August 2003

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Recall Efforts Gaining Steam -- in Nevada 8/29/2003 10:08 AM Emboldened by recall efforts in California, a group of Nevada conservatives upset about the largest tax increase in state history began recall proceedings Wednesday against the popular Republican governor. The group filed a notice of intent with the Nevada Secretary of State's Office in Las Vegas to seek a recall election against Gov. Kenny Guinn. Organizers have 90 days to collect 128,109 signatures, or 25 percent of those who cast ballots in the 2002 general election. "It's going to be a daunting task," said Tony Dane, a political consultant and chairman of The Committee to Recall Governor Guinn. "But if people feel motivated enough to take control of their government, it's possible." Read the article Janklow Accident Could End Career 8/29/2003 10:03 AM South Dakota Rep. Bill Janklow, a legendary political figure in his state, could face criminal charges after his involvement in a traffic accident earlier this month that ended in the death of a motorcyclist. According to police reports, Janklow, 63, sped through a stop sign and hit 55-year-old Randolph E. Scott, who was riding his Harley-Davidson. Authorities say corn growing eight feet high on either side of the road prevented either man from anticipating the collision. Read the article Arkansas GOP Left Without Senate Candidate 8/29/2003 10:02 AM After Gov. Mike Huckabee took himself out of the 2004 U.S. Senate race, other prominent Republicans followed suit, leaving the GOP without a high-profile challenger to Sen. Blanche Lincoln), D-Ark., next year. Huckabee, in the first year of his second full four-year term, said Wednesday he needed to concentrate on complying with a state Supreme Court edict to overhaul Arkansas' unconstitutional public education system. Read the article Schwarzenegger Assured, Vague 8/21/2003 9:21 AM With a movie star smile and the confidence of a former Mr. Universe bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first news conference today told voters that taxes and overspending have dimmed the California dream -- and he pledged to set things right if elected governor. But he continued to avoid specifics when asked to detail what kind of deep cuts he would seek to balance the books in a state reeling from record deficits and almost rock-bottom credit. "The public doesn't care about figures," Schwarzenegger said. Read the article In California, Running On the Issues 8/21/2003 9:20 AM True, Ned F. Roscoe, the Libertarian retail cigarette mogul, knows his chances at being elected governor of California are about as good as finding an ashtray at a Marin County yoga workshop. Like the other 125 or so candidates with no war chest, sycophantic staffers, party support or name recognition, Roscoe understands this. It is the issues he cares about. "We did the arithmetic and figured that 20 percent of California adults are smokers, and if one out of four of them voted for someone who wants no new taxes," the tobacco salesman said, "then I'm the next governor of California." Californians love their issues. Read the article Some California Republicans Echo Governor Davis 8/21/2003 9:19 AM While Gov. Gray Davis is trying hard to convince California Democrats that the election to recall him is bad for democracy, some Republicans are now saying the same thing. Scott Barnett, a San Diego businessman, has created a political action committee, and a Web site -- RepublicansAgainstTheRecall.com -- to try to help the incumbent stay in office. Read the article Effort to Delay California Recall Denied 8/20/2003 5:46 PM A federal judge on Wednesday refused to delay the Oct. 7 recall election, rejecting arguments by a civil rights group that punch-card voting machines used in at least six counties won't accurately tally votes. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said he would not rule against the will of the people by delaying the recall vote, as requested by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ruling was the latest development in legal challenges seeking to delay the historic vote. Read the article Schwarzenegger Convenes Economic Summit 8/20/2003 4:10 PM Republican recall candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger met with his high-profile advisers Wednesday, saying they would discuss how to make California's economy "a powerful job-creating machine." Schwarzenegger was flanked by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and former Secretary of State George Shultz at the meeting with 18 other business and government leaders, which was closed to reporters after early comments. "Everyone agrees the economy is one of the most pressing issues facing California," Schwarzenegger said as he convened the meeting. "How do we turn California's economy back to a powerful job-creating