Free Republic

<p>When Gov. Bob Holden helped arrange a meeting between union officials and Rep. Richard Gephardt's top Missouri campaign advisers, the governor thought it would help patch up frayed relations between two powerful but divided political camps.</p> <p>Instead, it ended in a firestorm of explosive charges, sparked an even deeper rift among two forces key to Holden's re-election prospects, and threw the spotlight on Joyce Aboussie, the Gephardt campaign aide and political powerhouse.</p>

For years, presidential wannabes have braved New Hampshire winters and trips to Iowa in order to establish themselves as serious candidates for their party's nomination. Political consultants have long since mastered the art of appealing to these influential voters. Now, the Oklahoma primary is scheduled for only one week after New Hampshire and no one knows how to win this one. "Anyone who thinks they know how to win here is nuts," said Jay Parmley, chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party told the Boston Globe "Politicians have spent years mastering how to win New Hampshire's primary because it's been important...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prominent labor leaders on Wednesday accused a St. Louis-based aide to Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt of threatening retaliation against state employees if two prominent unions assist rival Howard Dean in the 2004 Missouri primary. In a letter to Gephardt, D-Mo., Andrew Stern and Gerald McEntee accused Joyce Aboussie of vowing to seek the reversal of an executive order that granted Missouri state employees collective bargaining rights. The two called on Gephardt to fire Aboussie from the campaign and issue a written retraction of her threats. Aboussie did not immediately return calls for comment. The Gephardt campaign...

<p>Dick Gephardt, Democratic presidential candidate, is describing every parent's worst nightmare.</p> <p>Thirty years later, he still remembers his wife's tears, the doctor's words. Their 18-month-old son, Matt, had a huge tumor on his prostate. It was too big to take out and wouldn't respond to chemotherapy. The small auditorium at Morningside College is silent as Gephardt quotes the doctor's verdict: "He's not going to be alive in four weeks."</p>

Presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt appears on 'Tonight Show' By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer BURBANK, Calif. -- U.S. Rep.and presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt appeared Tuesday on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and said he has a problem most celebrities would envy - he has a hard time getting recognized in public. Gephardt, a Democrat from Missouri, told Leno he was recently approached in a Texas airport by a man who thought he was his insurance agent and by women in St. Louis who thought he was either a weatherman on CNN or Dan Quayle. "Did you just quit the...

Two rival Democrats attacked the Bush administration on domestic security issues on Monday, with Representative Richard A. Gephardt saying the president had failed to pay for crucial security initiatives and Senator John Kerry comparing the curtailing of civil liberties under the antiterrorism law to the repression of the Taliban government. Mr. Kerry, whose stump speech includes a line promising an attorney general whose name is not John Ashcroft, delivered his first full-length broadside against Mr. Ashcroft and the law in a speech here. Acknowledging that he had voted for the law after Sept. 11, 2001, despite seeing it as...

According to pollster John Zogby, the numbers are in and after Dean’s dominance in the Iowa polling; Gephardt’s supporters are back at it and controls a slim lead over Dean, 22% to Dean’s 21% with an error margin of +/- 4.5%. Polling involved 500 Iowa voters who said they were likely to vote in the January 19, 2004 caucuses, and was conducted by Zogby International from its Call Center in Utica on October 20-21, 2003. More than one quarter (26%) of those polled remain unsure which candidate they'll support in the January caucus. Mr. Zogby adds: “Dean and Gephardt are...

Election time is quickly approaching. As we pass the threshold of December, we are reminded that the election is only 11 months away, and already, our noble candidates for office are hard at work. It is odd that the average president during his four-year term spends at least one full year campaigning for re-election. That’s 25 percent of his time in office; odd, yes, but when you look at the caliber of the candidates challenging George W. Bush for the presidency, one realizes that he doesn’t need to begin campaigning until at least October. The Democratic Party has produced nine...

