Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 4, 2007; 3:30 PM

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Congressional Democrats from Florida sued their own party Thursday, hoping to restore the national convention delegates stripped from the state because it scheduled an early presidential primary.

The party violated the Constitution and federal voting laws by taking away Florida Democrats’ ability to have a say in choosing the presidential nominee, says the lawsuit filed by Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Alcee Hastings against the Democratic National Committee and Chairman Howard Dean.

“For the DNC to say to the fourth-largest contingency of Democrats in the nation that their votes will not matter in next year’s presidential primary is not only shocking and ironic, but we believe is illegal,” Hastings said at a news conference in Washington.

The national party’s rules committee voted to take away Florida’s 210 delegates after the state party chose to go along with a Jan. 29 primary. That date was set by Florida’s Republican-led Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

Democratic Party rules say states cannot hold their 2008 primary contests before Feb. 5, except for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The DNC issued a statement saying the Supreme Court has previously ruled that political parties _ and not states _ have the right to decide how their candidates for president are selected.

“The state of Florida moved the date of their primary knowing full well what the consequences from the national parties would be. The DNC has the absolute legal right to treat the state-run primary as a mere beauty contest,” the statement said.

Nelson said they tried to compromise with party leaders before filing the lawsuit. “We didn’t have any other choice,” he said.

The calendar was designed to preserve the traditional role that Iowa and New Hampshire have played in selecting the nominee, while adding two states with more racial and geographic diversity to influential early slots.

Meanwhile, South Carolina Democrats will decide within two weeks whether to ask national party leaders to move the state’s primary to Jan. 19 and make it the party’s first contest in the South.

That would move the state out of Florida’s shadow. South Carolina Republicans already have decided to vote Jan. 19.

“The concern is we don’t want to be 10 days after the Republican primary,” Joe Werner, the state Democratic Party executive director, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Iowa and New Hampshire congressional delegations on Thursday sent a letter to House leaders asking them to stay out of the simmering fight over primary election dates.

“Constitutional questions have already arisen related to congressional action to set the order of presidential primaries and caucuses,” the letter said. “We believe that this matter is best left to the two major political parties and the states.”

The lawsuit filed by the Florida lawmakers in Tallahassee said, “For the right to vote in a presidential primary to have any meaning, those presidential primary ballots must result in votes that are going to count at the party’s national convention.”

It notes the controversy over vote-counting in Florida that extended the 2000 presidential election, which was decided only after a Supreme Court ruling.

“In the aftermath of the shattering events of 2000, Democrats here and around the country have made continued efforts to assure that every vote counts,” it said. “It is thus truly a monumental irony for the Democratic National Committee to replace its own commitment to assuring that every vote must be counted with a decree that no Florida Democrats’ vote will count.”

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Associated Press Writers Jim Davenport in South Carolina and Ann Sanner in Washington contributed to this story.

Romney, Giuliani trade barbs on taxes

Showing similar game plans Thursday, GOP presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, at left, visits MaryAnn’s Diner in Derry, N.H., while rival candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani stops at a coffee shop in Clayton, Mo. Associated Press photos (Associated Press photos) Republican fundraising WASHINGTON – Several presidential candidates have disclosed their third-quarter fundraising totals this week. Here are the numbers released by Republican candidates: Rudy Giuliani » Total fundraising to date: more than $44 million » Third-quarter fundraising: $11 million Mitt Romney » Total fundraising to date: about $45 million » Third-quarter fundraising: $10 million Fred Thompson » Total fundraising to date: $12.7 million » Third-quarter fundraising: $9.3 million John McCain » Total fundraising to date: about $30.9 million » Third-quarter fundraising: $6 million Ron Paul » Total fundraising to date: more than $8 million » Third-quarter fundraising: $5 million Associated Press

Michael Finnegan
Los Angeles Times
October 5, 2007

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani clashed over taxes Thursday in a flare-up that illustrated a sharpening rivalry between two leading contenders for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Campaigning in southern New Hampshire, Romney pounded Giuliani’s fiscal record as mayor of New York. The Giuliani campaign snapped back, calling Romney a hypocrite who as governor of Massachusetts showed little restraint with public money.

The spat was part of an increasingly fierce battle by each man to be perceived in New Hampshire, a state with no income tax and a strong anti-tax tradition, as a paragon of fiscal discipline.

More broadly, it captured the intensifying conflict between two candidates who are taking starkly different tacks in the race for the nomination but whose ambitions are colliding head-on here.

Romney is banking on winning the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary to build momentum elsewhere. He has sought to unite religious conservatives behind him, especially in Iowa.

Giuliani’s liberal stands on abortion and other social issues have positioned him poorly in culturally conservative Iowa. But he is counting on a New Hampshire win to foreshadow a sweep of the Feb. 5 primaries in California, New York, Florida and other big states.

So in New Hampshire, Giuliani and Romney are tussling hard over fiscal conservatives.

At St. Anselm College on Thursday, Romney criticized Giuliani for going to court to overturn the line-item veto that Congress approved under President Clinton. Giuliani won the case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is the single most important tool we have to stop excessive spending, and that was a serious mistake,” Romney said.

