrills up the leg of Rush Limbaugh (and me).

Executive experience

Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists

Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.

Religious influences

Obama: Regards people who "cling" to religion and guns as "bitter" . Spent 20 years being mentored and led spiritually by a man who proclaimed "God damn America" from his pulpit. Mysteriously, this mentor completely disappeared from public sight about four months ago.

Palin: Head of her high school Fellowship of Christian Athletes and for many years a member of the Assemblies of God congregation whose preachers have never been known to accuse the United States of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus. They remain in full public sight and can be seen every Sunday in churches across Alaska. A proud gun owner who has been known to cling only to the carcasses of dead caribou felled by her own aim.

Record of bipartisan achievement

Obama: Speaks movingly of the bipartisanship needed to end the destructive politics of "Red America" and "Blue America", but votes in the Senate as a down-the-line Democrat, with one of the most liberal voting records in congress.

Palin: Ridiculed by liberals such as John Kerry as a crazed, barely human, Dick Cheney-type conservative but worked wit Democrats in the state legislature to secure landmark anti-corruption legislation.

Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz - a Democrat - said. "Gov. Palin has made her name fighting corruption within her own party, and I was honored when she stepped across party lines and asked me to co-author her ethics white paper."

On Human Life

Obama: Devoutly pro-choice. Voted against a bill in the Illinois state senate that would have required doctors to save the lives of babies who survived abortion procedures. The implication of this position is that babies born prematurely during abortions would be left alone, unnourished and unmedicated, until they died.

Palin: Devoutly pro-life. Exercised the choice proclaimed by liberals to bring to full term a baby that had been diagnosed in utero with Down Syndrome.

Now it's true there are other crucial differences. Sen Obama has appeared on Meet The Press every other week for the last four years. He has been the subject of hundreds of adoring articles in papers and newsweeklies and TV shows and has written two Emmy-award winning books.

Gov Palin has never appeared on Meet the Press, never been on the cover of Newsweek. She presumably feels that, as a mother of five children married to a snowmobile champion, who also happens to be the first woman and the youngest person ever to be elected governor of her state, she has not really done enough yet to merit an autobiography.

Then again, I'm willing to bet that if she had authored The Grapes of Wrath, sung like Edith Piaf and composed La Traviata , she still wouldn't have won an Emmy.

Fortunately, it will be up to the American people and not their self-appointed leaders in Hollywood and New York to determine who really has the better experience to be president.

Gerard Baker is US Editor and Assistant Editor of The Times of London

www.ruffcommunications.com

Palin's VP Selection Speech

2008-09-01T11:22:00.006-05:00

August 29, 2008- realclearpolitics.com

Palin's VP Selection Speech

By Sarah Palin

Dayton, Ohio

PALIN: Thank you so much.

And I thank you, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain, for the confidence that you have placed in me. Senator, I am honored to be chosen as your running mate.

(APPLAUSE)

I will be honored to serve next to the next president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

I know that when Senator McCain gave me this opportunity, he had a short list of highly qualified men and women. And to have made that list at all, it was a privilege. And to have been chosen brings a great challenge.

I know that it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.

(APPLAUSE)

First -- first, there are a few people whom I would like you to meet. I want to start with my husband, Todd.

(APPLAUSE)

And Todd and I are actually celebrating our 20th anniversary today. And I promised him...

(APPLAUSE)

I had promised Todd a little surprise for the anniversary present, and hopefully he knows that I did deliver.

And then we have as -- after my husband, who is a lifelong commercial fisherman, lifetime Alaskan. He's a production operator.

(APPLAUSE)

Todd is a production operator in the oil fields up on Alaska's North Slope. And he's a proud member of the United Steelworkers union. And he's a world-champion snow machine racer. (APPLAUSE)

Todd and I met way back in high school. And I can tell you that he is still the man that I admire most in this world.

(APPLAUSE)

Along the way, Todd and I have shared many blessings. And four out of five of them are here with us today.

Our oldest son, Track, though, he'll be following the presidential campaign from afar. On September 11th of last year, our son enlisted in the United States Army.

(APPLAUSE)

Track now serves in an infantry brigade. And on September 11th, Track will deploy to Iraq in the service of his country. And Todd and I are so proud of him and of all the fine men and women serving this country (inaudible)

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

PALIN: Next to Todd is our daughter, Bristol, another daughter, Willow, our youngest daughter, Piper, and over in their arms is our son, Trig, a beautiful baby boy. He was born just in April.

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: His name is Trig Paxson Van Palin.

Some of life's greatest opportunities come unexpectedly. And this is certainly the case today.

I never really set out to be involved in public affairs, much less to run for this office. My mom and dad both worked at the local elementary school. And my husband and I, we both grew up working with our hands. I was just your average hockey mom in Alaska, raising...

(APPLAUSE)

We're busy raising our kids. I was serving as the team mom and coaching some basketball on the side. I got involved in the PTA and then was elected to the city council, and then elected mayor of my hometown, where my agenda was to stop wasteful spending, and cut property taxes, and put the people first.

(APPLAUSE)

I was then appointed ethics commissioner and chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. And when I found corruption there, I fought it hard, and I held the offenders to account.

(APPLAUSE)

Along with fellow reformers in the great state of Alaska, as governor, I've stood up to the old politics as usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-old- boy network.

(APPLAUSE)

When oil and gas prices went up so dramatically and the state revenues followed with that increase, I sent a large share of that revenue directly back to the people of Alaska. And we are now -- we're now embarking on a $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.

(APPLAUSE)

I signed major ethics reform. And I appointed both Democrats and independents to serve in my administration. And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress -- I told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.

(APPLAUSE)

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves. Well, it's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built.

Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good.

Now, no one expects us to agree on everything, whether in Juneau or in Washington. But we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant's heart.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, no leader in America has shown these qualities so clearly or present so clear a threat to business as usual in Washington as Senator John S. McCain.

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: This -- this is a moment when principles and political independence matter a lot more than just the party line. And this is a man who has always been there to serve his country, not just his party.

(APPLAUSE)

And this is a moment that requires resolve and toughness, and strength of heart in the American president. And my running mate is a man who has shown those qualities in the darkest of places, and in the service of his country.

(APPLAUSE)

A colleague once said about Senator McCain, "That man did things for this country that few people could go through. Never forget that." And that speaker was former Senator John Glenn of Ohio.

(APPLAUSE)

And John Glenn knows something about heroism. And I'm going to make sure nobody does forget that in this campaign. There is only one candidate who has truly fought for America, and that man is John McCain.

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: This is a moment -- this is a moment when great causes can be won and great threats overcome, depending on the judgment of our next president.

In a dangerous world, it is John McCain who will lead America's friends and allies in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

(APPLAUSE)

It was John McCain who cautioned long ago about the harm that Russian aggression could do to Georgia and to other small democratic neighbors and to the world oil markets.

It was Senator McCain who refused to hedge his support for our troops in Iraq, regardless of the political costs.

(APPLAUSE)

And you know what? As the mother of one of those troops, and as the commander of Alaska's National Guard, that's the kind of man I want as our commander in chief.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

PALIN: Profiles in courage: They can be hard to come by these days. You know, so often we just find them in books. But next week when we nominate John McCain for president, we're putting one on the ballot.

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: To serve as vice president beside such a man would be the privilege of a lifetime. And it's fitting that this trust has been given to me 88 years almost to the day after the women of America first gained the right to vote.

(APPLAUSE)

I think -- I think as well today of two other women who came before me in national elections.

I can't begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984...

(APPLAUSE)

... and of course Senator Hillary Clinton, who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign.

(APPLAUSE)

It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America...

(APPLAUSE)

... but it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.

(APPLAUSE)

So for my part, the mission is clear: The next 67 days I'm going to take our campaign to every part of our country and our message of reform to every voter of every background in every political party, or no party at all.

PALIN: If you want change in Washington, if you hope for a better America, then we're asking for your vote on the 4th of November.

My fellow Americans, come join our cause.

(APPLAUSE)

Join our cause and help our country to elect a great man the next president of the United States.

And I thank you, and I -- God bless you, I say, and God bless America. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, is the presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee.

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The Case for Palin

2008-09-01T11:19:00.004-05:00

August 29, 2008 - americanthinker.com

The Case for Palin

symposium
C. Edmund Wright writes:

Is it Sarah Palin for Vice President? It is beginning to look like the Alaskan Governor has re-emerged as a serious candidate to be John McCain's running mate. If this is the case, there are some risks involved of course, but there is a big upside to this pick.

Update: Chicago Tribune says it is Palin, accord to a Republican source.

A: Energy: Sarah Palin is right on the energy issues. When you are the governor of Alaska, that's a big deal. She is way ahead of Obama, Biden and in fact McCain on this issue. She also wants to take McCain to ANWR and show him how ugly the area is that would be set aside for drilling. That's a bold stance.

cartoon by Brett Noel
B: Hillary: At the risk of being condescending to women voters, you have to think that the disaffected Hillary Clinton vote would be very interested in the pick of Palin. At least some of the Hillary vote is the "sisterhood of the travelling pant-suit" mindset, and this is a group that will focus on the gender of the candidate.

C: Can't hit the girl: Joe Biden's debate style could be described as offensive under any circumstances, but he would be thrown off stride by having to go head to head with Palin. Even Hillary Clinton, in no way as "girlish" as Palin is, gained traction on this very issue with her debates in New York while running for Senate.

D: Andrea Mitchell: The prospect of McCain's naming of Palin was extremely upsetting to this worn-out NBC liberal. That's a good thing. When Republicans start to make a smart move, it is always upsetting to folks like Mitchell. Mitchell tried to make the case that naming Palin brings the ethical problems of Alaskan politics into the fray and thus a bad move for McCain. Uh Andrea, Palin was elected precisely because she is not part of that. She is not Ted Stevens or Frank Murkowski. That's the point.

E: Conservative Base: Palin will thrill the base. She is a conservative reformer. She is pro-life and with five kids, has cred on this issue. She is pro energy production. She is not a big government type. She is the one pick who can excite the base with no collateral damage to other potential voters.

F: Central Casting: Quite frankly, Palin is very attractive. A liberal pundit a few weeks ago even referred to her as "naughty school teacher hot." It was meant as a compliment. Few women politicians in the Democrat Party have ever been accused of that by the way. But in addition to that, she is a hunter, likes to fish and has a bit of the tough outdoorsy Alaskan independence to her. For crying out loud, shows about Alaska are all the rage now on cable.

G: Life issue: Palin recently had her fifth child, a Downs Syndrome baby. She chose to have the baby anyway. Here we have a woman with a fantastic career, four healthy children already delivered and every reason in the world to not have this fifth. Unless, that is, you really really believe in life in the womb and are willing to live that way. This makes her maybe the most profoundly capable pro-life advocate in the GOP today. This is in very stark contrast to where Obama and Biden are on this issue and will mutliply the cold calculation of the Obama stance on this issue.

The names are bouncing around like crazy today. They run the spectrum from Lieberman to Palin. And of course, it could be a name not discussed. But if it is Palin, there is a classic risk-reward equation in play. The potential rewards are very interesting.

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Black Dreams, White Liberals

2008-01-18T17:29:00.002-06:00

January 18, 2008

Black Dreams, White Liberals
By Charles Krauthammer

Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done. -- Hillary Clinton, Jan. 7
WASHINGTON -- So she said. And then a fight broke out. That remarkable eruption of racial sensitivities and racial charges lacked coherence, however, because the public argument was about history rather than what was truly offensive -- the implied analogy to today.

