Nader Raising Money for Possible Campaign
Tuesday December 2, 2003 10:16 PM
By SAM HANANEL
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ralph Nader has not yet decided whether to make another run for the White House, but he's authorized a new exploratory committee to raise money for a potential bid.
The Nader 2004 Presidential Exploratory Committee was formed in late October as part of the consumer activist's effort to gauge support for a run, said Theresa Amato, a committee director.
``He is using it to test the waters,'' said Amato, who served as Nader's national campaign manager when he ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2000. She said the organization is part of Nader's overall strategy of ``talking to people, calling people, seeing what level of support there is.'' ...
The Promised Land
By DAVID BROOKS
November 29, 2003
The history of American conservatism is an exodus tale. It begins in the wilderness, in the early 1950's, with Russell Kirk, Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley Jr. writing tracts for small bands of true believers.
Conservatives crashed into the walls of power during the Goldwater debacle of 1964, and then breached those walls with Reagan's triumph 16 years later. But even with Reagan in the Oval Office, Republicans were not the majority party. Democrats controlled the House, and few Reaganites actually knew how to run a government.
In 1994, with the Gingrich revolution, the conservatives strode closer to the center of power. But even then, they were not quite there. For the rule of exodus tales is that the chiefs who lead in the wilderness and storm the citadels do not get to govern once their troops have occupied the city. Renegades are too combative to govern well.
It was only this week that we can truly say the exodus story is over, with the success of the Medicare reform bill. This week the G.O.P. behaved as a majority party in full. The Republicans used the powers of government to entrench their own dominance. They used their control of the federal budget to create a new entitlement, to woo new allies and service a key constituency group, the elderly.
From now on, as Tony Blankley observed in The Washington Times, if you work at an interest group and you want to know what's going on with your legislation, you have to go to the Republicans. The Democrats don't even know the state of play.
If you are the AARP, seeking a benefit, you have to go to the Republicans. If you are a centrist Democrat like John Breaux or Max Baucus seeking to pass legislation, you have to work with the Republicans.
Under the leadership of Bush, Frist, Hastert and DeLay, the Republicans have built a fully mature establishment of activist groups, think tanks and lobbyists, which is amazingly aloof from the older Washington establishment (not to mention the media establishment). Republicans now speak in that calm, and to their opponents infuriating, manner of those who believe they were born to rule.
The Democrats, meanwhile, behave just as the Republicans did when they were stuck in the minority. They complain about their outrageous mistreatment by the majority. They are right to complain. The treatment is outrageous. But the complaints only communicate weakness.
Democrats indulge in the joys of opposition. They get to sputter about fiscal irresponsibility, just as the green-eyeshade Republicans used to, as the majority party uses the power of the purse to buy votes. They get to make wild charges. They get to propose solutions that ignore inconvenient realities. They never have to betray their principles to get something done, and so they savor their own righteousness.
Minority parties are pure but defeated; governing parties are impure but victorious. The Republicans are now in the habit of winning, and are on permanent offense on all fronts. They offer tax cuts to stimulate the economy and please business. They nominate conservative judges to advance conservative social reform and satisfy religious conservatives. They fight a war on terror. They have even come to occupy the Democratic holy of the holies, the welfare state. In exchange for massive new spending, they demand competitive reforms.
The only drawback is that now, as the governing party, they have to betray some of the principles that first animated them. This week we saw dozens of conservatives, who once believed in limited government, vote for a new spending program that will cost over $2 trillion over the next 20 years.
In the past three years, federal education spending has increased by 65 percent. Unemployment benefit payments are up by 85 percent.
Many conservatives are dismayed over what has happened to their movement as it has grown fat and happy in the Promised Land. A significant rift has opened up between the conservative think tankers and journalists, who are loyal to ideas, and the K Street establishmentarians, who are loyal to groups.
The good news for Democrats is that the K Street establishment will slowly win this struggle. The majority will ossify. It will lose touch with its principles and eventually crumble under the weight of its own spoils. The bad news for Democrats is that, as Republicans can tell you, the ossification process is maddeningly slow. After the New Deal, it took 60 years.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
Conservative Republican frustration over the failure of the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership to restrain federal spending has boiled over in recent days, producing a rare confrontation between GOP lawmakers and party leaders.
The internal conflict, fueled largely by recent passage of the $78 billion Iraq reconstruction effort and the $400 billion prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens that squeaked through the House on Nov. 22, came to a head last week when President Bush abruptly terminated a phone conversation with a Florida Republican who refused his plea to vote for the landmark bill.
