Fantasy Politics USA

The latest Hillary Clinton story bouncing around the internet this weekend is the planted question story. At a Newton, Iowa, town hall meeting last week the Clinton campaign was caught trying to plant a question. Another report claims this is at least the second time her campaign has been caught doing this. Clinton claims she knew nothing about this saying, “It was news to me, and neither I nor my campaign approve of that, and it will certainly not be tolerated.” It didn’t take long for John Edwards to jump on this one. Edwards said Clinton was acting just like George W. Bush. “My response is that’s what George Bush does. George Bush goes to events that are staged, where people are screened, where they are only allowed to ask questions if the questions are favorable to George Bush. And set up in his favor,” Edwards said. “That’s not the way democracy works in Iowa. And that is not the way it works in New Hampshire. I mean if you actually want to be president of the United States you go out, you face people, which I’ve done in every one of the 99 counties in Iowa and answered their questions that are asked. And that’s the way it is supposed to work in the caucus process and I think this is the kind of thing George Bush himself has done.” The Clinton camp has been trying to get over this story, but can’t seem to shake it. The Clinton camp did take time to respond to Edwards though. “Attacking other Democrats is what George Bush does and I think Iowans and the people of Iowa and New Hampshire are going to have to decide whether John Edwards’ total abandonment of positive campaigning is the way they want to see things run in their state,” according to a Clinton spokesperson. “What George Bush does is attack the Democrats and divide the country, and John Edwards’s campaign is resembling that more and more every day.” The spokesperson went on to say, “Hillary Clinton has taken hundreds of questions from reporters and Iowans during the course of this campaign . . . a lot of tough questions. . . . I think people know that Hillary knows how to take tough questions.” This story shouldn’t hurt Clinton as much as detractors are hoping. It is not an uncommon practice, but the spin from this story could sting Clinton a bit. It will help reinforce her negatives and make her campaign look manipulative to try to maintain her lead in the polls. These tactics did seem to work for Bush though, he won twice. Plant, divide and conquer.
Alan Cosgrove

Mike Huckabee was on Face The Nation today and said there is a real threat with the situation in Pakistan. He says the suspension of the Constitution there is unacceptable. “We have to understand that there is a real threat to us in Pakistan in that if we have another terrorist attack, there’s a good likelihood that it’s going to be postmarked Pakistan,” Huckabee said. “That’s where Osama bin Laden is hiding somewhere in those caves.” Just like Rudy Giuliani thinks being a mayor is the best training for being President, Huckabee thinks being a governor is the best training. “You know, most governors have more experience than people realize,” Huckabee said. “I mean, I’ve traveled to nearly 40 countries. I’ve dealt with not only multinational trade agreements with corporations but also with heads of state.” The last two Presidents had been governors. Huckabee also said he was puzzled that Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani last week. Huckabee is not worried about the endorsement though because he believes the rank and file Christians back him while the leaders are all split up on who to back. “I salute Rudy for getting it (Robertson’s endorsement). Wish I had had it, but I don’t,” Huckabee said. “But here’s the good news for me. I believe that if you look at the value voter debates over the past several weeks, we’ve won every one of them. Not just by a squeak, but got more votes than all the other candidates put together.”
Alan Cosgrove

Barack Obama was on Meet The Press today and told moderator Tim Russert that higher taxes might be needed to help Social Security. “And when you look at how we should approach Social Security, I believe that cutting retire—cutting benefits is not the right answer. I meet too many seniors all across the country who are struggling with the limited Social Security benefits that they have. That raising the retirement age is not the best option,” Obama said. “But I think that the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more and the people who are in need are protected. That is the option that I will be pushing forward.” Obama has something called a “doughnut hole” to help protect the middle class from higher taxes. He isn’t worried about campaigning with a tax increase, since rich people are willing and wanting to pay more taxes. Obama said, “I think a lot of us who have been fortunate are willing to pay a little bit more to make sure that a senior citizen who is struggling to deal with rising property taxes or rising heating bills, that they’ve got the coverage that they need.”
Alan Cosgrove

In a New Hampshire town hall meeting Hillary Clinton called for an end to the “era of cowboy diplomacy.” She used the situation in Pakistan as an example, saying she had urged the President in January to send a diplomatic envoy there to help calm tensions between the Afghani and Pakistani governments. But instead the President sent V.P. Dick Cheney, and “Cheney went out, read everybody the riot out, about you behave, you do this, you do that. Left. That was the end of it.” Hillary continued saying, “You have to laugh to stop from crying. It seems like we have one diplomat, Condi Rice. She’s an able woman, but she can’t cover the entire world, and yet that’s the only person that President Bush apparently is willing to send anywhere.” This is a theme Clinton used in the past. During a question and answer session in Iowa recently she discussed the fact that Bush uses Rice almost exclusively. “We have to get back to robust diplomacy,” Clinton said, “and by that I mean using people to be emissaries and presidential envoys around the world. It’s as though our government has a dearth of diplomats, because President Bush seems to use only very few people. I mean, read the paper. Condi Rice goes here and Condi Rice goes there and Condi Rice is there. That is not a foreign policy.” Hillary has been critical of Bush’s disregard for international treaties and norms, saying the Bush administration’s “attitude is that somehow the United States not only should, but must, go at it alone. That’s not going to work.”
It will probably take an army of diplomats to fix U.S. foreign policy by the time these guys are done, and Clinton has already signed on her husband Bill Clinton to take on that responsibility.
Alan Cosgrove