The principal objection was that Clinton appeared to be disrespecting Martin Luther King Jr., relegating him to mere enabler for Lyndon Johnson. But it is certainly true that Johnson was the great emancipator, second only to Abraham Lincoln in that respect. This was a function of the times. King was fighting for black enfranchisement. Until that could be achieved, civil rights legislation could only be enacted by a white president (and a white Congress).

That does not denigrate King. It makes his achievement all the more miraculous -- winning a permanent stake in the system for a previously disenfranchised people, having begun with no political cards to play.

In my view, the real problem with Clinton's statement was the implied historical analogy -- that the subordinate position King held in relation to Johnson, a function of the discrimination and disenfranchisement of the time, somehow needs recapitulation today when none of those conditions apply.

The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results.
Forty years ago, that arrangement -- white president enacting African-American dreams -- was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement -- white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty -- is a demeaning anachronism. That's what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

The King-Johnson analogy is dead because the times are radically different. Today an African-American can be in a position to wield the emancipation pen -- and everything else that goes along with the presidency: from making foreign policy to renting out the Lincoln Bedroom (if one is so inclined). Why should African-
American dreams still have to go through white liberals?

Clinton is no doubt shocked that a simple argument about experience versus inspiration becomes the basis for a charge of racial insensitivity. She is surprised that the very use of "fairy tale" in reference to Obama's position on Iraq is taken as a sign of insensitivity, or that any reference to his self-confessed teenage drug use is immediately given racial overtones.

But where, I ask you, do such studied and/or sincere expressions of racial offense come from? From a decades-long campaign of enforced political correctness by an alliance of white liberals and the black civil rights establishment intended to delegitimize and marginalize as racist any criticism of their post-civil rights-era agenda.

Anyone who has ever made a principled argument against affirmative action only to be accused of racism knows exactly how these tactics work. Or anyone who has merely opposed a more recent agenda item -- hate crimes legislation -- on the grounds that murder is murder and that the laws against it are both venerable and severe. Remember that scurrilous pre-election ad run by the NAACP in 2000 implying that George Bush was indifferent to a dragging death of a black man at the hands of white racists in Texas because he did not support hate crime legislation?

The nation has become inured to the playing of the race card, but "our first black president" (Toni Morrison on Bill Clinton) and his consort are not used to having it played against them.

Bill is annoyed with Obama. As Bill inadvertently let on to Charlie Rose, it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with entitlement. He had contemplated running in 1988, he confided to Charlie, but decided to wait. Too young, not ready. (A tall tale, highly Clintonian; but that's another matter.) Now it is Hillary's turn. The presidency is her due -- the ultimate in alimony -- and this young upstart refuses to give way.

But telling Obama to wait his turn is a tricky proposition. It sounds patronizing and condescending, awakening the kinds of racial grievances white liberals have spent half a century fanning -- only to find themselves now singed in the blowback, much to their public chagrin. Who says there's no justice in this world?
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

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Huckabee Embraces Confederate Flag To Woo White Evangelicals

2008-01-18T17:23:00.003-06:00

Thomas B. Edsall

The Huffington Post

Huckabee Embraces Confederate Flag To Woo White Evangelicals

January 18, 2008 12:30 PM

Columbia, S. Car. -- The populist campaign of Mike Huckabee, seeking to mobilize an insurgency of white evangelicals against the Republican establishment, took an abrupt turn today after the former Arkansas governor directly appealed to voters on the issue of race, summoning his fellow candidates to stop calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from government offices.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. ... If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole. That's what we'd do," he declared to applause at a campaign rally in Myrtle Beach Thursday.

At the same time, an Atlanta, Georgia, based organization, Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, began running radio ads attacking John McCain for his opposition to displays of the Confederate flag on public buildings and praising Huckabee.

"McCain has been doing it -- calling the flag a racist symbol -- for years," the announcer declares. "After McCain, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee stands as a breath of fresh air. Governor Huckabee understands that all the average guy with a Confederate flag on his pickup truck is saying is, he's proud to be a Southerner." The ad concludes: "In South Carolina, we're proud to be Southerners."

The addition of a powerful, racially-freighted issue into the Republican primary contest appears designed to enlarge the constituency of voters supporting Huckabee, expanding the circle of white conservative Christians to include descendants of George W. Wallace's campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s - a constituency that has shown the potential to become influential in southern elections, as David Duke demonstrated by nearly winning the governorship of Louisiana in 1991.

The emergence of the confederate flag as an issue -- if past elections are a guide - holds the possibility of inflicting damage on McCain.

When McCain ran in South Carolina in 2000 against George W. Bush, he, like Huckabee now, said the confederate flag issue is a matter of states' rights -- a laden term in these parts -- and should not fall under federal jurisdiction. Later in 2000, after losing the nomination, McCain renounced his states' rights position, acknowledging, "I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth.... The Confederacy was "on the wrong side of American history. That, my friends, is how I personally feel about the Confederate battle flag. That is the honest answer I never gave to a fair question."

Debates over flying the Confederate flag above southern statehouses and other government buildings have been bitter and intense in recent years across the states of the former Confederacy, including here in South Carolina. Opposition to flying the Confederate flag has resulted in defeats for both Democrats and Republicans.

Huckabee, ironically, has been campaigning throughout the state accompanied by former Republican Governor David Beasley, a conservative white evangelical who lost a 1998 bid for re-election after he called for the removal of the flag from the South Carolina statehouse. During that campaign, cars across the state displayed a bumper sticker declaring "Keep the flag, dump Beasley!"

In next-door Georgia, former Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who had appeared to be unbeatable with high popularity ratings, lost a 2002 bid for re-election after replacing the state flag, which prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem, with a flag that reduced the flag emblem to a barely visible icon. Sonny Purdue, Barnes' successful Republican opponent, issued campaign brochures declaring, "Remember who changed your flag."

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Voter-Fraud Rethink

2008-01-17T19:08:00.002-06:00

Voter-Fraud Rethink

By JOHN FUND
January 17, 2008; Page A16

Both Democrats and Republicans are good at practicing hypocrisy when they need to. But it's still breathtaking to see how some Democrats ignore that it was only last week they argued before the Supreme Court that an Indiana law requiring voters show ID at the polls would reduce voter turnout and disenfranchise minorities. Nevada allies of Hillary Clinton have just sued to shut down several caucus sites inside casinos along the Las Vegas Strip, potentially disenfranchising thousands of Hispanic or black shift workers who couldn't otherwise attend the 11:30 a.m. caucus this coming Saturday.

D. Taylor, the president of the Culinary Workers Union that represents many casino workers, notes that legal complaint was filed just two days after his union endorsed Barack Obama. He says the state teachers union, most of whose leadership backs Mrs. Clinton, realized that the Culinary union would be able to use the casino caucuses to better exercise its clout on behalf of Mr. Obama, and used a law firm with Clinton ties to file the suit.

Mr. Taylor exploded after Bill Clinton came out in favor of the lawsuit on Monday, and Hillary Clinton refused to take a stand. "This is the Clinton campaign," he said.

"They tried to disenfranchise students in Iowa. Now they're trying to disenfranchise people here in Nevada." He later told the Journal's June Kronholz, "You'd think the Democratic Party elite would disavow this, but the silence has been deafening." (Late Tuesday the Democratic National Committee quietly filed a motion supporting the Nevada party's rules.)

However, the lawsuit has created an uproar among voters. It was the No. 1 issue among 30 Nevada Democrats participating in a Fox News focus group on Tuesday night; the anger among rank-and-file voters was palpable. The left-wing Nation magazine has denounced the suit as an attempt to "suppress the vote."

The case goes before a federal judge in Las Vegas this morning. Plaintiffs argue that the caucus sites on the Strip unfairly discriminate against other workers on-duty that day. Lynn Warne, president of the teachers union, insists "our only interest is fairness." But instead of seeking additional at-large locations, they want to close down the casino sites.

Backers of the suit claim they didn't learn of the caucus rules until recently, although they were approved at a party convention nine months ago. Nevada Democrats are free to set their own rules for a caucus, which isn't a government-run election. And as in Iowa, the Nevada caucus is designed to be unfair to many people, including those who are out of town, sick or value a secret ballot (since all voting must be public).

But the time to argue about the rules has passed. As Rob Richie, executive director of the liberal group FairVote, says, "You simply don't want to reduce the number of places to vote or do a last-minute change if you want people to participate."

Meanwhile, Democrats will also be asking for identification at caucus sites. The nine at-large casino sites are meant only for workers who can prove they are employed within 2.5 miles of the Strip, an area that Barack Obama notes includes thousands "working at McDonald's" as well as gas stations and bodegas.

Democratic leaders insist workers need only show an employee badge. If they don't have one, a party spokeswoman lamely says "we'll somehow accommodate them." The Las Vegas Review Journal notes "some Strip workers will have no alternative but to provide photo identification." For a party that compares photo ID requirements to Jim Crow poll taxes, even when state governments distribute the IDs for free, the irony is rich.

And it doesn't stop there. Opponents of the Indiana photo ID law used Faye Buis-Ewing, a 72-year-old retiree who had trouble getting a state-issued ID, as a poster child for how the law would block voters. Then it was learned Ms. Buis-Ewing lives most of the year in Florida, has claimed residency there, and was illegally registered to vote in both states. Confronted with these facts, Ms. Buis-Ewing was unrepentant. "I feel like I'm a victim here," she told the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. "I never intended to do anything wrong. I know a lot of people in Florida in this same situation."

She's right. But "snowbird" registrations in multiple states can swing skintight elections, and are a good reason to tighten both identification and absentee ballot laws. In Florida, where the Bush-Gore presidential election was decided by 537 votes, the New York Daily News found in 2004 that between 400 and 1,000 voters registered in Florida and New York City had voted twice in at least one recent election.
Selective outrage, anyone?

In 1995, Barack Obama sued Illinois over its voter registration rolls on behalf of the radical group ACORN, and he now rails against Clintonista attempts to shut down Nevada caucus sites and photo ID laws. But just last September, Oprah Winfrey held a lavish fundraiser for Mr. Obama at her California estate. None of the 1,500 guests could enter until they presented a government-issued photo ID that could be compared to a guest list. When asked about this, the Obama campaign had no comment.

Republicans can also be hypocrites, pushing photo ID laws while downplaying the larger issue of fraud linked to absentee ballots, which are popular with their suburban voters.

Meanwhile, voters are increasingly concerned about all kinds of ways to undermine ballot-box integrity. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 17% of Americans think large numbers of legitimate voters are prevented from voting -- and 23% believe many illegal votes are cast.

After the 2000 Florida recount debacle, Congress compromised when it passed the Help America Vote Act. Sen. Chris Dodd, its Democratic co-sponsor, hailed it as both "making it easier to vote and harder to cheat." But the law's limited reach needs to be extended at both the federal and state level. Here's hoping both parties are so tired of this year's partisan wrangling that next year Congress can reach for Sen. Dodd's twin goals.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com. A revised edition of his book, "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy" is forthcoming from Encounter Books.

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In Contrast to Obama, Hillary Plays the Race Card

2008-01-16T18:17:00.002-06:00

January 16, 2008

In Contrast to Obama, Hillary Plays the Race Card
By Dick Morris

On the evening of Jan. 3, it became clear that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was going to be a serious candidate for president with a viable chance of winning. The Clintons decided that he was going, inevitably, to win a virtually unanimous vote from the black community. Their own reputation for support for civil rights would make no difference.

