Questions for fans of the Democrats

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http://www.gallup.com/poll/110263/Battle-Congress-Suddenly-Looks-Competitive.aspx

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.

​

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c2f69ce-8031-11dd-99a9-000077b07658.html

Democrats on Capitol Hill fear Obama fallout

By Andrew Ward in Washington
Published: September 11 2008 23:30 | Last updated: September 11 2008 23:30

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> function floatContent(){var paraNum = "3" paraNum = paraNum - 1;var tb = document.getElementById('floating-con');var nl = document.getElementById('floating-target');if(tb.getElementsByTagName("div").length> 0){if (nl.getElementsByTagName("p").length>= paraNum){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName("p")[paraNum]);}else {if (nl.getElementsByTagName("p").length == 3){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName("p")[2]);}else {nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName("p")[0]);}}}}</script>Democratic jitters about the US presidential race have spread to Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress are worried that Barack Obama’s faltering campaign could hurt their chances of re-election.

Party leaders have been hoping to strengthen Democratic control of the House and Senate in November, but John McCain’s jump in the polls has stoked fears of a Republican resurgence.

A Democratic fundraiser for Congressional candidates said some planned to distance themselves from Mr Obama and not attack Mr McCain.

“If people are voting for McCain it could help Republicans all the way down the ticket, even in a year when the Democrats should be sweeping all before us,” said the fundraiser, a former Hillary Clinton supporter.

“There is a growing sense of doom among Democrats I have spoken to . . . People are going crazy, telling the campaign ‘you’ve got to do something’.”

Concern was greatest among first-term representatives who won seats in traditionally Republican districts in the landslide of 2006. “Several of them face a real fight to hold on to those seats,” the fundraiser said.

Tony Podesta, a senior Democratic lobbyist, said members of Congress were “a little nervous” after Mr McCain shook up the race with his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate and intensified attacks on Mr Obama.

“Republicans have been on the offensive for the past two weeks . . . You don’t win elections on the defensive.”

The campaign manager for a first-term Democratic congressman from a blue-collar district in the north-east rejected suggestions that Mr Obama had become a liability. He said his candidate would reach out to Republicans and avoid attacks on Mr McCain.

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/11/america/biden.php


Joe Biden at a campaign stop in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Wednesday.


Biden living up to his gaffe-prone reputation
By John M. Broder

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Senator Joseph Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is an experienced, serious and smart man. But he does say some curious things. A day on the campaign trail without some cringe-inducing gaffe is a rare blessing. He has not been too blessed lately.

Just this week, he mused that Senator Barack Obama might have been better off with Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate.

"Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America," Biden said Wednesday in Nashua, New Hampshire. "Quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me."

Earlier in the week, in Columbia, Missouri, Biden urged a paraplegic state official to stand up to be recognized.

"Chuck, stand up, let the people see you," Biden shouted to State Senator Chuck Graham, before realizing, to his horror, that Graham uses a wheelchair. "Oh, God love ya," Biden said. "What am I talking about?"

But it was the Clinton remarks that touched a potentially sensitive spot for the Obama-Biden ticket. With Sarah Palin's addition to the Republican ticket potentially energizing some women voters, Biden's remarks raised anew a legitimate question of whether Obama would have been better off picking the former first lady as his running mate.

One could imagine Senator John McCain's campaign even using Biden's remarks in their own ads to exploit female misgivings about the Democratic ticket.

Obama knew what he was getting when he picked Biden as his running mate: A veteran of six terms in the Senate, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, an Irish Catholic with working-class roots, a guy who had twice been tested in the arena of presidential politics.

And a human verbal wrecking crew. This is the fellow who nearly derailed his nascent presidential campaign last year by calling Obama bright and clean and articulate and who noted that you needed a slight Indian accent to walk into a Dunkin' Donuts or 7-11 in Delaware.

The guy who, reading his vice-presidential acceptance speech from a TelePrompter, bungled McCain's name, calling him "George" ("Freudian slip, folks, Freudian slip," he explained).

