Fantasy Politics USA

Mike Bloomberg is heading to the place of the nations first primary this weekend. Bloomberg says his trip to New Hampshire is purely a social visit though. On his radio show Bloomberg said, “People will read into the fact that I’m going to be in New Hampshire tomorrow.” His host John Gambling then teased, “They have a primary there, you know.” Bloomberg answered back to him, “That may be, but the truth of the matter is I’m going to be in New Hampshire just for dinner.” He says he is heading there this weekend to attend his girlfriend’s college reunion. He is still insisting that he will serve out his whole mayor term which runs into 09. Then Bloomberg added, “I don’t think the country is quite ready for me.” Besides even if he was running he said he would wait until there are two clear front runners, so he could determine if he had a chance with an independent run. He also is scheduled to go to California next weekend to talk to Google employees just like four other presidential candidates have so far. The web search engine has invited all the presidential candidates to speak to their employees. A Google spokesman said that Bloomberg wasn’t invited under the presidential series of talks. Bloomberg is covering all bases just in case he changes his mind and decides the country is finally ready for him.
Alan Cosgrove

Rudy Giuliani has been pretty careful not to criticize President Bush up to now. On Thursday he suggested that Bush might have lacked some leadership skills saying, “What we’re lacking is strong, aggressive, bold leadership like we had with Ronald Reagan.” He also suggested this Tuesday when he explained to a reporter why he could pass school vouchers when President Bush wasn’t able to. “That’s what leadership is about,” Giuliani said. “Leadership is about doing things that in the past other people weren’t able to do.” But Giuliani stuck to his support of our sitting President explaining his remarks after the speech. “I have tremendous admiration for President Bush,” he said. “I guess in the first debate when some of my Republican colleagues were trying to distance themselves I went ahead and I said, you know, we Republicans should be talking about the things President Bush has done right.” That shouldn’t take to long. Then Giuliani expressed his admiration for Bush by saying, “I think President Bush made the single biggest decision of his presidency correctly,”….. “He put us on offense against terrorism. I will always admire him for that.” But then Giuliani goes on to say, “As far as the things that developed my ideas and thinking, which developed as a much younger man, it was Ronald Reagan.” So if you want more of George Bush, but with Ronald Reagan’s leadership style you should vote for Giuliani. At least according to Giuliani.
Alan Cosgrove

Al Gore was in Milan this past week and he denounced the G8 for coming up short on curbing greenhouse gases. He called it “a disgrace disguised as an achievement.” The G8 leaders agreed to pursue “substantial” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, but they stopped short of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s idea of concrete commitments on emission reductions, including her key aim to cut gases by 50 percent by 2050. Al Gore said, “The eight most powerful nations gathered and were unable to do anything except to say ‘We had good conversations and we agreed that we will have more conversations, and we will even have conversations about the possibility of doing something in the future on a voluntary basis perhaps.'” After a speech in Milan where Gore praised Merkel’s ideas he stressed that his primary mission right now is climate change, an issue he calls a “planetary emergency.” “I don’t plan to be a candidate again. I haven’t completely ruled out that possibility, but I don’t expect to be a candidate,” Gore told the crowd of mostly students and scientists. He had no comment on the other candidates environmental policies saying, “In general, the debates have not featured prominently an exchange of views on the climate crisis.” Then Gore added, “If I do my job, it will be the No. 1 issue in 500 days.” Al Gore is by far the best non-candidate on the Democratic side, and probably even better than the Republican’s Fred Thompson. If you would like to know where the candidates do stand on environmental issues check out The Heat Is On 08. This website is put together by The League Of Conservative Voters Education Fund. They call it a quick-reference guide on the current positions on global warming of the presidential candidates.
Alan Cosgrove

In an ad with Bill Clinton telling us why we should vote for Hillary was a photo of Hillary with Mother Teresa. A national Catholic advocacy group, Fidelis, faxed a letter to Sister Nirmala, the Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, and recommended they request the Clinton campaign take Mother Teresa’s picture out of their ad campaign. Fidelis President Joseph Cella stated,

