Sen. Hillary Clinton famously accepted an editorial board interview with the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review last Tuesday. Yesterday, she got what she had sought: a favorable reassessment from Tribune-Review owner, and Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy member, Richard Mellon Scaife.
Scaife was so taken with Clinton that he even seems to have bought her opening line explaining why she came for the interview at all: “It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do.”
That’s a load of horse pucky. Clinton calcluated that it would be to her advantage to try to get some favorable coverage from Scaife’s editorial board. She does not take risks unless she absolutely has to. Sitting down with a conservative editorial page in Pennsylvania a month before the primary there was a risk she decided, for whatever reason, she had to take. It was not a risk she was willing to take in New Hampshire.
In the months leading up to the New Hampshire primary, we invited Sen. Clinton to sit down for an editorial board meeting so many times I’ve forgotten the number. Her campaign refused every request. She did not think it would be fun. And more importantly, she did not think it would be to her advantage.
Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards also declined numerous editorial board requests, I can only assume for the same reasons. If they had calculated that an interview with us could have helped them win, I can’t imagine they would have refused the opportunity.
Clinton has tried desperately to soften her image. I think the Trib-Review interview was calcluated in part to do that, and it succeeded. She has spent a long time trying to convince people that she’s actually human, and not a political machine created in some top-secret Yale Law School experiment from the 1970s. This aww-shucks, why the heck not approach to sitting down with a hostile editorial board was, I suspect, part of the plan. It was not in any way an attempt to reveal her true self or let the public learn any more actual information about her.
Hillary Clinton is very different from her husband in many ways, and one is her secrecy. Bill Clinton was much more confident in who he was and was willing to let people make their own assessments of him. He really thought he could win over anyone. He sat down with the Union Leader editorial board back in his day, and we expected his wife would too, in that same spirit of openness. Didn’t happen.
Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta has decided not to run for governor this year. It was the right decision. Guinta will make a very good gubernatorial candidate in the near future, but it’s too early, and the current city budget mess makes a run now extremely problematic. If he can get the budget under control this year without raising taxes, he’ll be a hero and an even stronger future candidate. But running against Lynch while trying to fix a budget that’s about $13 million out of balance is not a good idea, and he made the right choice.
That said, the GOP is now left without a strong candidate. Sen. Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, is running, but he is a weaker candidate than Guinta would have been. And he will be even weaker if he does not face a strong primary challenge. Republicans need to scour the state for another candidate, if for no other reason than to prevent the sort of unchallenged skating to the nomination that Jim Coburn had last time, and which did him no good. With all the prominent Republican businessmen in this state, surely there is a good candidate out there beyond the handful who are always mentioned.
Gov. John Lynch and legislative leaders have been defending their spending by repeatedly calling the current state budget “responsible.” The Concord Monitor today reveals a great example of this “responsible” budgeting legislators and the governor did last year.
During the budgeting process, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte requested $650,000 for litigation. Gov. John Lynch recommended $350,000, though the AG usually spends the figure Ayotte requested. The House recommended Ayotte get the full funding, but the Senate went with Lynch’s lower figure, which is what made it into the final budget.
Now Ayotte is back before the Legislative Fiscal Committee asking for $200,000 for continued litigation for the year, plus $482,833 to prosecute two death penalty cases.
Lynch and legislators decided they couldn’t fully fund litigation in the AG’s office this year, but they could fully fund the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program to the tune of $12 million over two years.
Shortchanging the state’s top law enforcer so there will be more money to spend on preservation is not responsible budgeting.
Spring in northern New England is signaled by the appearance of women emerging from their homes, shoulders bunched, arms folded, bound in linens and cottons that match the color of the snow on the ground.
“Representative” Michael Desroches, D-Manchester, who just resigned his seat today after our Friday editorial noting that he hasn’t voted at all this year, in fact has not voted at all since elected.
In 2007, Desroches missed every single vote.
In 2008, Desroches missed every single vote.
And he’s only now resigning?
If he’d had no intention of serving, he never should have run. If he realized shortly after the election that he could not serve, he could have resigned early enough that holding a special election to fill his seat would have made sense.
As it stands, his constituents have been denied representation in Concord for a full two-year session. Nice job, there, Mike.
Comment from Rowland in Fremont: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If these Dems aren’t voting then they’re not helping mess up New Hampshire. I only wish a lot more of them would not show up to vote. Such as the insufferably arrogant Mary Walz.