The guy who, on the day Obama announced him as his running mate, referred to his party's presidential nominee as "Barack America" and noted that his own wife, Jill, a college professor, was "drop-dead gorgeous" but who, problematically, possessed a doctorate.

The guy who has said he is running for president (not vice president) and who confused army brigades with battalions. Who referred to his Republican vice-presidential opponent as the lieutenant governor of Alaska.

Aides to Obama said that Biden's propensity to misspeak could pose problems, particularly in the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 2. They are watching his performance on the trail warily, but so far have not tried to rein him in.

But they have assigned a couple of veteran minders to travel with him - David Wilhelm, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, and David Wade, former spokesman for Senator John Kerry. Wade said that Biden's occasional stumbles prove to voters that he is human and that they help them relate to the candidate.

"It would be a huge mistake to try to strip away the authenticity that's been his greatest strength for 35 years," Wade said. "For anybody who's gone to Joe Biden events and watched how voters connect with him, there's a pretty big gap between the expectations of the elite media who seem to crave scripted, blow-dried drones out of central casting instead of regular folks who want to see some honesty and candor. They appreciate it that he takes the voters seriously and doesn't take himself too seriously."

Wade added: "I've never heard a voter say they wanted someone who was more scripted, more slick and who talks to me in sound bites. If they wanted stuffed shirts, we'd be preparing for an October debate with Mitt Romney."
Those who have known Biden for a long time say they see him as a man with an equally big heart and mouth.

"He has overwhelming support here, he's well liked," said James Baker, mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, Biden's home. "We forgive him every once in a while when he says something dumb - 'Oh, that's just Joe."'

Biden recognizes that his tongue sometimes ventures ahead of his brain and often catches himself with a smile.
In Fort Myers, Florida, last week, he referred to the "Biden administration," before quickly correcting himself to say the "Obama-Biden administration."

"Believe me, that wasn't a Freudian slip," he said, laughing and crossing himself. "Oh lordy day, I tell ya."

 

New question #6. They lied to get into office. Promised to end the culture of corruption.

Why do you support these people?

(I would argue for term limits because of guys like this)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/opinion/15mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> Chairman Rangel </nyt_headline>

<nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> </nyt_byline> Mounting embarrassment for taxpayers and Congress makes it imperative that Representative Charles Rangel step aside as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee while his ethical problems are investigated.

This recommendation does not come easily, considering the New York Democrat’s four decades of service in Congress. But Mr. Rangel himself has felt obliged to request three separate House ethics inquiries of his behavior. While denying serious improprieties, Mr. Rangel concedes that he has not lived up to the “higher standard” expected of members of Congress.

His latest admission is that as chief of Congress’s tax-writing committee, he was “irresponsible” in failing to disclose $75,000 in rental income and pay federal and state taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

His temporary yielding of the gavel is an urgent necessity for a Democratic Congress elected two years ago on promises of an ethical housecleaning. The villa dealings only add momentum to the investigations of two earlier controversies — Mr. Rangel’s favored treatment in occupying four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan, and his improper use of official letterheads to solicit support from charities and corporations for an academic center to memorialize his career in public service.

Mr. Rangel has hurt his case with clumsy, combative pleas of ignorance of the facts and law involving his Dominican villa. “We do make errors, even though we consider ourselves experts in terms of tax policy for the nation,” said the lawmaker, who has three decades’ experience on Ways and Means.

His excuse of “cultural and language barriers” with Dominican officials was, simply, offensive. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,” complained Mr. Rangel.

At the least, the disclosures betray that gross sense of entitlement that regularly befalls politicians. At the Dominican villa, which the congressman said he came upon 20 years ago during an overseas trip with Speaker Tip O’Neill, Mr. Rangel eventually saw his 10.5 percent mortgage interest payments waived when the developer favored him as a “Pioneer” early investor.

The powerful congressman has enjoyed his rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem — improperly using one as a campaign office — at about half market value. This is a $30,000-a-year boon, and the ethics committee must decide whether it amounts to a gift from a politically savvy landlord that would violate House rules. The panel must also weigh how badly Mr. Rangel violated official letterhead restrictions.