machine that it once was?" Read the article Bill Simon Must Pass 3 'Mack Trucks' 8/19/2003 1:47 PM Bill Simon faces lingering bitterness among fellow Republicans in his battle to defeat three other California political heavyweights in the Oct. 7 recall election for governor. "Unfortunately, if Bill Simon's first campaign hadn't been inept, he would be governor today, instead of having to compete with three other Mack trucks on a two-lane highway," a senior Republican lawmaker and Simon friend said privately. Less than a year ago, Mr. Simon lost by five percentage points to a highly unpopular incumbent Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis, who faces recall by voters. The "Mack trucks" are the other top contenders: Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a popular Democrat; and Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor; and state Sen. Tom McClintock, admired by many of the state's most fiscally conservative voters. Read the article Schwarzenegger Says to Debate Rivals 8/19/2003 11:24 AM Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous on film for beating and blowing up opponents, not to mention occasionally gunning them down, said on Monday that he was ready to engage in political combat -- a debate. He said he wanted to debate Gov. Gray Davis and other leading candidates for California's top job. California voters reelected Democrat Davis in November, but a Republican-funded petition effort succeeded in forcing the first recall vote against a governor in the state's history. The ballot is set for Oct. 7. "I intend to debate Gray Davis and the other major candidates on the ballot," the Austrian-born Republican actor said in a statement. Schwarzenegger said Republican Congressman David Dreier, who has already endorsed the star of the "Terminator" films, would negotiate the terms of any debates in which he participates. Read the article California Conservatives Face Quandary 8/19/2003 11:08 AM California conservatives are in a quandary. Although the front-running, media-grabbing, superstar candidate for governor is a Republican, he is not their kind. He supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control. If his recent statements, and those of his economic adviser, Warren E. Buffett, are any indication, he may even be against tax cuts. So what if Arnold Schwarzenegger displays a bust of former president Ronald Reagan in his office? To conservatives, he is no Ronald Reagan. Rush Limbaugh, a Reagan fan, has been sounding the alarm on his radio talk show about Schwarzenegger's moderate views since the actor announced his intention to challenge Gov. Gray Davis (D) in the Oct. 7 recall election. "Arnold Schwarzenegger," Limbaugh said the other day, "is no conservative. Period." Read the article 100-Year-Old Woman Not on Recall List 8/14/2003 4:19 PM Mathilda Spak had no illusions about winning the California recall election. But now the 100-year-old woman won't even get to take part in the campaign to unseat Gov. Gray Davis. Spak, the oldest person in the race for the Oct. 7 election, was among 112 people whose applications were dismissed because they were filled out improperly. A total of 135 candidates remain. She was diplomatic about not getting the chance to run for governor, saying that "whatever way it'll turn out, that's fate." "I'm not going to worry about it," she said. Read the article Also-Rans Give Recall Race Colorful Backdrop 8/14/2003 4:17 PM While about a half dozen serious candidates are running for governor in California, many more colorful candidates are also in the mix. And while they stand little chance of becoming governor, they clearly are enjoying the national attention. Candidates range from a former child actor to an "adult actress" and continue along a colorful spectrum that includes a pinup queen and a porn king. Also on the roster are pot smokers who are providing a lot of material for late night jokers. "The news is so bad, even Florida is laughing at us," quipped "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, harkening back to the 2000 presidential election debacle. Read the article California Recall Ballot Will Have 135 Names 8/14/2003 4:16 PM The bloated California recall ballot has become a little more manageable after nearly half of the 247 applicants were eliminated for filing improper paperwork. The Oct. 7 election will have 135 candidates attempting to succeed Gov. Gray Davis. The list of top contenders includes actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, independent commentator Ariana Huffington and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth. The only name missing from the choices is Gray Davis. The state Supreme Court refused to hear Davis' lawsuit to have his name added to the list of those who want his job. Read the article Bush Says Schwarzenegger Not Only Good Candidate 8/13/2003 