Rep. Michael Desroches, D-Manchester, resigned his House seat today. He said he’s moved out of his district, though that is an odd excuse for the fact that he hasn’t cast a single vote in the House all year. What was he doing these past three months? The reason is also ironic because Desroches’ former roomate, Jennifer Peabody, just resigned her seat on Manchester’s school board for the same reason — she does not live in the district from which she was elected.
Here is Desroches’ letter of resignation:
“As of today March 24th,2008
“I Rep. Michael DesRoches am resigning from my seat in the state house for residency issues. I have currently moved out of district 10 of Hillsborough County.
I wish I was able to deliver this in person but I am unable to get to Concord. If you have any questions please e-mail me.”
“Sorry for the inconvience.”
The resignation comes after our Friday editorial criticizing absentee Manchester Democrats, including Desroches. I don’t think the timing is a coincidence.
Rep. Lily Mesa resigned in January. Reps. Hector Velez, Sandra Smith, and George Katsiantonis are still members, though none has voted this year. If they can’t be bothered to show up, they need to follow Desroches’ footsteps and resign.
A few thoughts of the past few days:
If Ray Buckley really wanted to tick off Fergus Cullen, he’d send a crew to tape every speech Cullen makes anywhere.
NCAA final game: UNC over UCLA, 82-79.
Glen Hansard does not have enough albums.
Is there any chance that the new school board member from Manchester’s Ward 3 will be anything other than a guaranteed vote for the teachers union? Will Ray Buckley press Alderman Peter Sullivan to nominate a party-picked hack? If so, will Sullivan, no party insider, comply if there is an equally good or better outsider candidate?
Is the Merrimack River through Manchester navigable by a small yacht, or is the water too shallow along the rapids downtown?
A UNH grad student was removed from her teaching internship at a Maine high school after holding a poetry slam in which several students read poems of their own creation that contained profanity. Geeze, if my English teachers in high school got fired for all the essays kids turned in that contained some strong language, I don’t think we’d have had any English teachers left. She should have told the kids not to curse, to be creative in finding other words to express themselves. But this seems like a harsh punishment for letting kids cross that line.
It’s speaks well of American moviegoers that Adam Sandler is now a more bankable star than Tom Cruise.
At $249,000, I admit I’m finding those condos by the ballpark tempting.
I need this.
The Jeremiah Wright controversy has hurt Obama in the primary race. Clinton has doubled her lead in Pennsylvania, where Obama went to deliver his speech on race to try to stem th bleeding. Didn’t work. Obama’s ties to Wright, and Obama’s attempt to justify Wright’s outrageous comments, have called into question Obama’s sincerity — his most attractive trait to voters — on issues of race and its place in American life. Among just enough voters, he has gone from the post-racial man to that black guy who is a close confidant of an angry, anti-white nut.
A Manchester lawyer, David Hynes, has been found guilty of extortion for demanding money from a salon in exchange for not suing it for discrimination because it charged more to cut women’s hair than men’s. And thus the next Eliot Spitzer’s career is ended before it begins.
Our online headline for the story of returning National Guard members being welcomed home read “Returning NH Guard members win cheers.” I am probably not the only one who read, “Returning NH Guard members win cheese.”
Rep. Paul Hodes just issued a statement on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, and in it he switched his previous position on Iraq withdrawal. Hodes has long been for using a withdrawal of troops to force political reconciliation. Now he says we should put together a political agreement so we can then withdraw.
“I had the opportunity to visit Iraq last month, and what I saw first-hand strengthened my resolve to ensure that we take care of our returning veterans and find a sequence that gets the Iraqis to step up to their responsibilities and allows us to redeploy from there — because we can’t keep having our soldiers shoulder this burden indefinitely. This is the only way that we can get the Iraqis to embrace a political solution.”
That implies that rather than pull out first, and hope that doing so pushes Iraqis to get their house in order, Hodes now wants to get to some sort of political agreement first, and then pull out.
How else to take this phrasing: “find a sequence that gets the Iraqis to step up to their responsibilities and allows us to redeploy from there.” He clearly puts the political framework before the withdrawal.
He reinforces that impression when he concludes by saying, “we must resolve to create a new direction that will get the Iraqis to step up, and allow us to bring our men and women home as quickly as possible.”
That’s a very different tune than the one he has been singing for years. In 2006, Hodes called for having all troops out within a year. Last year he said he disagreed with Petraeus that any more time was needed to assess the security situation. And he has voted to set timetables for withdrawing troops. Now he says get a political solution first so we can then leave. Wonder what prompted that switch.
Here is his full statement:
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq. For five years, our service members have served on the front lines, and their families have stood by them with patience and strength. Our young men and women in uniform have given their all with dedication and distinction. We honor our fallen men and women, their comrades who have returned home, and those who continue to serve in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other parts of the world.