He also took issue with Giuliani’s refusal to sign a no-new-taxes pledge and slammed the former mayor for suing to preserve an income tax that New York City imposed on people who worked in the city but lived elsewhere.

“Can you imagine a greater outrage than this, which is that not only did you have to pay the local taxes in New York City if you were commuting there, but you had a special tax applied to you called the commuter tax?” Romney asked.

“Can you imagine,” he added, “what would have happened up here in New Hampshire if I, as governor of Massachusetts, said everybody who commutes to Massachusetts is going to have to pay an extra special tax as a commuter? It just seems absolutely wrong.”

In response, Giuliani’s team dispatched another former Republican governor of Massachusetts, Paul Cellucci, to attack Romney’s fiscal record during a conference call with reporters. He described Romney’s attack as “some desperation as the polls close in.”

Giuliani supports the line-item veto, he said, but only by constitutional amendment.

The senior Giuliani adviser also faulted Romney for approving “no broad-based tax cuts” as governor.

“And talk about hypocrisy: One of the loopholes he closed was that he increased income taxes on people who did not reside in Massachusetts but were employed or had a business in Massachusetts,” Cellucci added.

It’s ‘ what’s in your heart,’ not on lapel

John Mccormick
Chicago Tribune
October 5, 2007

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — In this patriotically named town, it seemed like as good a place as any for Sen. Barack Obama to explain why he does not wear an American flag pin on his suit lapel as some politicians do.

It was a topic the Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate was forced to address Thursday, following an answer he had given the day before to a television station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Obama told KCRG that he wore such a pin shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but later dropped the practice.

“I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said, according to a transcript provided by his campaign. “Instead, I’m gonna’ try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

But after the issue made national news Thursday, he was forced to address the topic again. His campaign, sensing the topic was dominating campaign trail news, had earlier made clear he had not worn such a pin for years.

“I’m less concerned about what you are wearing on your lapel than what’s in your heart,” he said under a county fairgrounds pavilion here, a giant American flag draped behind him.

“You show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those ones who served.”

He suggested some politicians who wear such pins act in disingenuous ways.

“After a while, you know, you start noticing people wearing a lapel pin, but not acting very patriotic, not voting to provide veterans with the resources that they need,” he said.

Earlier, his campaign had issued a statement that said patriotism “isn’t what you wear on your lapel. It’s what you carry in your heart. I don’t need a pin to certify my love for this country.”

Republican politicians often wear flag pins. But Thursday the other two top Democratic candidates steered clear of the topic.

A spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton, of New York, declined to comment on whether she regularly wears such a pin, although she has worn one in the past.

A spokesman for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said he wears an Outward Bound pin from his late son, Wade, who died a decade ago.

Seniors earning over $80,000 would pay more

Ensign

Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post
October 5, 2007

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is advancing a proposal to levy higher premiums and deductibles on upper-income seniors enrolled in Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit, raising fees on beneficiaries with incomes over about $80,000 a year, administration officials said Thursday.

The administration is working with Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., to attach to upcoming legislation a “means testing” provision that would save the government billions of dollars. In the past, however, similar proposals have been blocked by the furious response of seniors.

“You say it saves money and these people can afford it, but it also eats away at the incomes of seniors. It erodes their sense of the reliability on these federal programs, and it certainly erodes political support,” said John Rother, policy director for AARP, the powerful senior lobby.

The plan was originally drafted as part of President Bush’s fiscal 2008 budget, but it died this spring with little notice. Now, at Ensign’s request, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the federal health plan for the elderly, has revived the measure.

The timing of the effort could not be worse, some Republicans said. The proposal is surfacing when Bush’s approval ratings are at record lows, his war policies are embattled and his veto this week of a children’s health insurance bill has drawn fresh fire.

Ensign put a similar proposal to a Senate vote in March. It was rejected 52 to 44.

But Ensign, who chairs the campaign committee responsible for electing Republicans to the Senate, is undaunted, vowing to add means testing to any Medicare measure that comes before the chamber.

“Working couples with incomes over $160,000 should not be subsidized by retired firefighters or schoolteachers,” he said. “They should pay more of their share.”

Already, the section of Medicare that pays for outpatient care, including doctors’ fees, imposes some means testing. Single seniors with incomes exceeding $82,000 and couples with incomes above $164,000 pay higher premiums on a sliding scale as their wealth rises. Those thresholds rise each year with inflation.

The original Bush proposal would have frozen those thresholds at $82,000 and $164,000, so more seniors would have been affected by means testing over time. The same thresholds would have applied to the new prescription drug benefit.

According to the White House budget office, the proposal would have saved more than $10 billion over five years: $7.1 billion from the physicians’ portion of Medicare and $3.2 billion from the drug coverage. The higher fees would have hit only the richest 4.3 percent of seniors enrolled in the drug program, Ensign said.

The new plan is likely to maintain inflation adjustments, Ensign said. But the senator was adamant that means testing be added to the drug benefit, and he said he has secured a strong White House commitment. The Finance Committee, of which he is a member, will probably take up legislation within weeks to stave off the scheduled cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.