As a new Congress approaches with a thick docket of fiscal and tax measures, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must see that no cloud hangs over Ways and Means while the chairman is under investigation. The Democratic majority arrived last year promising to “drain the swamp” of corruption epitomized by the previous Republican majority’s quid-pro-quo dealings with Jack Abramoff, the now-imprisoned superlobbyist.

Committee posts are not bestowed by voters. They are partisan privileges granted by leaders in Congress, and Ms. Pelosi must not cut slack for an ally. If Mr. Rangel refuses a temporary hiatus from his chairmanship, Ms. Pelosi should remove him permanently.

 

How about we compare Jack Abramoff with Norman Hsu? Hsu's story was buried by the news organizations for some reason that baffles me.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/06/nation/na-hsu6

Warrant issued for Hsu’s arrest

By Dan Morain
September 06, 2007 in print edition A-1

The event unfolded like the judicial equivalent of a bride left at the altar.

The mysterious political donor and fundraiser Norman Hsu was scheduled to appear in San Mateo County Superior Court on Wednesday to begin dealing with the fact that 15 years ago, he pleaded no contest to felony fraud charges and agreed to spend as long as three years in prison and then disappeared.

But on Wednesday, instead of appearing in court and beginning to shed light on his affairs, Hsu again vanished, standing up Superior Court Judge Robert D. Foiles, Deputy Atty. Gen. Ralph Sivilla, San Francisco defense attorney James J. Brosnahan and two crisis-management executives – not to mention leaving behind $2 million in cash bail.

His failure to appear, echoing the events of 1992, was a shock not just to the court, but reverberated in the upper levels of Democratic politics, especially the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Hsu has given directly to her and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from others whose contributions he solicited and bundled together.

...

Federal investigators are looking into Hsu’s fundraising – Democratic candidates in national, state and local contests have received his support – and the possibility that he may have reimbursed some donors; reimbursing campaign contributors is a violation of federal law.

The fact that Hsu was a fugitive from a felony fraud charge growing out of a $1-million Ponzi scheme, which was first disclosed by The Times, sent shivers through Democratic political circles as well as such institutions as the New School in New York, on whose board Hsu served.

Some at first defended Hsu, then said they would or might return his contributions or donate them to charity.
Hsu claimed his legal problems arose from misunderstandings over a failed business venture. He denied intentionally skipping the 1992 court hearing or realizing he had pleaded no contest to a felony.

Wednesday, however, as news spread that Hsu had again failed to appear in court, politicians and others who had benefited from his largesse adopted a more guarded tone.

Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said in a statement: “We believe that Mr. Hsu, like any individual who has obligations before the court, should be meeting them, and he should do so now.”

Hsu has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Hsu earned the title of “HillRaiser” for pledging to raise more than $100,000 for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Clinton campaign has said it will give $23,000 in direct donations from Hsu to charity, but keep the money he bundled. Wolfson declined to release the names of bundled donors. He said that the campaign had not been contacted by the FBI about Hsu’s fundraising.

Public Citizen, a Washington watchdog group that has pushed presidential candidates to identify bundlers and the money they bring in, urged Clinton to at least disclose which donations were tied to Hsu.

“She should say who they are,” said Taylor Lincoln, research director for the group’s Congress Watch division. “If she really wanted to be a standard-bearer, she should return all the money.”

Hsu’s disappearance stunned many of those who had defended him, including former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), president of the New School. Kerrey had recruited Hsu to join the school’s board of directors and, even after his past was revealed last week, called him an exemplary member.

On Wednesday, Kerrey expressed bafflement and dismay.

“There’s a lot more there than I thought,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a lot about him I didn’t know.”

 

Term limits. The people go there to either enrich themselves, but have to leave before they get too good at it, or they go there to do what's right knowing the ramifications of their actions won't get them thrown out of office by the voters. You simply don't get guys like Rangel who are entrenched and incredibly powerful and corrupt.

The republicans aren't in power now. It's proper and fair to hold the party in power's feet to the fire, especially when they ran on cleaning things up.