With a black candidate within striking distance of the White House, a coalescing of black voters behind his candidacy became inevitable.

Frustratingly for the Clintons, Obama had achieved this likely solidarity among black voters without, himself, summoning racial emotions. He had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning race -- quite a contrast with Hillary, whose every speech talks about her becoming the first female president. But precisely to distinguish himself from the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of American politics, Obama resisted any racial appeal or even reference. His rhetoric, argumentation, and presentation was indistinguishable from a skilled white candidate's.

So the Clintons faced a problem: With Obama winning the black vote, how were they to win a sufficient proportion of the white electorate to offset his advantage?

Not racists themselves, they decided, nonetheless, to play the race card in order to achieve the polarization of the white vote that they needed to offset that among blacks.

They embarked on a strategy of talking about race -- mentioning Martin Luther King Jr., for example -- and asking their surrogates to do so as well. They have succeeded in making an election that was about gender and age into one that is increasingly about race.

According to the Rasmussen poll of Monday, Jan. 14, Obama leads among blacks by 66-16 while Hillary is ahead among whites by 41-27. The overall head to head is 37-30 in favor of Hillary.

It does not matter which specific reference to race can be traced to whom. Obama's campaign has resisted any temptation to campaign on race and, for an entire year, kept the issue off the front pages. Now, at the very moment that the crucial voting looms, the election is suddenly about race. Obviously, it is the Clintons' doing. Remember the adage: Who benefits?

As Super Tuesday nears, the Clintons will likely take their campaign to a new level, charging that Obama can't win.

They will never cite his skin color in this formulation, but it will be obvious to all voters what they mean: that a black cannot get elected.

The Clintons are far from above using race to win an election. Running for president in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, Clinton seized on a comment made by rapper Sister Souljah in an interview with her published on May 13, 1992 in The Washington Post. She said, "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?"

Clinton pounced, eager to show moderates that he was not a radical and was willing to defy the political correctness imposed on the Democratic Party by the civil rights leadership. In a speech to the Rainbow Coalition he said, "If you took the words 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech," an allusion to the former Klansman then running for public office in Louisiana.

The Clintons will be very careful about how they go about injecting race into the campaign. Part of their strategy will be to provoke discussion of whether race is becoming a factor in the election. Anything that portrays Obama as black and asks about the role of race in the contest will serve their political interest. And you can bet that there is nothing they won't do ... if they can get away with it.

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.

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President Clinton Does More Damage Control on Black Radio

2008-01-15T22:27:00.003-06:00

Posted by Josh Gerstein
Mon, 14 Jan 2008 at 9:03 AM Permalink

In an interview Monday, President Clinton mounted a less-than-vigorous defense of comments a prominent supporter of Senator Clinton's presidential bid, Robert Johnson, made which many interpreted as a reference to Senator Obama's admission of drug use during his younger years.The interviewer, Roland Martin of WVON-AM in Chicago, played Mr. Johnson's statement Sunday in which he praised the Clintons for having "been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood - and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book…" Mr. Martin sounded incredulous about Mr. Johnson's subsequent denial, in a statement issued by the Clinton campaign, that he was referring to drug use by Mr. Obama. "When you listen to that tone and the inflection, he was not talking about community organizing. It seems to me very clear what he was implying," Mr. Martin said.

"Ironically, this is the first time I've heard it, what you just said," Mr. Clinton said. "I listened to it on the tape and I think we have to take him at his word."

Mr. Clinton then launched into a defense of his "fairy tale" comments from New Hampshire which had not been raised at that point. The former president also sharply criticized Mr. Obama and his top adviser, David Axelrod, for statements suggesting that Mrs. Clinton's stance on Iraq made the death of assassinated Pakistani leader benzir Bhutto more likely. "That's a lot worse than anything Bob Johnson implied or said," Mr. Clinton said. "I don't believe anybody even asked Senator Obama about it. 'Oh you say she's responsible for something like that, that's fine.'

"Mr. Clinton then lit into the Obama campaign for its "overtly racist" opposition research piece labeling Mrs. Clinton as a senator from India "(D-Punjab)." Pressed further on Mr. Johnson's comments, Mr. Clinton retreated a bit, disclaiming any advance knowledge of his remarks on the part of the campaign. "Bob Johnson said what he said yesterday. Nobody knew what he was going to say. It wasn't part of any planned strategy."

Mr. Clinton also said campaign officials did not plan for the Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo, to use the term "shuck and jive" in what appeared to some to be a reference to Mr. Obama's campaign, but which Mr. Cuomo said was a general comment about campaigning techniques in New Hampshire and Iowa. "Certainly, nobody had any advance notice of anything Attorney General Cuomo said," Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Martin insisted that Mr. Johnson's denial was implausible. "Anybody listening can know what he was talking about—he wasn't talking about community organizing," the host said. "That's something between Bob Johnson and Barack Obama," Mr. Clinton eventually said, seeming to give up on defending the remark. "I think the psychological tensions on everybody are considerable. There are a lot of people who are supporting Hillary who always wanted to vote for an African-American for president. There are a lot of people who are supporting Barack who always wanted to vote for a woman for president," he added later. "It's not surprising that these sort of things will happen….They just happen. I think it's important not to overreact to them."

A series of callers to Mr. Martin's program following Mr. Clinton's call were deeply skeptical of his explanation and harshly critical of Mr. Johnson. One even doubted the former president's statement that he hadn't heard Mr. Johnson's comments, since the words were read to him on another program earlier in the day. Mr. Martin said Mr. Clinton seemed to be saying he had not previously heard the tape of the comments. It took more than an hour to hear a caller defend Mr. Clinton, even tangentially.

Mr. Clinton complained he had been the subject of sharp opposition research attacks by the Obama campaign over his business dealings with the Teamsters and reinvestment in minority communities. "It was a hard hit, man. I didn't say a word about it. And nothing happened to anybody who called Hillary the senator from Punjab," the former president said. "What they're trying to do both of them is figure out how they air their disagreements in a totally new and uncharted field loaded with minefields where people are nervous about is somebody playing the race card or the gender card or whatever," Mr. Clinton said. "I think we should just take what they say on the merits….I'm really proud to be in a party where you've got a woman and an African-American fighting out their differences of opinion."

Mr. Clinton refused to say whether he would vote for Mr. Obama or John Edwards if the race came down to them. "I don't think that that's fair to get me into that," the former president said. He did say he considered Mr. Obama more qualified than any of the Republicans seeking the White House.

Mr. Clinton also appeared Monday morning on the syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show, where the former president suggested Mr. Obama was benefiting from an unfair double standard. "We have been much kinder to him than he has been to her," Mr. Clinton said.

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The Surge Worked

2008-01-10T18:48:00.003-06:00

The Surge Worked

By JOHN MCCAIN and JOE LIEBERMAN

January 10, 2008; Page A15

It was exactly one year ago tonight, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.

At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans -- and understandably so.

After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already "lost," and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.

In fact, they could not have been more wrong. And had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran.

Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst -- prompting Osama bin Laden to call them "traitors."

As al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed. American casualties have also fallen sharply, decreasing in each of the past four months.

These gains are thrilling but not yet permanent. Political progress has been slow. And although al Qaeda and the other extremists in Iraq have been dealt a critical blow, they will strike back at the Iraqi people and us if we give them the chance, as our generals on the ground continue to warn us.

The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president's decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is.

The question now is where we go from here to sustain the progress we have achieved -- and in particular, how soon can more of our troops come home, based on the success of the surge.

Gen. Petraeus has already announced that five "surge" brigades will be withdrawn by mid-July. The process is now underway. The Pentagon has also announced that it is conducting a series of internal reviews to examine whether and when additional troops can be withdrawn -- with Gen. Petraeus, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Central Command each asked to offer their own analysis. As the president awaits these recommendations, it is important for the rest of us to keep some realities in mind.

First, it is unknown whether the security gains we have achieved with the surge can be sustained -- and deepened -- after we have drawn down to 15 brigades. Until we know with certainty that we can keep al Qaeda on the run with 15 brigades, it would be a mistake to commit ourselves preemptively to a drawdown below that number.

As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq. We should adjust those numbers based on conditions on the ground and the recommendations of our commanders in Iraq -- first and foremost, Gen. Petraeus, who above all others has proven that he knows how to steer this war to a successful outcome.

Every American should feel a debt of gratitude to Gen. Petraeus and the great American troops fighting under him for us. This gratitude is due not simply for the extraordinary progress they have accomplished in Iraq, but for what they have taught us about ourselves.

If the mismanagement of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2006 exposed our government's capacity for incompetence, Gen. Petraeus' leadership this past year, and the conduct of the troops under his command, have reminded us of our capacity for the wisdom, the courage and the leadership that has always rallied our nation to greatness.

As Americans, we have repeatedly done what others said was impossible. Gen. Petraeus and his troops are doing that again in Iraq today.

The war for Iraq is not over. The gains we have made can be lost. But thanks to the courage of our troops, the skill and intellect of their battlefield commander, and the steadfastness of our commander in chief, we have at last begun to see the contours of what must remain our objective in this long, hard and absolutely necessary war -- victory.

Mr. McCain is a Republican senator from Arizona. Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.

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Political HaySurge Protection

2008-01-10T16:59:00.002-06:00

Political HaySurge Protection
By Jennifer Rubin
Published 1/10/2008 12:08:49 AM

Six months ago, pundits were predicting that congressional Republicans' patience with the Iraq war had run out. Led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, they were going to storm the Oval Office, deliver the news that no more funding would be forthcoming and thereby save their skins in the 2008 elections. Things have a funny way of working out.

General Petraeus did not just win the rhetorical argument in September because MoveOn.org overplayed its hand. He won because facts on the ground had shifted, Democrats who returned reported significant progress and commentators not known for their support of the war concurred that the surge was working. President Bush got his breathing room.

Fast forward a few months. Now the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post are in agreement. The Democrats' unseemly denial of reality and refusal to recognize the surge has indeed worked has become painfully obvious. Popular opinion on the war has turned and continued funding seems assured. While the future of Iraq's political stability remains in doubt, those who supported the surge are no longer the ones with egg on their faces.

The political ramifications of the last six months are now being played out in the presidential primaries. On the Democratic side Barack Obama's claim to fame -- opposing the war from the get-go -- and determination to withdraw troops immediately may, to some segment of the Democratic electorate, seem oddly out of sync. His anti-war credentials, while still overwhelmingly lauded by the Democratic base, pack a less powerful punch now that the Iraq war has disappeared from the front pages.

ON THE REPUBLICAN side the results are starker. John McCain has revived his political fortunes based in large part on his role in criticizing Donald Rumsfeld and supporting a revision of the Iraq strategy when other Republicans were "looking at their shoes." This offers more than "I told you so" brownie points for him. It clearly places his commander-in-chief credentials above all rivals and cements his image as the "straight talker" who does not trim his views to popular opinion. He has been able to utilize his support of the surge to advance the notion that despite his lifetime in Washington he is indeed the most effect "agent of change" in the race.

The success of the surge has also complicated the plans of McCain's opponents. While Romney tried to leave wiggle room if the surge did not work as planned (it only was "apparently" succeeding he told a debate audience in New Hampshire in September), his less-than-full-throated support looks less wise in retrospect. Coupled with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the surge and McCain's support for it has arguably made Romney's CEO experience looks less relevant than McCain's. McCain can credibly argue that it is not simply enough for a president to collect information and assemble advisers (who often disagree).

