Free Republic

<p>November 3, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Democrats yesterday dumped on presidential wannabe Howard Dean, after the former Vermont governor claimed he wanted votes from "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." They said Dean is either aiming to attract votes from Americans who treasure the old racist South or that he lacks awareness of today's South.</p>

For more than two years now, the Democrats seeking the presidency have planned on running a 2004 campaign built around the weak economy and patterned after Bill Clinton's 1992 defeat of President Bush's father. But with the economy having surged this past quarter they are suddenly confronting the possibility of a far less encouraging historical comparison: that the election year economy could be more like the one Ronald Reagan ran on in 1984, when the country was coming out of a long slump. The rapid change in the outlook — underscored by figures released on Thursday showing the fastest quarterly...

Dick Gephardt strides into a family restaurant in Pocahontas, Iowa, and finds two species of mammals waiting for his campaign event, Iowans and reporters. The 24 Iowans in this small room are unpretentious Midwesterners. There are farmers in dirty work coats. There are women in floral sweaters with gray hair, for they are as likely to color their hair as they are to sprout wings and fly to Mars. The Iowans are almost all elderly. (If you judged by the crowds at Iowa campaign events, you'd think the voting age was 70.) The 23 reporters are from New York, Washington,...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — The first hint of the unexpected was in the annual Christmas card from Congress. There, in the photo of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and his smiling family, stood his daughter Chrissy with her arm around another woman. Mr. Gephardt sent out more than 2,000 of the Christmas cards last year, letting his constituents and colleagues know for the first time that his 30-year-old daughter was proudly and openly gay. Since then, she has become one of the public faces of his presidential campaign and something of a celebrity. Her transformation from a married social...

IN THE HOPPERNorth Carolina lame duck Sen. John Edwards pulled down about $120,000 on Wednesday night in Venice Beach, California, during a fundraiser in the loft of Easy Rider star Dennis Hopper. Edwards' presidential campaign staff had been hoping to rake in more than $200,000 at the $1,000 or more per head event, but blamed the fires burning down the coast for the lower attendance. Perhaps they should also blame the scorchingly hot candidacy of Howie Dean as well. Several celebrities billed as "co-hosts" of the Edwards event pulled a no-show, even though they were in the Los Angeles area...

Dean, Gephardt staffs trade angry remarks A Dean worker says he was called a derogatory name. Gephardt's staff says the accusation is a "dirty trick.' By KEN FUSON Dean, Gephardt staffs trade angry remarks> Register Staff Writer 10/30/2003 With their presidential candidates locked in a neck-and-neck race in Iowa, the campaign staffs for Democratic rivals Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt are hurling angry accusations at each other over an incident this week in Des Moines. Dean staffers say an openly gay campaign worker was pushed by Gephardt's Iowa campaign manager and called a "faggot" by someone else on Gephardt's national...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Howard Dean's presidential campaign complained to rival Dick Gephardt about an angry confrontation between staffers at an Iowa event. The incident occurred during a Gephardt speech at a Des Moines, Iowa, senior center Tuesday. A Dean campaign worker got into an altercation with members of the Gephardt staff and was escorted from the event, according to Rod Boshart, a reporter for The Gazette, of Cedar Rapids. In a letter to the Gephardt campaign late Tuesday, Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said, "I urge you to find the staff member responsible and fire him, and...

Presidential hopefuls get in the mix with the youths. *Presidential hopeful Al Sharpton and former president Bill Clinton are counting on hip-hop to push the vote the democratic way in 2004. Monday night, former President Bill Clinton attended a Democratic National Committee sponsored fund raiser at Dream, one of Washington, DC's hottest hip-hop clubs. The man, who has jokingly been referred to as "the first black president," rubbed elbows with the likes of Outkast, Chris Tucker, Ginuwine and a few members of the Washington Redskins. The DNC, which expects to raise up to $100,000 reportedly sold 2,000 tickets at $50...

Not content with merely retaking the lead in Iowa, Congressman Dick Gephardt on Tuesday continued to plow through Howard Dean with new attacks on the Vermonter's lack of support for retirement entitlements. During a speech detailing his plan to solve Iowa's Medicare reimbursement disparity, Gephardt (D-MO) continued to attack Dean (D-VT) even though polls in Iowa now show the former House minority leaders winning in those first in the nation caucuses. Gephardt said on Tuesday, "As you might imagine, there are clear differences in this campaign on the issue of Medicare, specifically Medicare reimbursements. In 1993, Howard Dean called Medicare...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — Their nearly weekly debates have been the biggest events of the season for the Democratic presidential candidates. They build their travel schedules around the televised encounters. Their aides devote hours to coming up with catchy retorts. And the forums draw more press coverage than anything else the candidates do. Even so, many of the top candidates and their aides are at their wits' end over the televised jousts. Some openly contend that the events are simply a waste of time. "I think the crowded field allows the most shrill, conflict-oriented, confrontational voices to be heard," Senator...