They have performed their duties bravely, and many have sacrificed beyond measure.
The cost of the war is more than the billions of dollars spent but has a true human cost as well, with more than 4,000 American lives lost and tens of thousands injured many of them permanently.
We must also recognize that the war in Iraq has become a growing threat to our fragile economy, with its colossal cost to taxpayers taking us ever more deeply into debt while millions of Americans are left without adequate health care, good job opportunities or a chance at an affordable education.
I had the opportunity to visit Iraq last month, and what I saw first-hand strengthened my resolve to ensure that we take care of our returning veterans and find a sequence that gets the Iraqis to step up to their responsibilities and allows us to redeploy from there — because we can’t keep having our soldiers shoulder this burden indefinitely. This is the only way that we can get the Iraqis to embrace a political solution. And a political solution, not a military one, is the only solution in Iraq, as even General Petraeus said to me personally.
On the fifth year anniversary, we honor those who served and are still serving, and we must resolve to create a new direction that will get the Iraqis to step up, and allow us to bring our men and women home as quickly as possible.
If you want to read Mike Gravel’s book, Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change, you can buy it from Amazon.com for $19.99.
Or, if you want to read his book and donate to his campaign, you can buy an autographed copy on eBay. When I checked the auction this morning, the price was $26.00. I can only assume that before the auction ends next week the value of the autograph will exceed the price of the book.
I got an advance copy of Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia today. What first strikes me is the image of a black American standing across the street from where the Constitution was negotiated in part by slaveowners — and not condemning the Founders, but praising them.
When we hear sentences like this: “Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787,” we often hear in response America’s black leaders condemn those men as racists who don’t represent black Americans. They say that they cannot share white America’s reverence for the Founding Fathers.
But here was Obama praising the Founders for their ideals. Noting the stain of slavery, but not letting it become THE story of the Founders, but only a part of the story, not letting it press out the reverence the Founders are due.
That might be the lasting legacy of this speech. The Jeremiah Wright controversy will eventually become a footnote. But the moment of the first serious black contender for the Oval Office speaking with reverence and admiration for slave-owning Founding Fathers, and dismissing explicitly the idea that the United States is, by virtue of the nation’s Original Sin of slavery, a fundamentally racist nation, has the potential to become a turning point in our nation’s political history.
OK, so today is St. Patrick’s Day. Problem is, I’m not Irish. Not even a little. My ancestors first arrived in the New World in 1739 from Germany and stayed in heavily German-settled communities for the next 2.5 centuries. Where I grew up there was only a light Irish presence, and St. Patty’s Day was merely an excuse to be silly and, for most people, to drink Guinness.
I’m not even wearing green today. In fact, I never wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. I should wear red, gold, and black, but I just thought of that, so it’s too late.
I’ve got nothing at all against St. Patrick’s Day. I just don’t happen to share a tradition of celebrating it or a heritage that connects me in any emotional way to the Emerald Isle. When I tended bar in merry old England I served a lot of Guinness and played The Pogues on the jukebox whenever the crowd was thin. But that’s about it. (Whenever I played The Pogues, the patrons would give me grief for playing that bloody rebel band. A lot of working-class Londonders are not too fond of the Irish, it turns out.)
So I’m going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by pretending it’s Oktoberfest. Very different in their specifics, but the same general concept. I’ll be at Bobby Stephen’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the Executive Court tonight, so if you see me there, feel free to wish me a Happy Oktoberfest, which of course is superior to St. Patrick’s Day in every possible way. You won’t be able to convince me of St. Patrick’s Day’s supremacy, but if you’re particularly persuasive, maybe you can goad me into having a Guinness.
Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter both voted, along with every other Democrat in the House, for the budget resolution that would raise taxes by at least $683 billion. The bill does not include any spending for the Iraq war beyond next year — probably just wishful thinking. Its price tag is likely to be even higher.
The Heritage Foundation has usefully helped you figure out how much of your budget to set aside to pay for the tax hike Hodes and Shea-Porter want to make you pay. According to Heritage calculations, the average tax increase for New Hampshire residents will be $2,757 by 2012. The state will lose 4,633 jobs, and the average per-person drop in income will be $1,660.
Thanks, Rep. Hodes-Porter!
For all their talk about raising taxes on the rich, Hodes and Shea-Porter just voted to raise taxes on everyone earning more than $31,850 a year. At least now we know what they really think about taxing the middle class. They’re all for it. If they say they aren’t, well, we now have a vote to show otherwise.