To look ahead to the general election, the surge may also have changed the landscape for the Republicans as a whole. If progress continues, the GOP will not face searing headlines and escalating body counts. The traditional image of the GOP as the more responsible and less skittish party in national security may be restored somewhat and the Democrats' willingness to "cut and run" again becomes a viable campaign issue.

So the lessons of the surge are familiar ones, but ones repeatedly forgotten by politicians anxious to seek safer ground in any controversy. Short-term political gain does not always translate into long-term electoral success. The public in the end will reward political courage -- in part because it is so rare.

And once again, political prognostication is a fool's game given the inability to foresee events weeks, let alone months, down the road. When in doubt and when all else fails, Republicans might be advised to do the right thing -- be resolute against American foes, trust reliable advice from our military, and ignore the howls from the media and liberal establishment.

In the end, it just might pay off.Jennifer Rubin writes from northern Virginia.

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Goldilocks Needs Tax-Reform, Not Populism

2008-01-05T11:26:00.002-06:00

January 05, 2008

Goldilocks Needs Tax-Reform, Not Populism

By Lawrence Kudlow

Yes, corporate profits are slowing and jobs are softening. Despite 52 months of ongoing jobs gains and 1.3 million new payrolls in the past year, December jobs registered only 18,000 and the unemployment rate ticked back up to (a still historically low) 5 percent. Despite years of gains from a booming business sector, corporate profits are in fact falling at about a 6 percent clip.

But the last thing we need now is root-canal economic populism from the campaign trail and the mainstream media telling us that Americans are unhappy. Unhappy? According to a Gallup Poll released last week, "Most Americans say they are generally happy, with a slim majority saying they are 'very happy.'" They're also prosperous. According to Investor's Business Daily, household wealth in the U.S. soared 51 percent to $58.6 trillion in last year's third quarter from $38.8 trillion in 2002.

Meanwhile, the Goldilocks economy remains alive and well. It's still the greatest story never told. And while Goldilocks may have softened somewhat, getting her back on track is not rocket science.

The key thing to remember is that businesses drive the economy. Businesses create jobs and incomes for consumers to spend. Today's John Edwards/Mike Huckabee anti-business populism sounds more like William Jennings Bryan than Adam Smith.

It's absolutely crazy. They attack Wall Street and investors, which is another way of attacking capital. Without capital investment, there will be no new business, no new jobs, and no middle class.

And the reality is that today's economic weakness is coming from the business side, not the sub-prime/housing/consumer side. We're witnessing high energy and raw-material prices cause unit costs for businesses to rise faster than prices. That spells weakening profits.

As for this notion that consumers are tapped out, take a look at disposable income. After inflation, it's rising better than 2 percent. Strong income gains of 3.7 percent for hourly earnings are running 1 percentage point ahead of inflation measures based on personal consumption. As it happens, car sales were strong this week. They're running 3.6 percent at an annual rate, ahead of the third quarter. Even holiday sales have surprised on the upside.

All of this is why the Fed needs to deliver a 50 basis point rate cut at its January 30 meeting. A big-bang rate cut would help businesses, consumers, and mortgage owners. It would make the cost of money cheaper and expand the overall liquidity base of the economy.

Some folks argue that rising inflationary pressures would offset these benefits. But that's nonsense. Inflation is the most overrated issue out there. Even when you factor in energy, headline inflation for 2007 is going to come in below the prior year while inflation for 2008 should be even lower than that.

Back in 2000-01, when the economy was slowing markedly, the Fed obsessed about inflation. They were wrong, and then took a radical u-turn. It can't be the same story again. The money supply hasn't grown in a few years while inflation is poised to go way down. The Fed must act, and act big. After that, elected Washington can do the rest.

Right now the single best thing President Bush and Congress can do is slash the corporate tax rate for large and small businesses. Bush must reach out to Charlie Rangel and move the corporate tax to 25 percent from 35 percent. Then, instead of taxing successful capitalists as an offset, Congress can entirely abolish corporate-tax subsidy loopholes, special provisions, and other corruption-inducing K-Street earmarks.

A middle-class tax cut to help families and small businesses would also work wonders. This can be done by collapsing the three middle-income tax brackets of 15 percent ($15,650), 25 percent ($63,700), and 28 percent ($128,500) into one 15 percent bracket. These brackets apply to small-business owners who may be suffering the high costs of energy and raw materials. The biggest weakness in the jobs report is the household survey which is comprised of these owner-operated small businesses. Household job increases have slumped to only 262,000 over the last year.

A major cut in the corporate tax and a simplification of the middle-income tax brackets makes good economic sense. It would help the current softening of the economy and increase America's long-run potential to grow. This is a good plan for President Bush as well as the GOP candidates on the campaign trail. It sure as hell beats talking the economy down.

America is an optimistic country, and for the life of me I don't know why the Republican presidential candidates can't understand this. If a few things go wrong we can fix them. That's what the Fed is there for and that's what tax policy is there for.
Just because Goldilocks is alive and well, it doesn't mean she can't use a bit of help.
Lawrence Kudlow is a former Reagan economic advisor, a syndicated columnist, and the host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics.

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Mike Huckabee Appears on the tonight show, plays guitar with the band

2008-01-04T21:01:00.001-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Romney symbolizes GOP's problems

2007-12-26T19:06:00.002-06:00

STAR PARKER

Romney symbolizes GOP's problems

December 26, 2007

It's doubtful that anyone needs any more reasons to explain why Americans are fed up with politics as usual. Nevertheless, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has given us one more.

Apparently when Romney said, “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King,” in his much publicized “Faith in America” speech, this was not exactly true.

It appears that not only did Romney not see this, but there is serious doubt whether his father ever indeed did march with Dr. King.

Romney now says that he meant this “figuratively.”

According to the former Massachusetts governor, “If you look at the literature or the dictionary the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I have described. It is a figure of speech. . . .”

We haven't seen a politician parse a sentence like this since Bill Clinton dissected the meaning of the verb “is” and explained that it was Monica who had sex with him and not the other way around.

The next sentence in the speech following the King claim was, “I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways nearby. . . .” Also figuratively?

The Detroit Free Press says it has no record of Romney's father, onetime Michigan Gov. George Romney, ever marching with King. According to the Free Press, when Dr. King marched in Detroit, their archives show that Romney's father did not participate because he said his religion prohibited him from public appearances on Sunday.

How ironic that Romney chose to insert this apparent whopper in his “Faith in America” speech. Perhaps the governor's idea of faith is what Groucho Marx had in mind with his line, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”

This kind of casualness with the truth is what has alienated good citizens across the country from the elites who are running our political machinery.

The Pew Research Center reports as its No. 1 public opinion story of 2007 the “sour mood of the public.” A Gallup poll just out puts the number of Americans who “are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.” at 27 percent.

This dissatisfaction carries over into low approval ratings for the president and even lower ratings for the Congress.

Americans are unhappy with the status quo and hence the surprise showings of candidates such as Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. They're sick of detached, elitist, power-hungry candidates whose personal agenda is something other than genuine concern for people and clear and honest principles.

In a recent Pew survey, only 34 percent agreed with the statement “Most elected officials care what people like me think.” Twenty years ago in 1987, 47 percent agreed with this statement.

The bad news for Republicans is that prevailing disillusionment is disproportionately toward and within their party.

According to Pew, 33 percent of Americans now identify as Democrats, up 2 points from 31 percent five years ago. Twenty five percent now identify as Republicans, down 5 points from five years ago.

In addition to this, 17 percent of independents now lean Democratic, up 6 points from five years ago and 11 percent of independents now lean Republican, down one point from five years ago.

This overall shift in sentiment toward the Democratic Party, however, reflects disillusionment with Republicans rather than enthusiasm for Democrats. The current favorability rating for the Democratic Party is at 54 percent, exactly where it was after President Bush's victory in 2004. However, the current favorability rating for the Republican Party is 41 percent, down 11 points from 52 percent over the same period.

The point is that Americans have not suddenly fallen back in love with the liberals.
They have fallen out of love with a Republican Party that was supposed to be carrying the banner of traditional values and limited government, whom they no longer trust to do so.

When Reagan ran against the entrenched political establishment in 1980, the sentiment toward him was similar to what we hear today about Mike Huckabee. How could this guy – a class B actor, former sportscaster, with a bachelor's degree from Eureka College in Illinois – be running for president of the United States?

But Reagan had been traveling and speaking around the country for years. He knew the country and he knew its people. When he ran against government and the establishment, these folks felt he was representing them.

But now Republicans have become a detached ruling elite like the Democrats that Reagan ran against. And they have alienated a chunk of the grass roots within their own party, and independents that Reagan had wooed in.

Republicans can win back the hearts and minds of Americans. But they have to get real and get honest. Unlike the former governor of Massachusetts.

Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist, is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (http://www.urbanure.org/) and author of three books. She can be reached at parker@urbancure.org.

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So much to learn from the Huckabee surge

2007-12-22T17:59:00.002-06:00

With all the talk about the surprising Huckabee surge in Illinois polls, and the big deal that so many "radical rightwingers" are running as Huckabee delegates, I've got to admit, I'm pretty excited for them all.

At the end of October, when I emailed the Huckabee campaign contact, he didn't know anything about getting delegates on the primary slate. I called for guys like Huckabee and Cox to stop dreaming. The incredible surge means there's real enthusiasm for Huckabee - and what he stands for -- that is translating into impromptu organization right here in blue Illinois.

I got a call last night from Elroy Leach, who's running as a Huckabee delegate in the 2nd Congressional District (that's where Jesse Jackson Jr is Congressman).

Elroy told me about his great admiration for Mike Huckabee, how Huckabee was the only Republican who had the courage and respect for black voters to attend the NAACP's recent presidential debate. Huckabee, he said, was praised by Princeton University professor and commentator Cornell West, who said he agreed with Huckabee's moral values.

Elroy was one of a group of young Cook County African-Americans who ran for state office in 2004, and who was ignored and brushed aside by the House Republicans. I wrote about them two weeks ago in the Southtown Star.

But you've got to admire these guys' tenacity and commitment to breaking through the Republican Party's wall. Elroy is now running for Ward Committeeman and hopes to make a difference in the Cook County GOP.

Elroy and others, such as Matteson's Dr. Eric Wallace who's running as a Fred Thompson delegate in the same congressional district, should be encouraged by Republicans this time around. Hopefully, someone at the IL GOP headquarters is paying attention.

The IL GOP elite and their commitment to the Democrat-lite Giuliani could end up being a very, very big embarrassment. It will show that THEY -- the Old Guard -- are the reason Democrats rule and reign in Illinois. It's time to stop blaming the alive and well energetic conservative Republican base.

There's much to learn from the current Huckabee surge.

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Study: Cook criminal justice system overwhelmed

2007-12-13T18:52:00.002-06:00

Study: Cook criminal justice system overwhelmed

By Michael Higgins |Tribune staff reporter

9:00 AM CST, December 13, 2007

Criminal court judges must grapple with excessive caseloads of more than 800 new cases a year, while public defenders can't turn down work no matter how busy they may be, the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice said in the report.

"A system operating beyond capacity and without the tools it needs for rehabilitation and treatment has a profoundly devastating effect on our community, businesses, and families, while destroying lives in the process," Malcolm Rich, executive director of the group's Criminal Justice Project, said in a statement.