ON THE FRITZDNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe was telling people on Tuesday that the Democrats would absolutely hold the Senate seat of retiring Fritz Hollings, after Columbia Mayor Bob Coble dropped out of the 2004 Democratic U.S. Senate primary race. That leaves the Palmetto State's Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum as the likely Democratic nominee. Coble, who was viewed as more of a moderate compared to the far-left views of Tenenbaum, wasn't raising enough money to keep up with the state official, and even trailed businessman Marcus Belk. Belk is a businessman virtually unknown in Democratic Party circles, who is partially financing...

The hits just keep on coming for Dick Gephardt. Yesterday, Wes Clark and Joe Lieberman pulled out of Iowa, leaving about 15% of the caucus vote up for grabs according to the latest SurveyUSA poll. Conventional wisdom says these votes will go primarily to Gephardt, with Edwards probably benefitting some as well. The same poll, released last Friday, showed Gephardt with a 5-point lead over Dean. Not bad. On Friday we talked about Gephardt's support of the war in Iraq and how it should strengthen his position as the anti-Dean candidate. Today, the Washington Post offers up a feature story...

With the strongest union backing and deepest roots in the politically important industrial Midwest, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) is emerging as the Democratic presidential candidate many prominent Republicans fear the most in the 2004 elections. In interviews with nearly two dozen Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House, Gephardt was portrayed by a majority as the Democratic candidate best prepared and positioned to defeat President Bush in a head-to-head matchup next year. The reasons, they said: Gephardt consistently supported the Iraq war, enjoys unrivaled support among union leaders and hails...

Is it Bush vs. Dean? Posted: October 20, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. With an uptick in his approval rating to 56 percent – higher than Reagan at this point in his presidency – George W. Bush seems to have weathered his summer squall and to be well-positioned to do what his father failed to do: Win a second term. The resurgence in the president's ratings appears due to two factors: the California recall election that riveted the nation – and in which the face of the Democratic Party was that of Gray Davis, and of...

With the future of America's postwar occupation of Iraq looking longer by the day, the political debate over the issue has taken on new urgency. As American soldiers continue to die and the cost to American taxpayers continues to mount, the Democratic presidential candidates have started to sense that Iraq could turn into a liability for President Bush's re-election campaign. Unfortunately, they have so far been mostly jockeying to produce the best sound bite about who was the first and loudest to denounce Mr. Bush's flawed policy. They need to do better. They have received little help from their comrades...

When it comes to the future of Iraq, there's not just one Democratic Party; there are three. First, there are the Nancy Pelosi Democrats. These Democrats voted against Paul Bremer's $87 billion plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. The essence of their case is that the Bush administration is too corrupt and incompetent to reconstruct Iraq. If Bush is for it, they're against it. Their hatred for Bush is so dense, it's hard for them to see through it to the consequences of their vote. But if Pelosi's arguments had carried the day, our troops in Iraq would be reading...

<p>More than a dozen national labor unions supporting Representative Richard A. Gephardt announced yesterday they are banding together to form a group that will promote his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.</p> <p>At a news conference in Washington, the labor leaders said the new group, called the Alliance for Economic Justice, will seek special status under the Internal Revenue Service code to spend union money to communicate with members and promote key labor issues and political candidates.</p>

<p>Dick Gephardt arrived in Washington more than a quarter-century ago as an anti-establishment Democrat who distinguished himself in the House as a tax-cutting (remember the tax-rate slashing Bradley-Gephardt proposal?), pro-life maverick. Having long ago jettisoned both once-bedrock principles in an effort to grease his path toward the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Gephardt now has the audacity to advertise himself as "A Man of Principle" on the Web site of his current presidential campaign.</p>

Gephardt, Kucinich Lead Fight Against Assault Weapons 10/10/2003 Press Release Coalition to Stop Gun Violence 1023 15th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20005 www.gunfree.org Contact: Blaine Rummel Phone: 202-297-1149 One Year After DC-area Sniper Attacks, Presidential Candidates Co-Sponsor H.R. 2038 to Renew and Strengthen Assault Weapons Ban Washington, DC - Congressmen Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) have co-sponsored H.R. 2038, a bill that will renew and strengthen the federal assault weapons ban. Their support comes one year after the DC-area sniper attacks, which killed 10 and wounded three others. The legislation would stop the gun industry from manufacturing and...