Well-placed sources said Bush hung up on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney after Feeney said he couldn't support the Medicare bill. The House passed it by only two votes after Hastert kept the roll-call vote open for an unprecedented stretch of nearly three hours in the middle of the night.
Feeney, a former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives whom many see as a rising star in the party, reportedly told Bush: "I came here to cut entitlements, not grow them."
Sources said Bush shot back, "Me too, pal," and hung up the phone.
I like these numbers better. http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
It shows that his approval rating is dropping since 9/11.
Over the course of my life, I have often benefited from the friendship of others. It is through my friends and the friends of my father that I came to acquire the Texas Rangers, it is through my friends and the friends of my father that I was able to acquire my first oil company, it is through my friends and the friends of my father that I was able to run for Congress, and it is through my friends and the friends of my father that I became Governor of Texas.
Finally, it is through my brother, my friends and the friends of my father that I became President of the United States.
But besides high-profile friendship, my career has been marked by another, less cheerful pattern: a lack of second chances.
When my oil company couldn't find any oil in Texas, through no fault of my own, it went bankrupt just after I sold all my stock. I was never given another chance to own an oil company.
When I lost my race for Congress, I was never offered another chance to run such a race--even though I had lost through no fault of my own, elections being so often the "wild cards" of our politics.
When I went AWOL from the Texas National Guard, no one ever offered me another chance to earn an honorable discharge.
When, as Governor of Texas, I was asked to change pollution laws for power and oil companies and did just that, I accidentally made Texas the most polluted state in the Union, and Houston the most polluted city in America. And when I was asked to cut taxes too much and did so, I accidentally bankrupted the Texas government. Yet no one ever offered me a second chance to achieve an honorable record in Texas.
Today, as President of the United States, I of course have done some marvelous things. I have already set the all-time record for most campaign fund-raising trips of any President in US history. I kept the US out of the international spotlight by withdrawing from the World Court. I avoided media insanity quite well, with fewer televised press conferences than any other President since the advent of television.
But I know, too, that my record hasn't been perfect. Leaving aside my accomplishments for the moment, I'd like to eat some humble pie:
**Three million of you have lost your jobs over the past three years. That is bad - worse than at any other time since the Great Depression, when Herbert Hoover was President. I know this.
**1.7 million of you dropped below the poverty line this past year. That is bad, because 1.7 million is the population of Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love." Imagine all of Philadelphia falling off the shelf of prosperity, all at once. Believe me, I know.
**For those of you in the middle classes, incomes have gone down, after rising throughout the 1990s. I know.
**My tax cuts have turned your budget surplus into a $480 billion deficit. I know there are many things you could have used the surplus for, and I know it will cause your children some stress later on. I know this.
**It was during my tenure that more private bankruptcies were filed in twelve months than ever before. I know.
**It was during my tenure that the stock market dropped more than ever before in history. I know.
**I accidentally appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other President in US history. I'm living with that legacy, like all of us are.
**I also accidentally appointed more multi-millionaires to my cabinet than any other President in US history. My cabinet is by far the richest of any in US history. This was a tactless move, I know - I know.
**Your country's security is a mess. Even my generals in the field, even my Homeland Security apparatus, even Rumsfeld is telling me that now, the American people face a great deal more of a threat than before my War on Terror began. I know that too.
**After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history. I remember that well, even today.
**Your country's diplomacy is in tatters. After September 11, we received an outpouring of heartfelt sympathy from our allies and enemies alike. We had an opportunity to build on that sympathy. Today, none of our allies trusts us one bit, and not only because we found no weapons of mass destruction. I know how this hurts some of you. Believe me, I know.
**I dissolved more international treaties than any other President in US history. I know that this hasn't helped our diplomacy either.
**More people have taken to the streets to protest me and my actions (around 15 million worldwide on February 15 alone) than ever before in the history of humanity. I know these figures quite well.
**Because of my actions, the United Nations removed the US from its human rights commission and its elections monitoring board. I know that!
Now all this is not good, I know. But I'm asking you for a second chance. If you grant it to me, it will be a first for my lifetime, and I will forever be grateful.
As an American, I think you can understand the importance of second chances. If you've lost your job during my tenure, surely you'll want some corporation, somewhere on earth, to give you another job someday, and not say "Oh, no, you messed up for good. You can't ever work again."
Since there's a good chance you can relate to this scenario, I feel I can ask you, as a friend: please, give me a second four-year term. Give me that second chance--for once in my life.
Thank you.
- George W. Bush