The group spent two years studying the county's criminal courts and its main building at 26th Street and California Avenue. It conducted more than 100 interviews and watched 160 hours of court proceedings.

The county's top criminal justice leaders – Presiding Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel, State's Attorney Richard Devine and Public Defender Edwin Burnette – cooperated in the effort and provided data.

They are expected to discuss the report at a public forum at noon at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

The report argues for more staffing to reduce caseloads, improved treatment for drug offenders and more programs specifically geared toward mentally ill defendants.

It also recommends that legislators be required to estimate the cost of any new crime legislation and that a new, independent commission help the Cook County Board make criminal justice budgeting decisions.

"It is our hope that these recommendations serve as a model for bringing about real change in a system that is long overdue," Rich said.

Many of the report's recommendations would require new spending at a time when both the county and state are struggling with budget problems. The report argues for more funds for adult probation, four new drug courts and expanded mental health courts.

But other suggestions, such as improving how court personnel treat the public, won't require more funds, said Daniel Coyne, a defense attorney and Chicago-Kent law professor who worked on the report.

He argued that other recommendations, such as using drug treatment programs to steer more offenders out of the system, are designed to save money in the long run.

"If I invest a dollar today to avoid spending two dollars tomorrow, it's a net gain," Coyne said.

mjhiggins@tribune.com

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$20 million police brutality settlement advances in Chicago City Hall

2007-12-12T07:11:00.002-06:00

$20 million police brutality settlement advances in Chicago City Hall

Daley dismisses Sharpton's threat

By Mickey Ciokajlo and Gary Washburn |Tribune staff reporters

December 11, 2007

The Chicago City Council's Finance Committee on Monday advanced a $19.8 million legal settlement with four men allegedly tortured by former police Cmdr. Jon Burge, setting the stage for final approval on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Mayor Richard Daley shrugged off a threat by Rev. Al Sharpton to lobby international Olympics officials not to choose Chicago for the 2016 Games unless Daley agrees to adopt Sharpton's suggestions to curb police brutality.

"People can do anything," Daley said. "They can oppose anything."

The mayor's comments at an unrelated media event on the South Side came as aldermen at City Hall met to approve the settlements with former Death Row inmates Stanley Howard, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange and Aaron Patterson.

Former Gov. George Ryan in 2003 pardoned and released the men from Death Row. All claimed to have been tortured into confessions by Burge and his men, allegations that included beatings and being subjected to electric shocks.

"This case has really haunted the African-American community for a long time. I believe at this point we can start the healing process in order to move forward," said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th). "There's absolutely no dollar amount that we can put on the pain and suffering that these individuals have been through, as well as their families."

Aldermen who have criticized the Daley administration for not settling the Burge-related cases praised Corporation Counsel Mara Georges for finally bringing them to a conclusion.

"These cases have been a blemish on all of us," Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said.

The settlements, which together make up one of the largest payouts in city history, are scheduled to go before the full City Council Wednesday for approval. Georges told the aldermen that Howard has yet to sign a required release form, but she said she has been assured by his lawyers that will be done in time.

Georges also explained to aldermen that the city's excess insurance carrier will pay the portion of the settlement above $15 million. The cases were put together for insurance purposes.

The insurance may never be triggered, however, because of the deal struck with one of the four defendants.

The federal government has opened a new investigation into Hobley, who had been convicted of murder in the 1987 arson deaths of seven people.

Under the settlement, the city will initially pay Hobley $1 million. The remaining $6.5 million would only be paid if he is not indicted by Jan. 3, 2009 -- and later convicted -- or if the federal government announces before that date that he will not be indicted, Georges said.

"I'm glad that this is over," Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) said. "It's definitely a black eye on Chicago and on our history. But it's also an opportunity for us to get a chance to turn the page."

Daley, who was Cook County state's attorney at the time of the alleged torture, had little to say when asked about the settlements following a news conference to honor public school teachers.

The cases were "very, very complicated," involving torture allegations over a number of years, Daley said.

When a lawsuit is filed, "you settle it," Daley said. He added that he hopes it's "an end of that type of error we had."

Sharpton, who spoke at a City Hall news conference earlier, contended that Chicago should not have the privilege of hosting the Olympics if Daley and other officials do not implement police-related reforms, including changes to prevent brutality.

Informed of the lengthy list of recommendations that Sharpton delivered, Daley quipped, "Is that all?"

He said that Sharpton "can get in line" with all the others who criticize him.

And the mayor shot a barb at the activist, asking why no one raised questions when his hometown was vying for the 2012 Olympics.

"It's interesting, nobody opposed New York -- very, very interesting," the mayor said. "Why all of a sudden is it opposed here?"

New York has had its own police brutality problems, including the high-profile case of a Haitian immigrant who won an $8.75 million settlement in 2001 after officers sodomized him with a stick.

----------

mciokajlo@tribune.com

gwashburn@tribune.com

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Chicago cop found guilty of assaulting woman while on duty

2007-12-12T07:06:00.002-06:00

Chicago cop found guilty of assaulting woman while on duty

Judge criticizes court testimony by 2 detectives

By Kayce T. Ataiyero |Tribune staff reporter

December 11, 2007

A Chicago police sergeant was convicted Monday of raping a woman while on duty after a judge found his testimony that the sex was consensual was "nothing short of perjury."

Cook County Circuit Judge Joseph Claps also said he did not believe the testimony of Calumet Area Detectives Constance Besteda and Ernest Bell, who investigated the woman's allegations against Sgt. John Herman.

Besteda testified that the 42-year-old accuser offered to recant her story for a $5,000 bribe but said she did not pursue bribery charges against the woman.

Saying that he found it "unbelievable" that Besteda would not arrest the woman, Claps said he is forwarding the testimony to the Chicago police superintendent for a review of the investigation and the officers involved.

"Their testimony is not believable or even remotely reasonable," Claps said.

Following a bench trial last week, the judge on Monday convicted Herman, a 20-year veteran assigned to the Gresham Police District, of aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and official misconduct for the 2004 rape in the woman's South Side apartment. He ordered Herman taken into immediate custody.

Prosecutors said Herman picked up the woman on the street after demanding to see identification. Herman drove her to her home on the pretense of retrieving an ID, and then assaulted her, prosecutors said.

Herman faces a minimum sentence of 24 years in prison, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 3.

After reporting the assault, the woman said she was harassed by officers in the Gresham District for being a crack-cocaine addict. She also accused Besteda of offering her $5,000 to drop the case.

Herman testified that the sex was consensual. He said that he and the woman were "sex friends" who had one other sexual encounter before the rape allegations.

Herman said he became friendly with the woman when she would cut through the station's parking lot on her way to the store, but he claimed that he did not know that she was a crack addict.

Claps said he considered the victim's drug use in reaching his verdict.

"[The victim's] testimony is believable despite minor inconsistencies," he said.

After the verdict, Assistant State's Atty Kimellen Chamberlain said the woman has told the same story throughout the three-year investigation. Chamberlain ridiculed the testimony of both Hermanand Besteda, who testified that she gave the woman a high-five after she asked for the bribe.

"It made absolutely no sense: Their eyes met across the 6th [Gresham] District parking lot," Chamberlain said. "It doesn't matter if you are addicted to crack. You don't get to be raped by a Chicago police officer."

In her testimony, Besteda said the woman was tired of being at the police station and asked to be paid to leave. She denied offering the woman a bribe and said she and the woman chuckled at the notion of the bribe.

Besteda also said that Herman may have supervised her in the past and that she also knows his wife.

Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said that the department will look into accusations against Besteda arising from her testimony.

Bell, who has since retired from the department, testified that there was never an offer of a bribe.

"While the Chicago Police Department took the initiative to present charges of misconduct to the state's attorney's office, we have stated in the past that there is no tolerance for misconduct on any level and any allegations regarding Detective Besteda's actions will be investigated by internal affairs," Bond said an e-mailed statement.

John Gorman, spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office, said the office is reviewing the officers' testimony but does not comment on active investigations.

Herman's attorney, Peter Hickey, said his client was "shocked" at the verdict and plans to appeal.

Hickey said he found it "hard to accept" that the judge thought the detectives had lied on the witness stand.

"[Herman] is probably more upset about the fact that the judge decided not to believe Detective Besteda but [the accuser ] instead," Hickey said. "Detective Besteda was telling the truth."

Hickey said he was told that Herman would not be put into the general population at Cook County Jail because of safety concerns.

Brian Ross interviews Mike Huckabee (For President)

2007-12-10T22:54:00.001-06:00

Real Clear Politics . com

Welcome to the Roland S. Martin Newsletter.

2007-12-10T22:49:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the Roland S. Martin Newsletter.

As the alleged killers of Sean Taylor were shown on television via their mug shots, I kept wondering when we were going to see their parents step forward. I saw a couple of mothers, but their dads were missing in action.

Dads matter, and it's ridiculous for us to act as if all it takes is a loving mom.

Now, I don't know what it means not to have a father in your life. I'm not familiar with a mom being strung out on a crack binge. And when my parents were called to the school when there was a discipline problem, Mom and Dad didn't go off on the teacher or principal. In fact, I can still feel the pain of my elementary school principal's paddle being applied to my butt when I acted a fool. The principal only could pop me three times. Dad? He had no limit.

Bottom line: I can sit here today and celebrate them and enjoy a wonderful life because my parents were hellbent on raising their children to do right by them, especially my dad.

We can spend all day talking about the ills afflicting urban America - and there are plenty that are institutional - but the decaying value of life in inner cities clearly can be traced to the exodus of fathers from the lives of so many young men. Excuses often are tossed about as to why black men leave their children (and their children's moms) to fend for themselves. But a lot of them are just sorry and refuse to accept the responsibility that comes with raising a child.

A lot of my colleagues will suggest it's too simplistic to assign such a high value to a dad being in the life of a child. But just take a visit to your local jail, juvenile hall or state prison. You likely will be confronted with a sea of black men - strong, able-bodied, creative and restless - who have spent or will spend years and years with a prison number identifying who they are.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, of all the black men in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 29 in 2002, 10.4 percent were incarcerated. Hispanic and white men? Just 2.4 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. If a poll were done on how many grew up without fathers, I can guarantee you the numbers would be staggering.

The rampant poverty that exists has led many young blacks to a life of crime, choosing to sell drugs and involve themselves in gangs, as opposed to focusing on education, as a way out of the cellar of life.

But you see, when nearly 70 percent of black kids are born to unmarried parents, likely to a too-young mom, that puts tremendous pressure on grandmothers (some grandfathers), sisters and brothers to take up the slack. But if the person who impregnated that woman were on the scene, not only helping to pay for the raising of the child but also serving as a strong influence, I just don't believe we would see such a chronic condition.

And of those black men who have done their job, they are scared to death what it means for their daughters.

The day before leaving for vacation, I got word that a good friend, Chicago attorney Reynaldo Glover, had died of pancreatic cancer.

He was 64.
In our last extensive conversation before he was diagnosed in July, Reynaldo pleaded with me to use my national media stage to be a voice to sound the alarm of what's happening to black men in America because he wanted to know that his daughter would have a respectable man to marry one day. (I'm sure if she chose to marry someone who's not black, Reynaldo wouldn't mind, but he realized that as a nation, we mostly marry within our race.)

