Bush budget sees bigger deficits as economy slows

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush forecast the U.S. budget deficit would more than double in 2008 and blamed a softer economy as he unveiled a $3.1 trillion spending plan for fiscal 2009 on Monday that would nearly freeze domestic programs.

The White House projections were immediately criticized by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who said the numbers may gloss over the full extent of the fiscal deterioration and failed to include the full Iraq and Afghanistan war costs.

With the economy teetering on the brink of a recession, Bush said the deficit would reach $410 billion for the budget year 2008 that ends on September 30 and $407 billion for fiscal 2009 that begins on October 1.

The budget makes military spending and the Iraq war its centerpiece, proposing a 7.5 percent increase for the Pentagon to $515 billion. Click here to read more at Yahoo News, if you want…

Super Tuesday Results in Delegate Split; Meaning the Race Goes On…

Obama and Clinton Settle In for the Long Run

With no breakout winner in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama began fortifying for a drawn-out and expensive campaign on Wednesday, with Mrs. Clinton disclosing that she had lent her campaign $5 million and Mr. Obama rejecting calls for several more debates.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign confirmed that she had lent her campaign $5 million at the end of January for advertising and organizing expenses in Tuesday’s 22 races, an acknowledgment that her fund-raising had fallen far behind her rival’s. Aides said she would consider lending her campaign more money if necessary to remain viable.

Mr. Obama raised $32 million in January, while Mrs. Clinton’s campaign brought in only about $13 million, officials said.

Mrs. Clinton made millions of dollars on her memoir, “Living History,” while her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has made tens of millions of dollars since leaving the White House by selling his memoir, giving paid speeches and entering a lucrative partnership with Ron Burkle, a Los Angeles billionaire.

The Clinton campaign sent out an urgent e-mail appeal on Wednesday, seeking to raise $3 million in the next three days.

Mrs. Clinton also challenged Mr. Obama to a series of debates over the next month, usually a tactic of a trailing candidate. Mr. Obama said he would consider it but insisted that the Clinton campaign and the media would not set his schedule.  Click here to read more in the New York Times.

America is Not Safer After Seven Years of War; Deficits and Turmoil.

WASHINGTON – A classified Pentagon assessment concludes that long battlefield tours in Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, have prevented the U.S. military from improving its ability to respond to any new crisis, The Associated Press has learned.

Despite security gains in Iraq, there is still a “significant” risk that the strained U.S. military cannot quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world, according to the report.

Last year the Pentagon raised that threat risk from “moderate” to “significant.” This year, the report will maintain that “significant” risk level — pointing to the U.S. military’s ongoing struggle against a stubborn insurgency in Iraq and its lead role in the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. Click here to read more the Associated Press.

The race continues to get closer!

Feb 9th, New York Times

Senator Barack Obama won the primary in Louisiana and the caucuses in Nebraska and Washington on Saturday, defeating his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as the two scrambled for delegates in their fiercely contested battle for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Obama received the support of about two-thirds of those attending the caucuses in Washington and Nebraska to about one-third for Mrs. Clinton. In Washington, 78 delegates were at stake, the largest single prize of the night. The two were also matched up in caucuses in the Virgin Islands.

With the Democratic contest so close, excitement ran high, as did turnout. In Nebraska, the Web site of the Omaha World-Herald reported that organizers at two caucus sites were so overrun by crowds that they abandoned traditional caucusing and asked voters to drop makeshift scrap-paper ballots into a box instead. Traffic backed up on Highway 370 in Sarpy County, south of Omaha, when thousands of voters showed up at a precinct where organizers had planned for hundreds.

In Washington, the Democratic Party reported record-breaking numbers of people attending caucuses, with early totals suggesting turnout would be nearly be nearly double what it was in 2004 — itself a record year — when 100,000 Democrats caucused.

Even before the events began, both campaigns were giving the advantage on Saturday to Mr. Obama, who has done well in caucuses, and among black voters, who made about half of those voting in the Louisiana primary and gave Mr. Obama one of his largest margins yet among African-Americans.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee won the Kansas caucuses by a wide margin Saturday, showing that he is still attracting voters even as the majority of the Republican Party is beginning to coalesce around Senator John McCain as the nominee. Click here to read more in the New York Times.

