First Door on the Left

BOSTON (November 4, 8:04 p.m. PST) - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, making a powerful case to abandon the U.S. public finance system, will ask 600,000 supporters to decide whether he should take the historic step to avoid campaign spending limits, the Associated Press has learned.

Dean is asking his backers this week to vote by e-mail, Internet, telephone or U.S. mail on whether he should remain in the system or join President Bush in raising unlimited campaign contributions. He would be the first candidate in Democratic Party history to reject federal campaign money and the spending limits that come with it.

Just eight months ago, the former Vermont governor committed to accepting taxpayer money and vowed to criticize any Democrat who didn’t. But campaign officials said Dean now realizes that the Democratic nominee will face a severe cash disadvantage against Bush, who plans to abandon the system for the second time and raise upward of $170 million.

Candidates who take the matching funds can get up to $18.7 million - money Dean would be turning away if he rejects the system - and are limited to about $45 million in spending through the primary season.

Dean reported raising $25 million as of Sept. 30 and, campaign officials say, has raised about $5 million since then.

That means he’s already bumping up against the $45 million cap, when matching money is factored in. By opting out of the system, Dean would be taking a calculated risk that he can raise much more than $45 million.

Putting such a critical choice in the hands of his supporters is another first for Dean, who has already revolutionized the way campaigns use the Internet to raise money and build grass-roots operations.

While he outlines a compelling case for opting out of the system in an e-mail being sent to contributors Wednesday morning, Dean makes it clear that the decision is up to his supporters, said the campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some of the officials expressed hope that supporters would vote for Dean to opt out of the system. Others reacted with surprise and alarm at the risk Dean was taking. They all refused to predict the tally’s outcome.

At least three Republicans have opted out of the system: Bush and Steve Forbes in 2000, and John Connally in 1980.

If Dean abandons the system, Democratic rivals John Kerry and Wesley Clark may follow suit. Kerry is personally wealthy while Clark has had success raising money since he entered the race in September.

Bush is expected to accept public financing for the general election, which begins after the GOP convention ends in September 2004. But the president, who is unopposed for the GOP nomination, plans to use his enormous primary campaign war chest to air political ads and develop a get-out-the-vote operation during spring 2004 - in hopes that the Democratic nominee, limited by caps, cannot respond.

Dean will lay out the choices to voters in a Wednesday speech at New York’s Cooper Union. The vote results should be made public in the next few days.

In a March 7 interview with The Associated Press, Dean committed to accept the taxpayer money.

“We’ve always been committed to this. Campaign finance reform is just something I believe in,” he said in March. Dean also said his position was not based on any political considerations, such as the size of the field or how much money he can raise.

He reversed course in August, citing Bush’s plans to raise $200 million - five times the spending limit - as a reason for keeping his options open.

“I think public financing is a good thing. The question is what do you do with an opponent who can murder you from March to December?” Dean said.

(CNN) — With a year to go to the 2004 general elections, Democratic presidential nomination candidates will get a chance to connect with young voters Tuesday night during a 90-minute forum aired live and sponsored by CNN and Rock the Vote at historic Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.

Of the nine candidates, only Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri is scheduled not to participate.

Boston was chosen because it’s the chosen site of the Democratic National Convention in July.

Faneuil Hall is known as the “Cradle of Liberty” because protests there of British policies helped spur the movement to national independence.

Tuesday’s forum, dubbed “America Rocks the Vote” and moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, the event is designed with a town-hall format, candidates answering live questions from the audience.

Thousands of questions have also been submitted via wireless devices and the Internet.

CNN, tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern / 6 p.m. Central.

From MSNBC’s campaign embed comes this report:

Delivering the statement many political analysts have been waiting for and an image his campaign is betting on, Dean on Monday left no doubt about his roots as a doctor, delivering a powerful rebuke to the Gephardt Medicare attack with a stethoscope in hand. Moreover, this marked the first time in months that Dean opted to highlight his medical rather than his political experience and an obvious shift in strategy for his campaign. No longer was the insider vs. outsider message front and center in Iowa where Dean was addressing the nation’s nursing shortage. Instead, the sound bite of the day sounded far more personal and was delivered with greater clarity and conviction. In Dean’s words: “I spent 13 years of my life with this and with senior citizens and I can promise you that as president of the United States not only will Medicare not be cut but every senior citizen will have adequate health care, Medicare will be shored up and every senior citizen will have a prescription benefit. I spent 13 years of my life doing this and I am not going to let us backslide now.” If there was any doubt that the Gephardt campaign’s Medicare attack has legs, these words and the symbolism accompanying them ought to dispel that notion.

So much for Dick Gephardt’s argument that Dr. Dean wants to cut Medicare. I wonder what the next attack will be.

IN RECENT YEARS, much has been made over the repeal of the estate tax — or “death tax.” Much less attention has been paid to a far more pernicious tax — the “debt tax” — which is bigger than the estate tax, capital gains tax, and so-called “marriage tax” combined.

When the Democratic presidential candidates convene here on Tuesday to engage a skeptical generation of younger voters at the Rock the Vote debate, we ask them to address the debt tax as the most important issue affecting young Americans today. American taxpayers paid $332.5 billion in interest last year on the national debt. This huge payment, equal to 11 percent of the total federal budget, does not improve education, enhance homeland security, or rebuild Iraq. It merely services the $6.6 trillion (and growing) national debt. These interest payments are a “debt tax” — a tax that drains income without producing any material benefits for taxpayers.