I promised Reynaldo that I would do all I can because this has been an issue for me for many years. In fact, my mom gets angry because I'm always talking about my dad on television, radio and in my books. And that's because when you see black men who have "made it," the accolades are plenty for their moms, and their dads are hardly mentioned. I just think it's critical to show daddy some love, too.

This is not an issue that black America can continue to sweep under the rug. I've heard countless folks talk about it, such as Sen. Barack Obama, who noted that his dad left his family when he was a toddler and didn't see much of him growing up. Even in the Republican CNN-YouTube debate, Mitt Romney said fathers are part of the answer to addressing crime in inner cities.

We shouldn't shame our young girls who get pregnant, but surely it shouldn't be seen as a blue-ribbon day. Teenage black girls and black boys should be focused on picking colleges, not the names of babies. When a young girl wants a baby christened, her pastor should be asking to meet with the father, as well, even if the two don't get along. We also should be telling black women not to lie down with any fool. A moment of pleasure could lead you to a lifetime of raising that child. Alone.

A friend of mine suggested more black men need to mentor young black men. I agree. But that's a bandage. If we get black men to handle their business in the first place, no one else would have to stand in the gap.

Unless black America owns up to this problem - and fast - we are going to see another generation of young black men who are angry with their lot in life. And the result will be more discipline problems in school, which will lead to folks dropping out, and that is nothing but a one-way ticket to jail.

Black men, it's time to man up. Enough with the sperm donors. We need real men to stand up and accept their responsibility. The state of our boys is on us. And no one else.

To reach Roland S. Martin:roland@rolandsmartin.com To read Roland S. Martin's blog:www.rolandsmartin.com/blog

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JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL

2007-12-10T22:44:00.002-06:00

JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
Giving Tanks
Across Europe, thinkers are promoting free-market ideals.

LONDON--The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other free-market Washington think tanks are known to many Americans. What isn't generally understood is that there has been an explosion of free-market think tanks around the world that are increasingly challenging the conventional view that government is the solution to society's problems.

Last week the Stockholm Network, an umbrella organization for European free-market think tanks, held its first annual award ceremonies to honor the groups that have been most effective in informing policy makers and the general public about policies like school choice, portable pensions and decentralized approaches to delivering health care.

The Wall Street Journal was a co-sponsor, in line with its adherence to an editorial philosophy of "free markets and free people."In 1997, the Stockholm Network had five members; it now boasts more than 130 affiliated groups, stretching from Iceland to Armenia. In Bulgaria, the Center for Market Economics has played a major role in building support for the country's adoption of a 10% flat-rate income tax, effective Jan. 1. "Watch Bulgaria," says Steve Masty, an economic development specialist based in London.

"The intellectual light bulbs that have been switched on there are now having real-world results." More than one guest at the Stockholm Network dinner commented that several countries in Europe that escaped the Soviet bloc less than two decades ago are now pursuing reforms that would be regarded as too radical for Western European electorates. In Slovakia, the introduction of a profit-based health system has led to the entry of two private health-insurance companies that have helped drop the state share of the health-care market to 65% from 80% in just two years.

Some of the think tank presidents attending the dinner have suffered more than criticism for their work. Prof. Atilla Yayla, the president of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, gave a speech last year in which he stated that the single-party secular rule imposed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s "appears backward rather than progressive."

He said he found it difficult to explain to visitors to Turkey why statues and pictures of Ataturk appear in almost every public space.Mr. Yayla was viciously attacked in the media and subjected to criminal prosecution for his comments. Now teaching on a yearlong sabbatical in England, he plans to return to Turkey to continue his fight for a truly liberal society that represents a third way between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed secularism. He has more than 500 Turkish academics and intellectuals on his mailing list.

While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn't mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic. The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. "In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity," he told me. "Clearly, the government-led efforts aren't doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment."

John Blundell, president of Britain's Institute for Economic Affairs, says an increasing emphasis on promoting liberty in developing nations and among immigrants from those nations is appropriate. At IEA's annual conference for up-and-coming free-market scholars in October, white men were a distinct minority of the 100 students attending. The children of Indian and Chinese immigrants won almost half of the prizes and honorable mentions in IEA's annual student essay contest. The original inspiration for much of the worldwide growth in free-market ideas was a slender volume written by F.A. Hayek, obscure professor at the London School of Economics, in 1944.

As World War II was winding down and postwar planning for growing welfare states was under way, Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," made a powerful case that the collectivist ideas then gaining ground would almost inevitably lead to a loss of liberty in all its forms. Hayek also made a positive case that the venerable ideas expounded by thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke, who promoted limited government and the rule of law, could prove a powerful antidote to socialism.

Hayek urged proponents of liberty to build on the example of socialists, who built a network of theorists and philosophers that later helped them gain political power. He called for a "a truly liberal radicalism (in the European meaning of that term) . . . which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."A few years after publication of "The Road to Serfdom," a young entrepreneur named Anthony Fisher met with Hayek and started IEA. It spent 20 years building the case for a freer society until its ally, Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister in 1979.

While the Stockholm Network dinner was held in a celebratory mood, several speakers reminded the audience illiberal notions like protectionism are making a comeback in many countries, and that global warming has become a pretext for those advocating draconian limits on economic growth. Such wrongheaded ideas are also on the march in America. Everyone seems focused on which party will control the White House and Congress after next November's election. But regardless of who wins, real changes in the public-policy landscape are likely to come only if those who hold political power also have won the battle for their ideas. That's why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the 2008 election, advocates on both the left and right are also pouring money into think tanks. They are preparing for the day when those ideas can be taken off the shelf and put to the test.

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The Republicans Find Their Obama

2007-12-09T21:01:00.003-06:00

The Republicans Find Their Obama
By FRANK RICH
Published: December 9, 2007

COULD 2008 actually end up being a showdown between the author of "The Audacity of Hope" and the new Man from Hope, Ark.?

It sounds preposterous, but Washington’s shock over Mike Huckabee’s sudden rise in the polls — he "came from nowhere," Robert Novak huffed last week — makes you wonder. Having failed to anticipate so much else, including the Barack Obama polling surge of days earlier, the press pack has proved an unreliable guide to election 2008. What the Beltway calls unthinkable today keeps turning out to be front-page news tomorrow.

The prevailing Huckabee narrative maintains that he’s benefiting strictly from the loyalty of the religious right. Evangelical Christians are belatedly rallying around one of their own, a Baptist preacher, rather than settling for a Mormon who until recently supported abortion rights or a thrice-married New Yorker who still does. But that doesn’t explain Mr. Huckabee’s abrupt ascent to first place in some polling nationwide, where Christian conservatives account for a far smaller slice of the Republican pie than in Iowa. Indeed, this theory doesn’t entirely explain Mr.
Huckabee’s steep rise in Iowa, where Mitt Romney has outspent him 20 to 1, a financial advantage that Mr. Romney leveraged to crush him in the state’s straw poll just four months ago.

What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s "inevitability" among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.

Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology.
An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960. That pitch won’t come from Mr. Romney, a glib salesman who seems a dead ringer for Don Draper, a Madison Avenue ad man of no known core convictions who works on the Nixon campaign in the TV series, "Mad Men." Mr. Romney’s effort to channel J.F.K. last week, in which he mentioned the word Mormon exactly once, was hardly a profile in courage.

The fact to remember about Mr. Huckabee’s polling spike is that it occurred just after the G.O.P. YouTube debate on CNN, where Mr. Romney and Rudy Giuliani vied to spray the most spittle at illegal immigrants. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the fringe candidate whose most recent ads accuse the invading hordes of "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," accurately accused his opponents of trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."
Next to this mean-spiritedness, Mr. Huckabee’s tone leapt off the screen. Attacked by Mr. Romney for supporting an Arkansas program aiding the children of illegal immigrants, he replied, "In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." It was a winning moment, politically as well as morally. And a no-brainer at that. Given that Mr. Tancredo polls at 4 percent among Iowan Republicans and zero nationally, it’s hard to see why Rudy-Romney thought it was smart to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.

Mr. Huckabee’s humane stand wasn’t an election-year flip-flop. As governor, he decried a bill denying health services to illegal immigrants as "race-baiting" even though its legislator sponsor was a fellow Baptist preacher. Mr. Huckabee’s record on race in general (and in attracting African-American votes) is dramatically at odds with much of his party. Only last year Republicans brought us both "macaca" and a television ad portraying the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr., as a potential despoiler of white women.

Unlike Rudy-Romney, Mr. Huckabee showed up for the PBS presidential debate held at the historically black Morgan State University in September. Afterward, he met Cornel West, an Obama supporter who deeply disagrees with Mr. Huckabee about abortion and much else. I asked Dr. West for his take last week. After effusively praising Mr. Huckabee as unique among the G.O.P. contenders, Dr. West said: "I told him, ‘You are for real.’ Black voters in Arkansas aren’t stupid. They know he’s sincere about fighting racism and poverty."

Though Mr. Romney’s hastily scheduled speech last week has been greeted by Washington as an essential antidote to the religious bigotry that’s supposedly doing him in, this entire issue may be a red herring. Mr. Romney’s Mormonism has hardly been a secret until now, and Mr.
Huckabee’s eagerness to milk his status as a certified "Christian leader" has been equally transparent from the campaign’s start. Was there really a rising tide of anti-Mormon sentiment in Iowa over the past month, or is Mr. Romney just playing victim?

The real reason for Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance may be that his message is simply more uplifting — and, in the ethical rather than theological sense, more Christian — than that of rivals whose main calling cards of fear, torture and nativism have become more strident with every debate. The fresh-faced politics of joy may be trumping the five-o’clock-shadow of Nixonian gloom and paranoia favored by the entire G.O.P. field with the sometime exception of John McCain.

On the same day of Mr. Romney’s speech, two new polls found Mr. Huckabee with a substantial lead over him and Mr. Giuliani in South Carolina, a stunning reversal from a month ago. Don’t be surprised if a desperate Mitt, who has "accidentally" referred to Mr. Obama as "Osama," does desperate things. South Carolina’s 2000 Republican primary was a jamboree of race-baiting that included a whispering campaign branding Senator McCain as the father of an illegitimate black child. The local political operative who worked for George W. Bush in that race and engineered the infamous Bush visit to Bob Jones University is now in Mr. Romney’s employ.

Mr. Huckabee may well be doomed in the long term. He has little money or organization. He’s so ignorant of foreign affairs that he hadn’t heard of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a day after its release. His sometimes wacky economic populism riles his party’s most important constituency, Wall Street. And who knows how many other Arkansas scandals will be disinterred along with the paroled serial rapist who popped out last week? That Mr. Huckabee has gotten as far as he has shows just how in sync his benign style is with the cultural moment.

To understand why he can’t be completely dismissed, consider last month’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the bipartisan team that conducts the survey, told me in an interview last week that an overwhelming majority of voters of both parties not only want change but also regard "reducing the partisan fighting in government" as high on their agenda. To his surprise, Mr. Hart found that there’s even a majority (59 percent) seeking a president who would help America in "regaining respect around the world."

This climate, of course, favors the Democrats, especially if the Republicans choose a candidate who brands them as the party of rage and fear — and even more especially if their Tancredo-ism drives a large Hispanic turnout for the national Democratic ticket in Florida, Nevada,
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. But a Democratic victory is not guaranteed. The huge spread in the Journal-NBC poll between an unnamed Democrat and Republican in the presidential race — 50 to 35 percent — shrank to a 1 percent lead when Mrs. Clinton was pitted against Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Obama’s campaign, though hardly the long shot of Mr. Huckabee’s, could also fall short. But the Clinton camp’s panic over his rise in the Iowa polls shows that he’s on the right tactical track.