Now leads in polls versus Republican Norm Coleman

Al Franken is running in the Democratic race to decide who will run against Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn) in November.  This Senate seat is among the top races ranked by the Democratic Party as Vulnerable in the United States.  There are four Democrats competing to become the Democratic nominee.  Al Franken is the current front-runner and favorite to win the nomination.

And now, it appears that he has opened up a lead in the polls of 43% to 40% versus the incumbent Norm Coleman.

Here is a blog post from TPM Election Central:

We’re taking a step back from our focus on presidential race coverage to bring this piece of news: For the first time ever, Al Franken is ahead of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) in an opinion poll.

The survey conducted by the University of Minnesota puts Franken at 43% to Coleman’s 40%, hardly a good sign for the incumbent. Previous polls all gave Coleman the lead, initially a wide one when Franken declared, but eventually a much narrower one.  Click here for more at TPM Election Central.

Earlier this month, 5,000 Republicans gathered around the state of Maine to caucus for their nominee.

Today, close to 45,000 Mainers attended the Democratic caucus…. Sunday’s Democratic turnout exceeded the previous record, set in 2004, by almost 28,000 votes.

This means that NINE Democrats turned out for every Republican that chose to participate!

Our thanks to AMERICAblog, a progressive blog site, for this tidbit.

Arizona Democrats Now Have Opportunity to Pick Up TWO Congressional Seats in addition to re-electing Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell!  Nationally 26 Republican Congressmen have decided to quit versus 6 Democrats.

Arizona Republic, February 12th

GOP Congressman John Shadegg’s surprise decision not to seek re-election puts what had been considered a relatively safe 3rd Congressional District seat securely into the crosshairs of both political parties.

Just hours after the Phoenix Republican announced his retirement, the names of a string of potential successors were already being floated.

Among Republicans, Shadegg’s chief of staff and well-known political operative Sean Noble is considered a likely candidate.

He told The Republic he’s “seriously exploring the possibility” of running, and will announce his decision by early March.

“I believe I’d have a good chance (of winning),” Noble added.

Other potential Republican suitors include: state Treasurer Dean Martin, House Speaker Jim Weiers, Phoenix Sen. Jim Waring and Maricopa County Supervisor Andrew Kunasek.

Waring called the suddenly-open House seat “certainly something I’m going to take a look at,” and said he expects to make a decision within a week.

Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the north Phoenix district by more than 50,000, and the presence of the seven-term Shadegg had scared off most challengers.

Prior to Monday’s announcement, just two, Democrat Bob Lord and Independent Annie Loyd, had stepped forward to vie for the seat. With Shadegg’s retirement, a host of additional Democratic challengers may be viewing the seat.

Tops among them could be developer and Democratic donor Jim Pederson though he spent millions in 2006 on an unsuccessful Senate bid against Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon planned to meet with supporters this morning to weigh a possible run.

Lord was encouraged by Monday’s news. He has a fundraising edge on any candidates that might enter the race now, having compiled a campaign war chest totaling more than $500,000.

Click here to read more at The Politico at CBS News.

New York Times, Feb 19th

Senator Barack Obama won a decisive victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday night, cutting into Mrs. Clinton’s long-held support among women, union members and middle-aged voters.

With the two rivals now battling state by state over margins of victory and allotment of delegates, surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that Mr. Obama made inroads with those three groups and continued to win support from white men and younger voters in a performance that yielded grim tidings for Mrs. Clinton as she looked ahead to the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas.

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain declared victory shortly after the polls closed, with a pointed reference to Mr. Obama in deriding “eloquent but empty calls for change.”  As a note aside: McCain was recently quoted in the Boston newspapers as being “opposed to Barack Obama and his message of hope.”

Clinton advisers, acknowledging that they must change the course of the campaign by defining Mr. Obama in negative terms for voters, said they intended to try to draw sharper contrasts by highlighting what Mrs. Clinton believes are his biggest weaknesses: his readiness to be commander in chief, and his support for a health care plan that would not initially seek to cover all Americans.

Yet Mr. Obama’s advisers plan to continue making the case that after nine consecutive victories, many by large margins, Democratic and many independent voters are speaking clearly that Mr. Obama is their choice, and that the party should begin coalescing around him.

