Free Republic

ZARELLI MUST DO MORE THAN JUST WIN Wednesday, September 11, 2002 By JEFFREY MIZE, Columbian staff writer For a candidate unopposed for the GOP's congressional nomination, state Sen. Joe Zarelli has everything to lose in next week's primary. Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, is assured of advancing to the Nov. 5 election and going head to head with U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver. Zarelli, however, must make a strong showing in Tuesday's "beauty contest" primary to attract campaign contributions and media attention needed to mount a legitimate challenge. "The reality is that everyone wants to see a number," he said. "If I do...

 CATHOLICS NEED NOT APPLY The US Senate is a place where legislation goes to die.  The US House of Representatives has passed over 50 pieces of legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support and the US Senate has not acted on them. The US Senate also has the duty to give their advise and consent on Judicial nominees. There is a Judicial Emergency in that over 20% of the Federal Bench is vacant.  The backlog of cases denies justice to everyone with cases before the Federal bench. People need to have confidence in the impartiality of the Justice System as well as...

Political groups often engage in elaborate dances between "establishment" and "challenger" factions. Today is primary day and only one race (in the Finger Lakes Region of NY) is interesting: David Walrath and Sherwood Boehlert in the 24th Congressional District. I agree real issues are sadly lacking in most campaigns, but if we don't like the soap they are selling, it's up to us to stop buying. Other races, such as Andrew Cuomo's and H. Carl McCall's fight for the Democrat nomination for governor, are over. Tom Golisano's independent bid to unseat Gov. George Pataki is interesting only because he follows...

Walrath For Congress vs. Sherry Boehlert It's Time For A Change in the GOP Dr. Walrath has long embraced the true Republican beliefs of individual freedoms as stated in the Bill of Rights, fewer taxes, smaller government, a strong military, and protecting the social security promise. As a small business owner for over 25 years with a successful general surgery practice in Auburn, NY, Dr. Walrath is gravely concerned with the maze of regulations that hurt small businesses. "I don't like what I see in our area's economy or how we're handling health care." Oneida County was 12th in the...

President Bush can declare war on Iraq any time he wants and he won't need the permission of Congress to do so. That's what Dubya's lawyers are telling him. Other administration officials, however, say it would be political suicide to launch an attack with Iraq withot at least seeking Congressional approval. Without it, they argue, Bush could lose public support in his war against terrorism. "This isn't so much a question of what's legal," says one White House source. "It's more a question of what's politically right." Bush's legal authority to attack Iraq exists because of the 1991 resolution that...

Republican says GTP has failed Greg Dority's big-kid baseball dreams were came true Friday night on the way to fulfilling another dream: becoming a member of the U.S. House. The 43-year-old Washington Republican is running for the first district Congressional seat being vacated by a retiring Eva Clayton. He threw out the first pitch at the Kinston Indians' game Friday night, and hoped to pitch his ideas to local voters. "We have a real chance with the district being redrawn smaller and there being no incumbent," he said. Although Dority is relieved the Sept. 10 state primary finally was scheduled,...

Peers in D.C. helping fund Matheson race WASHINGTON - Rep. Jim Matheson has come up with a "Capitol" way of raising capital for his re-election campaign. He's asking fellow Democrats in Congress for money - and they are responding with an avalanche of funds from their own campaigns. It may show how important Matheson's seat is to Democratic hopes of regaining control of the House. More than $1 of every $7 that Matheson, D-Utah, has raised - $127,166 of $856,595 total - has come from fellow Democrats in Congress, both from their individual campaigns and from political action committees, some...

Wearing tinfoil hats to protect their private thoughts, House and Senate leaders leave a private meeting with President Bush where they complained about the FBI's practice of reading the minds of Congressmen. WASHINGTON – A week after lawmakers serving on the House-Senate panel probing pre-Sept. 11 intelligence breakdowns refused to submit to lie-detector tests to learn the source of a leak, congressional leaders now accuse the FBI of attempting to read their minds through a process known as psychotronics. House and Senate leaders demanded and received a private meeting with President Bush before his departure on a month-long-paid-family-leave to discuss...

<p>By defeating U.S. Rep. Lynn Rivers in a cutthroat Democratic primary that a national magazine called "one of the most fascinating contests in America," John Dingell preserved both his huge congressional clout and a family dynasty that stretches back to the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt.</p>

WATERBURY, CONN. - It's lunchtime at Elton, an assisted living facility for seniors, and Rep. Nancy Johnson (R) is working the room. Walking from table to table, she shakes hands, smiles, and – over and over – recites her résumé. "I've been in Congress for 20 years," she says, emphasizing that she chairs an influential Ways and Means subcommittee. "I'm a Republican – I run on a Republican ticket – but I work with the good people of both parties." It's not that Ms. Johnson, a petite, grandmotherly type, is particularly prone to touting her own credentials. This year, the...