The more polarizing and negative a candidate turns in style, the more that candidate risks playing Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy. That Mrs. Clinton’s minions would attack Mr. Obama for unseemly ambition because he wrote a kindergarten report called "I Want to Become President" — and then snidely belittle the press for falling for "a joke" once this gambit backfired — is Rudy-Romneyesque in its vituperative folly.

Experience, like nastiness, may also prove a dead end in the year ahead. In 1960, the experience card was played by all comers against the young upstart senator from Massachusetts. In Iowa, L.B.J. went so far as to tell voters that they should vote for "a man with a little gray in his hair." But experience, Kennedy would memorably counter, "is like taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going."

The most experienced candidate in 2008 is not Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney in any case. It’s Mr. McCain, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson who have the longest résumés. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama, meanwhile, are both betting that this is another crossroads, like 1960, when Americans are hungry for a leader who will refocus the nation on the path ahead.

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State GOP making overtures to African-Americans

2007-12-09T20:56:00.005-06:00

State GOP making overtures to African-Americans
December 9, 2007
By Fran Eaton, SouthtownStar columnist

A few years ago, a Republican running for state representative in Harvey told me he was "pissed off to the height of pissivity" when the Illinois House Republican organization told him they couldn't financially help his campaign.

Such is a common complaint from so-called Tier 3 candidates running in strong Democratic districts or challenging solid incumbents. Republicans in Illinois learned long ago to pick their battles carefully. But J.R. Jordan really was irritated to discover thousands of those precious GOP funds being funneled to incumbent GOP House members facing no opposition that year.
I really couldn't blame J.R., nor the other black south suburbanites who voluntarily sought petition signatures for the 2002 GOP ballot, for being so angry.

Then in 2004, a black man from Maryland ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. His last-minute entry was a colossal gamble, and no one who supported the scheme for former U.N. Ambassador Alan Keyes to substitute for the abruptly-toppled GOP nominee Jack Ryan had any idea what a disaster it would be. Indeed, Keyes was so awful that he propelled Barack Obama into the national spotlight, and today the former Chicago state senator is a major contender for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination.

In 2006, two black Republicans challenged longtime area incumbents, and both struggled to get out their messages of education reform and family values. They also couldn't get any support from the GOP they wanted so badly to represent in Springfield.

So, you might wonder, what's the big surprise? Republicans are white-collar corporate moguls who take advantage of the middle class and abuse the poor, right? Why would they invest in Cook County minority voting blocs, where Democrats rule and reign?

Michael Zak, author of "Back to Basics for the Republican Party," says Republicans haven't always been perceived as so antagonistic toward minorities.

As a matter of fact, Zak writes, 150 years ago, "Radical Republican" U.S. Senator Charles Sumner starkly defined the difference between the newly-founded Republican Party and the Democrats in this way:

"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood, deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage as 'a sacred right of self-government.' "

Republicans led the fight against slavery.

Indeed, every Democrat in Congress voted against the 1863 D.C. Emancipation Act, which freed 3,100 blacks enslaved in the nation's capital.

Throughout the past few years, these hidden Republican roots have cultivated an array of minority conservative political leaders. Nationally-prominent blacks, such as former Maryland U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, as well as renowned football player Lynn Swann, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts and former Ohio Attorney General Ken Blackwell, encourage others to follow.

The Illinois GOP will be kicking off its new minority outreach council this weekend. Matteson resident Dr. Eric Wallace - on the February primary ballot as 2nd Congressional District delegate for Fred Thompson - has been asked to serve. Others representing Latino- and Asian- Americans will join minority voices in the Illinois GOP.

Like Illinois, Florida is a major Republican state in the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries. Florida GOP spokesperson Erin VanSickle said her state's Republican outreach to minorities is just beginning to flourish.

"We are finding that the Republican message of lower taxes, small business tax incentives, less government interference and more freedom appeals to minority communities," she said.
The Florida GOP recently held its first African-American party convention and was delighted with the enthusiastic response.

One Republican presidential candidate is particularly focused upon nabbing the black community's vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, credits black church members in gaining 48 percent of the black vote during his gubernatorial re-election.

While that figure is questioned by many, one political consultant says Huckabee approaches minority voters the right way:

"He breaks the traditional mold of the Republicans in trying to persuade African-Americans to vote for him, and that's what he did in Arkansas," Little Rock-based Stacy Williams told an Arkansas reporter. "African-Americans are pretty much like anybody else; if you advertise to them or target them and solicit their support, you're going to be successful."

While that's not a earth-shattering political revelation, Huckabee now appears to be leading in Iowa polls. His Illinois supporters slid him in as the last choice listed on the Feb. 5 Republican ballot.

The chances of getting the Chicago area's black community to vote for anyone but Barack Obama in the upcoming primary seems remote, and voters will need to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot that day; that's something those coveted independent voters are hesitant to do.

But whether or not the new life among black conservatives will spring forth this election cycle, there's hope minorities will return to their alive-and-well Republican roots. It will be up to the Illinois GOP powers-that-be to nurture those tender roots to fruition once again.

One of the first people the state's GOP should contact in their minority outreach is that aggravated and disappointed Jordan in Harvey.

Last time I talked to J.R., he'd gone back to promoting a Democrat.

Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com

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Burge cases come back to forefront Investigations, suits dealing with ex-cop force Daley's hand

2007-12-09T20:53:00.003-06:00

Burge cases come back to forefront Investigations, suits dealing with ex-cop force Daley's hand
By Steve Mills and David Heinzmann Tribune staff reporters
December 9, 2007

As Mayor Richard Daley scrambles to deal with a string of current scandals erupting inside the Chicago Police Department, old scandals continue to haunt him.The news of nearly $20 million in settlements with four former Death Row inmates allegedly tortured by police into making confessions two decades ago -- when Daley was the Cook County state's attorney -- comes amid a spate of fresh scandals that have forced the mayor to take unexpected steps in his dealing with his most troublesome department.He moved to restructure civilian oversight of the police and hired a California lawyer to head the Office of Professional Standards, now renamed the Independent Police Review Authority.

For the first time in his administration, Daley this month reached outside the Police Department, where he had found every previous superintendent, to make an FBI official his new police boss.But it is the scandal with roots in the 1980s that has had the most staying power -- and that won't end with one of the largest settlements of a police lawsuit in city history.

"Why does this have such legs? Because of the enormity of what's alleged and the cast of characters that are, without question, involved in this over the years," said lawyer Flint Taylor, who has pushed the torture issue for two decades and handled several inmates' cases.Those characters begin with Jon Burge, the commander of a South Side unit of police detectives alleged to have tortured dozens of murder suspects, most in the 1980s.Fired in 1993 for the torture of Andrew Wilson, who was convicted of murdering two police officers, Burge has been a target of numerous lawsuits and investigations. The city has admitted Burge engaged in torture, yet at the same time is obligated to pay his legal fees.

A special prosecutor concluded in a four-year report released in 2006 that torture was widespread, but Burge and other officers could not be prosecuted because of statute of limitations issues. But federal prosecutors confirmed recently they were investigating Burge.U.S.

Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald also confirmed his office had opened an investigation into the 1987 arson that killed seven people and sent Madison Hobley to Death Row. Hobley is one of the four former Death Row prisoners in the lawsuit settlement. The others are Leroy Orange, Stanley Howard and Aaron Patterson. All four received pardons based on innocence from former Gov. George Ryan.

"We feel like we have nothing to hide, and all of the evidence points to somebody other than Mr. Hobley," said lawyer Kurt Feuer, who has represented Hobley for several years. "It took a long time not only to get him out of prison, but to get him some compensation."Burge could not be reached for comment.

Besides Daley, the torture issue touches the current state's attorney, Richard Devine, whose office defended against numerous appeals in which torture was a central claim. It has even been raised among the many candidates seeking to succeed Devine, suggesting the scandal is not losing steam in spite of its age.The fallout from the police torture scandal not only has cost Daley politically, it also has had mounting financial consequences for city taxpayers.This year alone, excessive force and other misconduct payouts approved by the City Council, as well as new jury verdicts and lawsuit settlements, have tallied $25 million. Add to it the $19.8 million to settle the four torture cases and the cost to Chicago taxpayers approaches $45 million. That figure does not include legal fees, such as the roughly $6 million in Burge-related court cases in recent years.And that is not the end. City officials already are battling a barrage of lawsuits stemming from the massive Special Operations Section scandal, even as the federal and state investigations of the officers' actions widens.

Already, seven officers have been charged with robbing and kidnapping people over several years.

Federal investigators, meantime, have joined the SOS inquiry to try to determine why commanders allowed the officers to remain on the street for years despite a pattern of misconduct complaints.Aldermen who welcomed the latest settlements in the Burge case predicted the City Council would approve the deals this week. But the torture lawsuits are not finished.

Darrell Cannon, who spent 23 years in prison and has long claimed he was tortured by Burge's detectives, has a lawsuit with new life. Taylor, who represents Cannon, said a federal judge recently approved depositions of several dozen witnesses.That means Daley will face a growing docket of current scandals as well as lawsuits that arise out of misconduct from the past, a fact Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) finds frustrating.

"We need to put the Burge matter behind us as soon as possible so we can move forward," said Fioretti, a lawyer who has represented the wrongfully convicted. Fioretti represented LaFonso Rollins, who spent 11 years in prison for rape before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2004. Rollins received a $9 million settlement from the city.

smmills@tribune.com
dheinzmann@tribune.com

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Front-runners are no shows at GOP debate

2007-12-08T15:47:00.002-06:00

Front-runners are no shows at GOP debate
By Alex Wong

Republican presidential hopeful former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks as he stands next to an empty podium which was prepared for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani during the debate Thursday night in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Republican presidential candidates discussed the importance of reaching out to people of color during a minority issues debate Thursday night and criticized the leading four GOP contenders for skipping it.

"I think this is a disgrace that they are not here," said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. "I think it's a disgrace to our country. I think it's bad for our party, and I don't think it's good for our future."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he was "embarrassed for our party, and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come."

The four no-shows — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at historically black Morgan State University.

"Fortunately, there are those in the Republican Party who do understand the importance of reaching out to people of color," said talk show host Tavis Smiley, the debate moderator, thanking the six other candidates for participating.

Besides Brownback and Huckabee, the other candidates who participated in the debate were: Reps. Duncan Hunter of California, Ron Paul of Texas and Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and conservative activist Alan L. Keyes.

The forum, which had black and Hispanic journalists questioning the candidates, was broadcast live on PBS.

The candidates answered questions ranging from what they would do to help minorities, their views on illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, minority unemployment rates and their position on capital punishment.

Huckabee said he would want his legacy in helping minorities to be more equal treatment for them in the criminal justice system. Brownback said he would continue to push for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington. Keyes spoke of bringing more religious values into schools.

Paul received loud applause when he told the audience that minorities are unfairly punished in the criminal justice system. He also called for ending the war on drugs. "It isn't working," Paul said.

Among the Republicans who have criticized the leading contenders for skipping the forum are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, the first black official elected statewide in Maryland.

"I'm puzzled by their decision. I can't speak for them. I think it's a mistake," Gingrich, who is considering joining the race for the GOP nomination, said this week.
Smiley also moderated a debate in June among the Democratic presidential candidates at
Howard University in Washington, another historically black school.
Earlier this month, seven of eight Democratic candidates participated in a debate aired by Univision, the Spanish-language TV network. A Univision-sponsored GOP debate was canceled after only McCain agreed to participate.