Mr. Obama declared victory in Texas, saying, “Houston, I think we’ve achieved liftoff here.”

He continued: “The change we seek is still months and miles away and we need the good people of Texas to help us get there. We’re here because we believe that change is possible and that we have never needed it more than we do right now!”  Click here to read more in the New York Times.

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement. Click Here to read more in the New York Times.

A group called the American Leadership Project is launching a drive to convince 100 Hillary Clinton supporters to donate $100,000 each for television ads. American Leadership Project is a chapter 527 tax code entity that is not subject to campaign finance limits. A similar Chapter 527 group known as “Swift Boat Veterans of America” launched their television efforts against John Kerry during the 2004 Campaign.

Independent Group to Air TV Ads Echoing Clinton Attacks on Obama

By Matthew Mosk Washington Post Staff Writer

As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton launches fresh attacks on Sen. Barack Obama after a string of electoral defeats, several of her major financial backers have formed an independent group to air television advertisements echoing her message that she is more qualified than Obama to fix the economy.

In the group’s first ad, the television image shows a shuttered factory and a home in foreclosure, and a voice over says: “If speeches could create jobs, we wouldn’t be facing a recession.” The criticism of “speeches” closely mirrors a line of attack Clinton has used against Obama.

The decision to launch the independent group, known as a “527″ because of its tax code designation, coincides with an increasingly aggressive approach being taken by Clinton in advance of March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas that could determine the Democratic nominee. The Obama campaign compared the effort to the “Swift boat” ads that helped sink Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.

Supporters of the group, called the American Leadership Project, said yesterday that they decided to undertake the effort late last month, when Clinton was forced to lend her campaign $5 million to try to minimize Obama’s large fundraising advantage. Unlike a political campaign, the group can accept as much as money as supporters want to give.

Campaign finance reports filed yesterday showed that Obama outdid Clinton in fundraising last month, collecting $36 million. Clinton’s campaign said she will report raising $13.9 million. And while Clinton finance officials said yesterday that this month has been the campaign’s strongest month for fundraising, there are signs that she continues to lag behind Obama. While Clinton aides reported raising $1 million a day during the first half of the month, an Obama adviser described one recent day that yielded $2.4 million. And in an e-mail Clinton sent to supporters yesterday, she said she was outspent 4 to 1 on television ads in Wisconsin, where she lost decisively on Tuesday.

Though the independent ads could help bring greater parity on television for the Clinton campaign in Texas and Ohio, where they are set to air, they may carry a steep price for the entity behind them. Such a group faces tight federal restrictions on how it can operate and what it can say in advertising. A 527 cannot have as its primary purpose the election of a candidate, and the law limits it to running ads about issues, not ones that plainly advocate for Clinton’s election or defeat. The group cannot have any contact with the Clinton campaign. Violations could subject organizers and donors to stiff fines.

Campaign finance reform experts said there are troubling aspects in the American Leadership Project’s mission. The group is not part of an established effort to exert political influence in Washington, and it first officially surfaced in filings with the Internal Revenue Service on Feb. 15. It is advertising only in states where Clinton faces competitive primary contests. And the content of its first ad strongly hints that its purpose is to support her candidacy and oppose Obama’s.

“This pop-up 527 group clearly has been created to spend unlimited soft money to influence the presidential election,” said Fred Wertheimer, of the group Democracy 21, after reviewing the ad. “As far as the duck test goes: It looks like a campaign ad; it sounds like a campaign ad; it’s a campaign ad.”

Jason Kinney, a California political strategist who helped form the group, said its organizers recognized that they are wading into “a new and developing area of the law, but we’ve taken every step and are as confident as we can be that we are adhering to all of the regulations.” Click here to read more in the Washington Post.

Click here for a link to Politico Blog’s take on American Leadership Project. The Hill, a popular online newspaper with political commentary has a feature article.

Unfortunately, after searching the internet, we have been unable to find a website for this “group.”  We will keep watching but our bet is that the Clinton Campaign will be very unhappy that they appear to have backed this effort.  Democrats are going to be very sensitive to Chapter 527 organizations no matter who forms them.  Expect a backlash!