Mon Dec 1, 6:05 PM ET Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites), D-Mo., casts a shadow on the flag as he is introduced to speak at a rally Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, at the police station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Gephardt, faulting President Bush (news - web sites) for ``gambling with our safety,'' on Monday called for spending $100 billion over five years on homeland security.(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean is doubling his ad spending in Iowa - to at least $400,000 over 10 days - in an attempt to pull away from rival Dick Gephardt in the key early voting state. Gephardt's campaign accused Dean of trying to "buy the Iowa caucuses" with the new 60-second biographical ad slated to start airing Monday throughout the state. Dean's power play puts pressure on Gephardt because it is unclear whether the Missouri congressman can match or exceed the former Vermont governor's buy. Gephardt is slated to spend less than half of that - about...

Nov 25, 8:38 PM EST Gephardt Grills Foes on Affirmative Action By SARAH FREEMAN Associated Press Writer HAMTRAMCK, Mich. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt on Tuesday questioned some of his opponents' commitment to affirmative action, and the other campaigns quickly countered the criticism. "When others in this campaign for president were questioning race-based affirmative action, I was leading the effort in Congress against Republican attempts to eliminate affirmative action," Gephardt told a primarily black audience at Corinthian Baptist Church in this Detroit enclave. Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut have "severely questioned the wisdom...

It speaks well of Dick Gephardt that he speaks so uncomfortably when compelled to speak -- as he understandably would prefer not to do -- about campaign finance law. He is honest, and hence he acknowledges the incompatibility of the campaign law he supported last year with political spending practices that may support him next year -- and with the Constitution. Howard Dean has opted out of the public funding system because he can raise more money on his own than public funding would provide, more than his principal rival, Gephardt, can raise, more than all his rivals -- except...

WHO-TV in Des Moines announced last night at 10:20 p.m. CST the results of their latest Iowa Poll: Dean is ahead of Gephardt by ten points (32% to 22%). Kerry is now third, three points behind Gephardt with 19%.

WASHINGTON -- It speaks well of Dick Gephardt that he speaks so uncomfortably when compelled to speak -- as he understandably would prefer not to do -- about campaign finance law. He is honest and hence he acknowledges the incompatibility of the campaign law he supported last year with political spending practices that may support him next year -- and with the Constitution. Howard Dean has opted out of the public funding system because he can raise more money on his own than public funding would provide, more than his principal rival, Gephardt, can raise, more than all his rivals...

During his press briefing with Capitol Hill reporters on Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle could barely contain the smile on his face as he discussed what he believed the Bush Administration knew about possible terrorist attacks prior to September 11. "I wouldn't know," Daschle said with a smile, adding quickly that he was never briefed on those issues by the White House, nor did he ever ask. Daschle should be smiling, and White House staffers know why. The initial leaks about the intelligence briefings President Bush received last August came from Democratic staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee,...

<p>WASHINGTON — An experimental computer program designed to analyze intelligence gave U.S. Special Forces a mission recommendation in 2000 that some say could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.</p> <p>The U.S. Military Special Forces Command at McDill Airforce Base came up with a chart of Al Qaeda's entire international network in the period prior to the November 2000 election, but the recommendation, which reached the desk of Clinton Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton was never implemented, according to eight-term Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.</p>

<p>May 30, 2002 -- A LOT of Democrats are suddenly sounding very sorry they attacked President Bush on what he knew about 9/11 before it happened - and the polls show why.</p> <p>Less than two weeks after Democrats from Sen. Hillary Clinton to House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt went after Bush, it seems clear the president has won this round.</p>

BEDFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE —Medicare was the hot topic of debate while front-runner Howard Dean was the target of verbal assaults as the top six Democratic presidential candidates took the stage Tuesday. At a forum hosted by AARP, almost all of the six candidates said they do not support a $400 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit bill in Congress. It marked the first time the six major candidates were together in New Hampshire with just over two months to go before the Jan. 27 primary. The day before the forum, AARP threw the support of its 35 million members behind the...

Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, started a tough advertising campaign against Representative Richard A. Gephardt in Iowa on Monday that highlights Mr. Gephardt's role in drafting a resolution on a war in Iraq. The commercial goes to the heart of what Mr. Gephardt's own advisers say is his biggest vulnerability in a state he won in his 1988 presidential bid: the role he played in delivering the resolution for the White House. The advertisement is the most direct challenge a Democrat has made in the presidential primary season and underscores the degree the Iowa race has become a...