6:00 PM President Bush said on Wednesday that Arnold Schwarzenegger was not the only good candidate running in the California recall election and that he would use his visit to the state to "campaign for George W." and not the movie actor and former Mr. Universe. In saying that other candidates in the race would make "a good governor," Bush appeared to distance himself from Schwarzenegger, who has taken an early lead in polls and is the most prominent among the 171 pending or certified candidates. Read the article Warren Buffett Joins Schwarzenegger's Team 8/13/2003 5:14 PM Financial and investment guru Warren Buffett will serve as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's senior financial and economic adviser in his gubernatorial bid, the Schwarzenegger for Governor campaign announced Wednesday. "I have known Arnold for years and know he'll be a great governor. It is critical to the rest of the nation that California's economic crisis be solved, and I think Arnold will get that job done," said Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more than $30 billion. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., an insurance and investment holding company, will help Schwarzenegger tap other prominent business leaders and economists to advise the candidate on the economic issues facing California. Read the article Rove Says Florida Will be 'Ground Zero' in 2004 Election 8/13/2003 3:22 PM Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, says Florida will play a crucial role in the president's re-election strategy next year. Rove, in an interview with editors and reporters of The News Herald of Panama City, said the campaign strategy in Florida would be a combination of "brotherly love" - a reference to the president's younger brother, Gov. Jeb Bush - and an effort to "register, identify and turn out our vote. This clearly is going to be ground zero," Rove said in the interview, published in Wednesday's editions. Rove has been vacationing in northwest Florida, where he has been making trips for the past 16 years. Florida, now with 27 electoral votes, decided the 2000 presidential election and is expected to be a battleground state next year. Read the article Schwarzenegger Uses Star Power Strategy 8/12/2003 4:12 PM Arnold Schwarzenegger's brief campaign for governor has so far relied on his star power, famous one-liners and appearances on entertainment television. The action star has avoided having to detail his views on social issues or give a plan to fix California's enormous fiscal troubles, but some analysts say he might be best off sticking with generalities and avoiding specifics that opponents and the media could pick apart. "He is fully formed in voters' minds already, they have an opinion of him that's been shaped over 20 years of watching his movies, they feel like they know him, so I think traditional politics are out the window in terms of demands for specificity of messages," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at California State University in Sacramento. Read the article California Determines Recall Ballot Order 8/11/2003 5:23 PM In an election that threatens to rewrite politics and reduce the term in office of Gov. Gray Davis, the lesson of the day Monday was that the alphabet begins with the letter "R" - as in "recall." State election officials randomly drew letters to determine the order of candidates on the recall ballot that could be choked with nearly 200 names for the special Oct. 7 election. The first letter chosen was R, followed by W, Q and O. Read the article Business to Get Out GOP Vote 8/11/2003 3:57 PM Approximately 170 corporations, including some 60 Fortune 500 companies, are participating in an ambitious plan to mobilize employees in the presidential and congressional elections 15 months away. The effort, developing since the 1998 election cycle, is intended to counteract the powerful grassroots organization of labor and other liberal interests that often clash with business on policy. While the effort, dubbed the Prosperity Project, is nominally bipartisan, it is certain to favor Republican candidates, who are generally viewed as friendlier to business than Democrats. Read the article Democrats Unlikely To Retake House 8/11/2003 1:16 PM Numerous Democratic strategists have become convinced in recent months that their party is unlikely to pick up the dozen seats it needs to retake the House, even in the face of a sluggish economy and mounting questions about Iraq that could be issues to use against the Republican-dominated administration. Analysts who have been following the early battle for control of the 435-member House say a relative lack of public anger to fuel anti-incumbent voting and a strong GOP fundraising effort underway will be difficult for Democrats to surmount. The biggest factor, however, is one that has thwarted Democratic hopes