*BUSH’S GRANITE-STATE GRIP: The Concord, N.H., Online Monitor released a poll last week that put Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) ahead of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the state’s first-in-the-nation Democratic presidential primary, 30% to 21%. Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.) came in next at 11% and 10%, respectively. The same poll showed that if the general election were held now, President Bush would defeat all potential Democratic candidates in the state, pulling from 57% to 59% of the vote.
*EVEN IN NEW JERSEY: Bush is looking strong even in the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey. A Quinnipiac poll conducted in mid-June showed that in the Garden State Bush would beat Sen. Hillary Clinton (from nearby New York), if she ran for President, 54% to 38%. He would also beat Kerry, 53% to 37%; and Lieberman (D.-Conn.) 53% to 39%. In the state’s Democratic primary, Lieberman leads Kerry 26% to 15%. But that won’t help Lieberman if he can’t win in earlier contests in places such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
*CLINTON-ERA TAXES: On NBC’s "Meet the Press" last week, host Tim Russert asked Howard Dean whether he would raise taxes if elected. Dean invoked his party’s greatest modern hero. "I would go back to the Clinton era of taxes," he said, "because I think most Americans would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was President if they could only have the same economy that they had when Bill Clinton was President."
This puts Dean squarely in the same camp with Gephardt, who says that if he is elected he will repeal the Bush tax cut to pay for a national health-care plan. The Democrats thus appear to be preparing to run in 2004-as they did in 1984-as the party of tax increases.
*DEAN OF DECEPTION: As illustrated by his response to Tim Russert on the tax question, Dean is striving to build a reputation for candor. But his bid to be next year’s "straight-talking" candidate hit a snag two weeks ago in Wisconsin-where he beat Kerry 4-to-1 in a state convention straw poll.
But Dean operatives had imported straw-poll voters from Iowa, reported Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly. "In his hospitality suite," wrote Crawford, "Dean workers buttonholed supporters, urging them to go vote in the straw ballot. All of this activity would be quite normal except for the fact that, before the convention, Dean signed a letter to Wisconsin delegates, along with all of his rivals and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, asking delegates not to participate in the straw ballot."
*COUNTRY CLUB DEMOCRAT: Announcing his candidacy (officially) last week, Dean primped as a Washington outsider. "It is a bit of a club down there," said Dean of the Nation’s Capital. "The Democratic Party, all the candidates from Washington, they all know each other, they all move in the same circles, and," he continued, shocking listeners, "what I’m doing is breaking into the country club." Oops! Only days earlier, Dean’s son, Paul, had been picked up by police in Vermont and charged with driving the getaway car after a break-in at the Burlington Country Club.
*WINDMILLS OR WINDBAG? Kerry may be about to become one of America’s most notorious NIMBYs (Not-In-My-Backyard). Two weeks ago, he told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that he would launch an environmentalist "new Manhattan project" if elected. "We can generate more and more of our electricity from wind, the sun, forest and farm products," said Kerry. "I believe we can and should produce 20% of all our electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Twenty by 2020-now that’s a clear vision for America."
But Kerry’s vision clouds as he approaches Cape Cod, where he takes vacations. The Hill reported June 18, that the senator has so far failed to endorse "a huge proposed wind farm" on Horseshoe Shoal, near the Cape. Kerry’s spokeswoman Kelly Demander told The Hill he "is waiting to hear about the results from the environmental impact statement." She declined to say, however, if he would endorse the windmill project if the study proves favorable. Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite and members of the Kennedy clan oppose the wind farm.
*WHERE’S JOHNNY? Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), another Democratic presidential candidate, has missed more than half of the Senate votes in the month of June, reports the Associated Press. The Republican senatorial committee is no doubt keeping tally on these, too. Candid observers agree the lightweight Edwards has little chance of winning the Democratic nomination, but he does have a chance of losing his Senate seat in 2004.
*DICK DOESN’T, DENNIS DOES: Gephardt has a even worse attendance record than Edwards. After casting a vote May 23, he did not cast another one until June 25. He has made only 38 of 314 votes this year-an 88% absentee record. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that far-left Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio), also a presidential hopeful, has shown up for every House vote. "I don’t think any of my constituents looking for a new job would be able to keep their existing job for too long if they didn’t show up for it," said Kucinich. These words may end up being used against Gephardt if he can win the Democratic nomination.
*GOING NOWHERE: The Senate Rules Committee, with all Democratic members boycotting, voted 10 to 0 for a measure to force up-and-down votes on the Senate floor on all judicial nominees. But a two-thirds majority is needed to end debate and vote on a Senate-rule change. That means that unless Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) is willing to "go nuclear" and rule directly and unilaterally from the chair that such filibusters are out of order Democrats will be able to block even a Supreme Court nominee who can muster 59 confirmation votes in the Senate.