Today’s average American household pays an astounding $3,153 in taxes annually just to service the debt — about enough to lease a car for a year. These debt tax payments are required because of the fiscal irresponsibility of previous federal budgets.

A government running a large national debt is like an individual running a big balance on a credit card. Most American households use credit cards, and more than half of cardholders carry over credit card debt from one month to the next. But few would go as far as the federal government currently does; today’s national debt is the equivalent of a whopping $62,000 on each family’s credit card. And each month, the debt is rolled over, with no plans to pay down the principal.

The debt tax is likely to grow in the coming years, placing an enormous burden on tomorrow’s taxpayers. Even if the national debt does not increase, projected increases in interest rates will increase the cost of borrowing money — increasing the debt tax.

But the national debt is increasing, because the government is spending beyond its means. In the past three years, federal spending has increased by 13.5 percent. Only half of this increase is attributable to the war on terrorism. And this figure does not even include the $87 billion recently requested for our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are projected to reduce revenues by $1.35 trillion. Even if interest rates remain constant, this year’s budget alone will add approximately $22 billion to annual interest payments — $22 billion in debt taxes. “Tax relief” for today’s taxpayers is, plain and simple, a tax increase for tomorrow’s taxpayers.

As a result these factors — rising interest rates, growing spending, and massive tax cuts — the debt tax burden will continue to mushroom. The administration’s own projections show the debt growing by half through 2008. This means that in five years, the average family could be paying between $4,500 and $6,000 or more each year in debt tax alone.

Governor Dean is advocating the repeal of all the Bush tax cuts. He wants us to return to the tax structure of the Clinton years. It appears he has the right idea. The tax cuts passed by the Bush Administration were not tax cuts at all, but rather tax shifts. They have accomplished nothing beside increasing our national debt, which eventually somebody is going to have to pay for.

Matthew Shepard died an unimaginably horrific death, lashed to a wooden fence in the lonely Wyoming countryside, beaten until he fell into coma and then abandoned. Yet five years after his October 1998 murder, the red-hot homophobia that fueled the college freshman’s killers has flared up again in Wyoming, where outside extremists who call themselves Christians continue to flog Shepard in death.

The Rev. Fred Phelps, a Topeka, Kan., pastor, was one of the twisted demonstrators at Shepard’s funeral who screamed, “God hates fags!” as Shepard’s grieving parents and friends entered a Casper, Wyo., church. Phelps has returned to that city to mark the five-year anniversary of Shepard’s death. But instead of expiating his sickening behavior, Phelps wants to commemorate it by installing a 6-foot-high granite monument with Shepard’s face and these words: “Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, at Age 21 in defiance of God’s Warning: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.’ Leviticus 18:22.”

Phelps’ political maneuverings are as wily as his ideas are repulsive. He wants his monument to hate to sit in Casper’s City Park, where a large replica of the Ten Commandments was erected in 1965, a gift from the local Eagles Club. Last year, a Denver federal court, which has jurisdiction over Wyoming, ruled that communities displaying religious messages or symbols must allow other messages or symbols as well. So Phelps figured that if the park included a monument to the Ten Commandments, the city would have to accommodate his demand to place his “religious” anti-gay statue.

Casper’s leaders, righteously appalled at Phelps’ gambit, have come together to shut down his poisonous message. Last week, the City Council voted to move the Ten Commandments to a new historic plaza under construction. It’s a move that while solving one problem might create new legal challenges, but at least the Ten Commandments wouldn’t be used as an excuse for Phelps’ testament to bigotry.

Meanwhile, the Eagles Club has offered to remove the granite Ten Commandments tablet from Casper’s park. At least three local churches say they want it and would put it on private land. That’s a far better idea — and the best way to let Matthew Shepard finally rest in peace.

It amazes me how some people can be so filled with hatred. Bigotry has no place in modern society, let alone among those who call themselves Christians.

It appears that CBS will probably give in to the RNC…

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Drawing Republican fire over the accuracy of its upcoming mini-series “The Reagans,” CBS appears ready to present a kinder, gentler portrait of the ailing former President Ronald Reagan than originally produced — if the network airs it at all.

Sources close to the production said on Monday CBS is considering canceling the docudrama, slated to air Nov. 16 and 18, under mounting criticism from political conservatives that the two-part series unfairly depicts Reagan and his wife.

Meanwhile, Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety reported that director Robert Allan Ackerman has quit the production over creative differences with CBS executives who insisted on numerous last-minute alterations.

Neither producers for the four-hour film nor Ackerman could immediately be reached for comment.

But sources familiar with the production told Reuters that last-minute changes demanded by CBS are being made and that there was a chance the movie could be moved to the network’s sister pay cable TV channel, Showtime.

The manager for actor James Brolin, who stars as Reagan in the film, said his client was refraining from taking part in promoting the mini-series at this point.

..//..

Some Republicans also were incensed that Reagan is played by Brolin, who is married to Democratic activist Barbra Streisand. Nancy Reagan is portrayed by Judy Davis. Both are self-described liberals, as are Zadan and Meron.

On Friday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie asked CBS to allow a team of scholars to review the film in advance for historical accuracy. Otherwise, he said, CBS should run a disclaimer informing viewers that the film is a fictional portrayal of the Reagans.

Some Reagan supporters have urged boycotts of CBS by viewers and advertisers.

On her Web site last week, Streisand said criticism of the film was typical of “what the right wing does when they are faced with a truth that is not 100 percent positive for their side — they … scream and yell until they get their way. Instead of boycotting and trying to have the movie changed, why don’t they all just wait to see the film when it airs like the rest of us.”

Hmmmm… may be about time to go buy another Streisand album.