Sen. Bob Torricelli (D) favored over Douglas Forrester (R), 9 to 8 (52.9% chance; Torricelli's chances downgraded 8/4/02 from 55.6%) Though this is a Democratic leaning state, and Torricelli is a tough pol who is well positioned geographically, Forrester has proven to be a capable candidate with loads of personal bucks at his disposal. The GOP thinks it has an outside shot because of Torricelli's personal negatives which were aggravated during recent investigations and Senate action. Polls show Torricelli's vote in the mid-to-high-30s, which is very low, even in a state that usually posts high undecideds in most competitive races....

National Democratic leaders have long considered it a wasted effort to sink cash or time into trying to win the Republican stronghold of New Jersey's 5th Congressional District. After Marge S. Roukema won the seat 22 years ago, the district was reconfigured into a GOP safe haven, stretching across northern New Jersey's well-heeled suburbs and rural farmlands. Some brave Democrat would emerge every two years to challenge Roukema, only to be trounced in November after an uphill battle with token support from the national party. "My guess is that between the Democratic National Committee and the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee],...

Throughout the nation, incumbents vying for re-election to Congress are relying partly on their comments, actions and votes in reaction to the 9/11 attacks, in hopes that they will receive additional support from the voters. But in one congressional race, the incumbent's comments and actions may turn out to be an impetus for defeat. According to a recently completed poll, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., is in the fight of her life against former State Court Judge Denise Majette. The poll, conducted by The Marketing Workshop, which has in the past conducted political surveys for numerous major newspapers, including The Atlanta...

A new poll, taken in Rep. Cynthia Mc Kinney's(D) 4th Gorgia Congressional District,July 29, 30 and 31, 2002, shows her trailing in a primary race against Denise Majette 41 - 39. The numbers for Mc Kinney look especially bad, because with just three weeks until election day, her job proformance numbers show her 60/38 negative- positive. Since her name recognition is 98%, and Majette's is just 28%, an A B C ( anybody But Cynthia) mood seems to be sweeping the district.

<p>Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ray Clatworthy said last week a combination of tax cuts and regulatory relief will speed the nation's economic recovery and help it prosper.</p> <p>Clatworthy was critical of Biden for failing to vote with Bush on his tax-cut package.</p>

TAMPA, Florida — Congressional candidate Chuck Kalogianis says he wants affordable prescription drugs and social security to be the main focus of his campaign. But his past as a stripper in Massachusetts may get in the way. Kalogianis, 39, acknowledges his two-year stint with "Men in Motion" more than a decade ago when he was a law student in Boston. In his act, Kalogianis wore a bird costume that masked his face but exposed his legs. It ended with him doing a chicken dance and tearing off the bright yellow costume to show his French bikini thong to crowds of...

Republicans in DeKalb County's 4th Congressional District do not matter. They don't count. They're there, but as filler. In congressional races, their perdition for the next 10 years is to be represented by a liberal Democrat. They can vent, write letters, pout or drop out, but in redistricting Democrats guaranteed that the 4th District of Georgia will send a Democrat, certainly a liberal and most likely a black, to Congress. Get used to marginalization. That said, they don't really have to put up with a liberal Democrat who's also contemptuous of them, who concocts fantasies about the president starting wars...

Registered Republicans and Independent conservatives need to turn out in force, August 6th in Kansas Primary Election, especially in the 3rd Congressional District.The so-called Moderate Republican groups such as GOP Club of Johnson County, Mainstream Coalition; Johnson County Republicans for Education and other so-called left leaning groups are attempting to stack the deck against conservative candidates. These groups are aided and abetted by well known liberals such as Governor Bill Graves; former Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum; former U. S. Representative Jan Meyers; Senator Pat Roberts; The Kansas City Star; the Topeka Capitol Journal; and the Wichita Eagle.The above named newspapers...

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi congressmen locked in a life and death political struggle, Ronnie Shows and Chip Pickering hug warily before settling down to debate in the steamy, open-air pavilion of the Neshoba County Fair. Pleasantries over, Republican Pickering says the campaign is a referendum on ``the values that we in Mississippi share,'' the party that embraces those values and his ability to work with President Bush. Shows, the Democrat, swiftly casts the election in populist terms as a contest between ``the working people and the corporate elite.'' How the voters weigh these competing claims in November -- in...

<p>WASHINGTON — For nearly two decades, Georgia Republican Reps. Bob Barr and John Linder have cultivated a place for themselves in national politics -- the former as a passionate defender of the Constitution, the latter as a torch for a new Republican Party. Today, both are back in Georgia, fighting each other for their political lives.</p>