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Mortgage rate freeze reached

2007-12-06T22:10:00.002-06:00

Mortgage rate freeze reached
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
Thu Dec 6, 6:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Distraught homeowners facing the grim prospect their monthly mortgage payments soon will surge found hope Thursday they can hold onto their houses by qualifying for a five-year freeze in loan rates.

The plan is the Bush administration's biggest move yet to show it is dealing aggressively with the mortgage crisis. The escalating problem is becoming a political issue and threatening to push the country into a recession.

"The holidays are fast approaching and this will be a time of anxiety for Americans worried about their mortgages and their homes," Bush said. The administration's efforts, he said, are "a sensible response to a serious challenge."

The initiative would hold down rates for certain subprime mortgages, which are loans offered to borrowers with spotty credit histories. These loans offer initial "teaser" rates for the first two to three years before rates climb sharply, potentially increasing monthly payments by as much as 30 percent.

Bush released his plan on a day the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the number of mortgages entering the foreclosure process in the July-September period set a record. Behind those foreclosures is a steep slump in the housing market. After a five-year boom, home sales are plunging and prices declining in many parts of the country. More foreclosures mean more homes dumped on a glutted market.

The housing slump has caused multibillion-dollar losses at some of the largest banks and investment firms and roiled financial markets. All these problems are expected to drag down economic growth to near recession levels over the final three months of this year and into early 2008.

The administration hopes the rate freeze will slow the pace of foreclosures, buying time for the housing market to stabilize and begin to recover. A rebound in sales and home prices will allow struggling homeowners to switch their current adjustable-rate mortgages to more affordable fixed-rate loans.

Disabled veteran Jerry Alberson, 48, said he hopes he will qualify. He has a $180,000 mortgage on a two-story lakefront house in northern Mississippi that he has spent years gutting and remodeling.

"That freeze will definitely help," he said. "I'm not asking them to give me anything, just some time out."

At his White House announcement, Bush insisted the country's underlying economic fundamentals were sound. But critics said his administration was slow in reacting to the housing crisis and the delay had worsened the slump. Some contended Bush's plan was too narrowly focused.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cited his proposal for a freeze on any more foreclosures. That is intended to pressure lenders to renegotiate.

"Our nation is facing a housing crisis that could cost millions of families their homes, devastate neighborhoods and seriously damage our economy," Edwards said in a statement. "The Bush plan is months late and more than a million families short."

Bush pointed blame at the Democratic-controlled Congress. Lawmakers, he said, have failed to act on various housing proposals from the administration. One would expand the ability of the Federal Housing Administration to help low and moderate-income borrowers.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans have blocked efforts to get House-passed bills through the Senate in recent weeks.

Sen. Charles Schumer, who has sought a bolder government response, said Bush's mortgage freeze may help but is not a panacea. "There are too many families who have been left out, too much left up to the voluntary willingness of the private sector and too little disclosure and transparency to ensure that families who do qualify are being helped," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

The administration said its plan could help 1.2 million homeowners — either through a freeze or quicker ways to assist homeowners refinance. The Center for Responsible Lending, which battles predatory lending, estimated that only 145,000 homeowners would qualify for the freeze because the criteria are too narrow.

Bush said homeowners concerned about mortgages that are about to jump up should seek help before they fall behind in their payments. For starters, they can call a new hot line operated by an industry alliance known as HOPE NOW: 1-888-995-HOPE.

An estimated 1.8 million homes have subprime mortgages that are scheduled to reset in the next two years. Those mortgages were initially taken out with rates of around 7 percent to 8 percent. Under the scheduled increases, the rates will climb as high as 11 percent in the months ahead without the freeze. That increase could add an additional $350 to a typical monthly mortgage payment of $1,200.

The freeze will be available only to homeowners who have not fallen behind on their payments at the lower introductory rates and who are living in the homes. This requirement would exclude people who bought investment properties hoping to profit from the housing boom.

Also excluded are people who can afford the higher payments. The administration expects these people will move as soon as they can to refinance to more affordable fixed-rate loans.

The administration also highlighted other efforts aimed at dealing with the mortgage crisis and strengthening efforts to attack predatory lending, which critics say was a primary culprit in luring people into mortgages they could not afford.

The Federal Reserve will announce stronger lending standards this month, while the Housing and Urban Development Department and federal banking regulators are acting to improve disclosure requirements, Bush said.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the proposals were a "welcome step in helping Americans protect their homes and communities from the consequences of unnecessary foreclosures." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who led the weeks of negotiations with the mortgage industry, said the new approach is "not a silver bullet" but should provide significant relief.

The big sticking point in the negotiations was getting investors who had purchased the mortgages after they were bundled into securities to agree to lower interest payments. Critics have said even with a deal, there are likely to be lawsuits although the plan's supporters said they believed it will withstand legal challenges.

George Miller, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, which represents companies that package mortgages into mortgage-backed securities, told reporters he expected the industry would face suits from investors unhappy that the original terms of the mortgages have been modified.

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High income taxes in Denmark worsen a labor shortage

2007-12-06T22:08:00.002-06:00

High income taxes in Denmark worsen a labor shortage
By Carter Dougherty
International Herald Tribune
Thursday, December 6, 2007

As a self-employed software engineer, Thomas Sorensen broadcasts his qualifications to potential employers across Europe and the Middle East. But to the ones in his native Denmark, he is simply unavailable.

Settled in Frankfurt, where he handles computer security for a major Swiss corporation, Sorensen, 34, has no plans to return to the days of paying sky-high Danish taxes. Still, an unknowing headhunter does occasionally pass his name to Danish companies.

"When I get an e-mail from them, I either respond negatively but politely," Sorensen said. "Or I don't respond at all."

Born and trained at Denmark's expense, but working - and paying lower taxes - elsewhere in Europe, Sorensen is the stuff of nightmares for Danish companies and politicians searching for solutions to an increasingly desperate labor shortage.

People like Sorensen, and there are many, epitomize the challenges facing the small Nordic country, long viewed across Europe as an example of how to keep an economy thriving and a society equal.

Young Danes, often schooled abroad and inevitably fluent in English, are primed to quit Denmark for greener pastures. One reason is the income tax rate, which can reach 63 percent.

"Our young people are by nature international," said Poul Arne Jensen, chief executive of Dantherm, a maker of climate-control technology. "They are used to traveling and have studied abroad."

"They are no longer 'Danes' in that sense - they are global people who have possibilities around the world," he said.

Denmark is the home of "flexicurity," the catchy name given to a system that pays ample unemployment and welfare benefits but, unusually in Europe, imposes almost no restrictions on hiring and firing by employers. The mixture has served Denmark well, and its economy barreled ahead in 2006 by 3.5 percent, one of the best performances in western Europe. The country is effectively at full employment.

But success has given rise to an anxious search for talent among Danish companies, and focused attention on émigrés like Sorensen. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is based in Paris, projects that Denmark's growth rate will fall to an annual rate of slightly more than 1 percent for the five years beginning in 2009, reflecting a dwindling supply of a vital input for any economy: labor.

The problem, employers and economists believe, has a lot to do with the 63 percent marginal tax rate paid by top earners in Denmark - a level that hits anyone making more than 360,000 Danish kroner, or about $70,000. That same tax rate underpins such effective income redistribution that Denmark is the most nearly equal society in the world, in that wealth is more evenly spread than anywhere else.

The movement toward lower taxes passed Denmark by, even as it took root in much of Europe.

Small East European countries, notably Estonia and Slovakia, started the trend by imposing low, flax taxes on income and corporate profits about five years ago. Those moves helped prod Austria, and eventually, Germany, to slash high marginal rates as well.

Danish taxes also contrast sharply with those in nearby London, often jokingly referred to among Danes as a Danish town, because so many of them live there. Lower taxes on high earners have been a centerpiece of the policy mix that has fed the rise of London as a global financial center since the 1980s.

But today young Danes can easily choose not to pay for the system's upkeep, once they have siphoned off what they need. For starters, as citizens of the European Union they are entitled to work in any of the 27 EU countries.

Sorensen, who graduated from business school in Copenhagen, found himself earning the equivalent of more than $100,000 before he was 30 - and paying 63 percent of it in taxes. His work as a computer consultant for Deloitte also took him to Brussels, where he met the Spanish woman he would eventually marry.

But the high taxes, mixed with his wife's discomfort in Denmark, meant that a job offer in Qatar three years ago was all it took to pry him away from Copenhagen. Now, he is ensconced in Frankfurt, setting up a new business on the side and planning to pay no more than 25 percent of his income to the German state.

"When you are at 63 percent tax, you don't look forward to the evaluation with the boss to get a raise," Sorensen said. "You look for more vacation or a training course in the tropics - something that you get the full benefit of."

There are many more Sorensens out there in a work force that is culled from a country of just 5.5 million people.

The Confederation of Danish Industries estimated in August that the Danish labor force had shrunk by about 19,000 people through the end of 2005, because Danes and others had moved elsewhere. Other studies suggest that about 1,000 people leave the country each year, a figure that masks an outflow of qualified Danes and an inflow of less skilled foreign workers who help, at least partially, to offset the losses.

Danish business normally keeps its distance from politics, but in parliamentary elections this year, a few companies jumped into the fray.

Lars Christensen is co-chief executive of Saxo Bank, a Copenhagen financial services firm specializing in currency trading and retail brokerage services. New employees at Saxo Bank get a copy of "Winning," the playbook of Jack Welch, the brass-knuckled former chief executive of General Electric, and "Atlas Shrugged," the libertarian manifesto by Ayn Rand, suggesting that the boss has little time for solutions that beat around the bush.

"The high tax rate is the No. 1 problem we have," Christensen said. "It's that simple."

Christensen said about 150 positions at Saxo Bank had been created outside Denmark because filling them at the home office would have been either prohibitively expensive or simply impossible. Finding people at its offices in Britain, Switzerland and Singapore, where tax rates range from 19 to 40 percent, proved easier. But it forced the bank to break up teams of people that it wanted to be concentrated in Copenhagen.

This year, Saxo Bank gave a million Danish kroner, or $197,000, to an upstart political party, New Alliance, whose centerpiece was a flat income tax of 40 percent. The party is run by a Syrian-born Danish citizen named Naser Khader who has also touted more open immigration as the solution to Denmark's troubles. The party squeaked into Parliament with enough seats to give it a role in the new center-right government of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Acknowledging the need to reduce the tax burden, Rasmussen's previous government approved slight reductions in taxes for lower earners, but he has avoided promises of quick fixes. In 1998, Rasmussen's party narrowly lost a national election focusing on a message of business-friendly reform, an experience that colors the current message of incremental change.

"Denmark is a country of consensus," Rasmussen said recently. "Occasionally that fact tends to lower the speed of reforms, but in exchange we are efficient in our implementation."

But young Danes may simply move faster.

Sorensen is settling into life in Frankfurt. He recently passed through Copenhagen to discuss a business proposition with a potential partner, but anything they do will be based outside Germany, he said.

His wife recently gave birth to their second daughter, and barely a word of Danish passes Sorensen's lips when he speaks with his children.

They are growing up with English, an amalgam of the British and American idioms, as their first language, and the world as their horizon.

"If I could," he said, "I'd have a European passport, not a Danish one."

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