“In our letter, we pointed out that the use of Blessed Teresa’s image was particularly inappropriate and disturbing given Senator Clinton’s staunch support of abortion both here in the United States and abroad. Mother Teresa tirelessly fought to protect unborn children, while Hillary Clinton staunchly supports abortion on demand in all nine months of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.”….“Blessed Mother Teresa is revered in America and across the globe as one of the greatest champions of the dignity of the human person. It is wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing that Hillary Clinton shamelessly exploited Mother’s image as a political tool.”

The Clinton campaign removed the photo from the ad at the request of Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa’s successor. The original ad, as it was, is now blocked on YouTube, but you can see the new ad here. The original ad included a photo of Hillary waving next to Mother Teresa, while the narrator says, “Hillary in effect, was the face of America, in Africa, in India…” Then it was immediately followed by a clip of Hillary saying, “it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.” I don’t think Mother Teresa agreed with that type of language. Mother Teresa was against abortion of any kind, stating, “Motherhood is the gift of God to women…Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion …. No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of “freedom” can take the place of love.” Hillary was smart to remove that picture from her ad.
Alan Cosgrove

Hillary Clinton has started another website called www.HillaryHub.com. According to the site, it is all Hillary, all the time. The Politico.com says, “it’s a news aggregator on the model of the Drudge Report. The difference, of course, is that the stories are chosen to depict Clinton favorably and to tweak her critics.” “In an ideal world, every single one of our supporters would wake up in the morning and go to HillaryHub to find out what the latest news on Hillary is,” its creator, Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson told Politico. That would be like Republicans only finding their news at Fox News. It won’t be long until other candidates will follow with their own “news” websites.
Alan Cosgrove

John McCain was speaking in Los Angeles yesterday and he accused Hillary Clinton of clogging up the military budget with 150 million in pork barrel projects, or home state earmarks. 43 million went to Long Island alone. McCain would like to propose an amendment to, “eliminate these earmarks and pork-barrel spending projects, which the Pentagon had no request for and had no need for.” “We can’t do this earmarking and pork-barreling if we ever are going to be careful and serious stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars,” McCain said. Clinton was second in pork-barrel spending only to Armed Services chairman Carl Levin, who secured more than $210 million. Clinton is actually proud of the work she has done on behalf of her constituents, often issuing news releases bragging about her projects and contracts for local companies. McCain has been a longtime critic of such spending, and it shows because he has none. Clinton didn’t really respond, and instead was more interested in talking about the endorsement of director Steven Spielberg.
John McCain saved a little of his attack for Republican rival Mitt Romney. Romney is scheduled to address the National Right to Life convention in Kansas City on Friday. McCain used this opportunity to send emails to the press showing Romney flip flopping on the issue of abortion. They called it “Mitt v fact”, and had a link to the YouTube video of Romney as governor in 2005 saying, “I have indicated that as governor, I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to laws relating to abortion and choice, and so far I’ve been able to successfully do that. And, my personal, philosophical views about this issue are not something that I think would do anything other than distract from what I think is a more critical agenda.” Romney’s camp responded to the attack by saying they are acts of desperation.
Alan Cosgrove

Fred Thompson made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night, and Leno asked Thompson if he wanted the nations top job. “We’ve formed a testing the waters committee,” Thompson told Leno. “I’ve never craved the job of president, but I want to do some things that only a president can do.”…”So, the answer is yes.” He told Leno that the political waters were “warm.” Thompson is expected to join the race early this summer. The “warm” waters he mentioned might be the recent polls that show him closing in on the leader Rudy Giuliani. In a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll Giuliani leads the pack with 27%, but the undeclared Thompson is a close second with 21%. John McCain and Mitt Romney are battling for a distant third. McCain has only 12% and Romney has 10%. Numbers like these are clear indicators that the Republican voters are still not satisfied with their candidates.
Alan Cosgrove