before and, if anything, is growing worse: Congressional redistricting has produced a remarkably small number of competitive districts nationwide. As a result, Democrats must win a huge percentage of the toss-up races to regain the House majority they lost a decade ago. Read the article Democrat Spokesman Warns of 'Real Bullets' Against Schwarzenegger 8/11/2003 1:12 PM California Democratic Party Spokesman Bob Mulholland this weekend warned Arnold Schwarzenegger that "real bullets" will be coming his way during his campaign to be governor. "Schwarzenegger is going to find out, that unlike a Hollywood movie set, the bullets coming at him in this campaign are going to be real bullets and he is going to have to respond to them," warned Mulholland in an interview with a camera crew from ABC NEWS. "Maria [Shriver] has been very concerned about Arnold's safety, her family has a history with assassination, you know," a source with direct ties to the movie star told the DRUDGE REPORT from Los Angeles. "Mr. Mulholland and his talk of 'real bullets' with Arnold's name on them is reckless and not acceptable political discourse. He should be fired immediately, if the Democrats have any conscience." Read the article Poll: Californians Set to Recall Davis 8/11/2003 1:10 PM Nearly two-thirds of California voters are willing to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and nearly three-fourths of them say action hero turned Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger should be taken seriously, according to a poll released late Sunday. The poll, conducted by CNN, USA Today, and Gallup found 64 percent of respondents would recall Davis, while 29 percent said they would keep him in office. If voters do agree to recall Davis, a candidate needs only a plurality of votes to win. Schwarzenegger leads the long list of hopefuls, with 42 percent of poll respondents saying there is a good chance they would vote for him. Also in Schwarzenegger's favor is that 72 percent of respondents think his campaign should be taken seriously. More than half -- 52 percent -- say he would do a better job than a career politician. Read the article All That's Missing Is the Popcorn 8/10/2003 1:42 PM It's too bad there's not an Academy Award for head fakes. As Arnold Schwarzenegger prepared to step onto the Tonight Show stage last week, Jay Leno asked him how he was going to make the expected announcement that he was not going to run for Governor of California. Schwarzenegger murmured, "I am bowing out." And that's what everyone was expecting to hear. In fact, top adviser George Gorton stood at the edge of the set, holding the official statement that began, "I am not running for Governor ..." When Gorton offered one last word of regret over the campaign that wasn't to be, the former Mr. Universe threw a muscular arm around his shoulder and said, "Let's go do it." He did it, all right. A few moments into the show's afternoon taping, Schwarzenegger declared to a squealing studio audience, "I am going to run for Governor of the state of California." It took Gorton until after the commercial break to figure out that Schwarzenegger wasn't joking. Read the article Field Is Set for California Recall 8/10/2003 1:40 PM With a motley cast of characters including Arnold Schwarzenegger, former child actor Gary Coleman, porn maven Larry Flynt and buxom artist Angelyne, the race to replace California Gov. Gray Davis is heating up to be the next media circus of the century. At least 155 candidates lined up to take the Golden State's top post, filing their bids by the 5 p.m. Saturday deadline. Voters have less than two months to decide if they should bounce the chief executive of the nation's most populous state and, if so, who should replace him. According to the secretary of state, buff film star Schwarzenegger - running on the Republican ticket - will compete against opponents including last year's gubernatorial runner-up, Bill Simon, former baseball czar Peter Ueberroth and columnist Arianna Huffington, an independent. Read the article Schwarzenegger's Race Helps GOP 8/10/2003 1:39 PM Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid to recapture the California governorship for the Republicans could dramatically change the face of their party in a major electoral state that is one of the Democrats' biggest political strongholds. "If Schwarzenegger is able to win this and able to successfully govern California, he plants an inclusive Republican flag in a state that Democrats have taken for granted in the last several presidential election cycles," said an unidentified Republican Party official. "If you look at the presidential electoral map, the real anchors for the Democratic Party are New York and California, the official said. "You could potentially have Republican governors in both states, and that could put them in play and force the Democrats to spend campaign resources there in the presidential election that they may not be able to afford to do." Read the article President Bush Still Neutral on California Recall Race 8/7/2003 5:35 PM President Bush remained officially neutral Wednesday in the campaign to recall California Gov. Gray Davis as Arnold Schwarzenegger, a celebrity Republican who had a job in the first Bush administration, entered the race. But Bush's political advisers were weighing what steps, if any, to take as the California campaign proceeds and calculating the potential impact on Bush's own re-election effort. Read the article Leader of California Recall Effort Won't Run 8/7/2003 4:52 PM The millionaire congressman who largely funded the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis abruptly pulled out of the race to replace him Thursday, a day after actor Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who made his fortune selling car alarms and pumped $1.7 million of his own money into the recall effort, announced in a tearful news conference that he would not run. He declined to endorse anyone but said Schwarzenegger's announcement Wednesday that he would run for governor helped assure him there would be enough qualified candidates for the office. "It has nothing to do with Schwarzenegger's decision, other than I needed to know that there were several strong candidates," he said. Read the article 'Terminator' is Joined by Prominent Democrats in California Recall Race 8/7/2003 9:28 AM With a surprise jump into California's recall race, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger touched off the heaviest tremors in the state's political earthquake to date, saying he wasn't afraid of attacks sure to come from Democrats and conservative Republicans alike. But the aftershock from a day of topsy-turvy developments in the drive to recall Gov. Gray Davis came just hours later, when Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante broke party ranks to become the first prominent Democrat to declare his own candidacy. Another Democrat, state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, will also take out papers to run, his press secretary said early Thursday. Read the article Schwarzenegger to Run for Governor 8/6/2003 9:21 PM Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday terminated a monthslong buildup of suspense when he announced he would jump into California's Oct. 7 recall election. The Austrian-born actor, a Republican who is married into the Kennedy dynasty, revealed his intentions to replace beleaguered Democratic Gov. Gray Davis during a taping of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." The announcement came as a surprise to many, as sources close to Schwarzenegger had been telling the media the actor had decided not to throw his hat into the ring. There was also speculation that his wife, journalist Maria Shriver, had urged him to stay out of the recall race. Read the article Senator Hollings to Retire 8/4/2003 4:03 PM Veteran Democratic Sen. Ernest Hollings (search) of South Carolina will not seek re-election next year, the senator announced Monday. Sources said Hollings, 81, "definitely will not endorse anyone" to succeed him. Hollings disclosed his political plans at a news conference Monday afternoon. His retirement gives Republicans a strong opportunity to pick up a southern seat in their bid to maintain control of the Senate in 2004. Republicans are also hoping to pick up the seat being vacated by Georgia's Zell Miller. Republican Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald has also announced his retirement. The GOP currently holds the Senate 51-48 with one independent. Read the article Governor Davis Filing Suit to Delay Recall 8/4/2003 3:49 PM Gov. Gray Davis planned to ask the California Supreme Court Monday to delay his Oct. 7 recall election until March and list his name on the ballot among the candidates seeking to replace him. Voters will make two decisions in the recall election: whether to remove Davis, and whom to choose as his successor if he is recalled. Under California election law, the subject of the recall cannot be on the list of replacement candidates. Read the article Candidates Gear Up California Recall Election 8/4/2003 3:48 PM Students in Mark Mishkin's U.S. history class usually focus on figures such as John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt, but next semester they'll learn about a less famous politician: their teacher. The 30-year-old is running for governor in California's recall election, hoping to give his students an up-close look at the democratic process. "I want to show my kids that anyone can be in the process," said Mishkin, who teaches at Taft High School in suburban Woodland Hills. "I want to teach them that they should take part in elections and shouldn't sit on the sidelines." Read the article