Politics Blog

“Roughly 40,000 poor people have been dropped from the Oregon Health Plan this year because of their failure to make monthly premium payments, some as low as $6 a month,” the Associated Press reports from Eugene.

“Advocates for the poor” are outraged. “It’s an enormous barrier,” said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Committee. “Let alone the $6, there is the whole issue of writing a check or getting a money order, putting it in an envelope with a stamp and putting it in the mail to this place in Portland that must receive it by the due date.”

(Link via James Taranto’s priceless Best of the Web)

— PoliPundit

A new poll shows Republican candidate Haley Barbour leading Mississippi’s incumbent Democrat Governor Ronnie Musgrove by 4 points. That’s about the same as the last poll, which showed this race as close, with a slight GOP partisan edge.

President Bush will campaign with Barbour in Mississippi on Saturday.

He’ll also campaign with Ernie Fletcher, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, in Kentucky. Fletcher has been making hay with the 7.2 percent GDP number, while his Democrat opponent, Ben Chandler, continues to run against the “Bush-Fletcher economy.” This could end up being very embarassing for Democrats, since they could lose a governorship they’ve held for 32 years.

— PoliPundit

It’s been a while since I’ve noted a John Kerry hypocrisy (Weasel Clark keeps me pretty busy with his jaw-droppingly naked flip-flopping.) But I can’t resist pointing out the latest Kerryopus.

From Kerry’s closing statement at Sunday’s nine dwarfs debate:

There’s a front-page story in today’s Washington Post that says that Democrats are going to try to run away from the issue of gun safety.

I don’t think that we can get elected nationally if we are not prepared to stand up against powerful special interests and make it clear that, whether it’s the NRA or any other special interest, we’re prepared to stand for our principles.

All across this country, we have too many people who die each year from guns. So let me make it plain: I am for the assault weapons ban. I’m for the Brady Bill. I’m for making sure we stand up for gun safety in this country. We cannot be a party that retreats in an effort to try to court votes and not save lives.

From the New York Post today:

DEMOCRATIC presidential wannabe John Kerry will come armed with a shotgun when he goes hunting for votes tomorrow in the little Iowa farm town of Colo.

Kerry plans a bird hunt, but the pheasants probably don’t have to worry much - it’s a made-for-media special and reporters are bound to give plenty of advance warning with the sound of tromping feet.

— PoliPundit

There are dozens of GDP-helps-Bush stories today. But I take particular delight from the one in the Old York Times:

Businesses were broadly unprepared for the recovery. The government guesses that inventories fell during the quarter, but there is a good chance that it is underestimating the decline. If so, the third-quarter growth rate will be revised down, but the needed inventory restocking will lift fourth-quarter growth.

Then what? Economic bears point to new layoff announcements at Sony and Electronic Data Systems and predict consumer spending will slow without new tax rebates, leaving retailers with a disappointing Christmas.

The alternative forecast is for a self-sustaining recovery that is already under way. “You’ve got supercharged monetary stimulus and a tax cut,” said Robert J. Barbera, the chief economist of ITG/Hoenig. “Look at history. When you get a lot of stimulus and a 7 percent quarter, it does not go away quickly.”

If he’s right, there will be reason for celebration in the White House. It could even turn out that the difference between the two Presidents Bush was a matter of timing as much as anything else.

The 1990-91 recession ended in February 1991. Almost two years later, in January 1993, came the report of the first quarter to show growth above 5 percent. The 2001 recession ended in November 2001, and once again a report of a good quarter arrived nearly two years later.

Unfortunately for George H. W. Bush, he had lost his race for re-election before the economic news turned positive. Now, strong growth has appeared a year before the 2004 election. George W. Bush had good reason to call yesterday’s growth report “encouraging.”

There’s another crucial difference between Bush 1 and Bush 2: Bush 1 raised taxes; Bush 2 cut them. The resulting GDP growth was no coincidence.

– PoliPundit

A new SurveyUSA poll in Kentucky shows Republican gubernatorial candidate Ernie Fletcher hanging on to a 51-44 lead over Democrat Ben Chandler. So much for Chandler’s much-touted stategy of running against the “Bush-Fletcher economy.”

— PoliPundit

The Note on President Bush’s upcoming Saturday visits to Mississippi and Kentucky:

With strong Republican candidates poised to snatch Democrat gubernatorial seats away, tomorrow, GOP strategists kick off their final push by wheeling out their biggest artillery piece.

President Bush’s visits to Kentucky and Mississippi are sure to dominate all local media in the final days, making sure that Republican partisans know that (a) there is an election; and (b) that it is important to their commander in chief (he of the gauzy growth) that they vote for these “good men” with “R’s” after their names.

And the visits will have some appeal to independents, too, don’t you know. Maybe even some Democrats

Bob Novak has a quick look at the Mississippi gubernatorial race, which has grown increasingly nasty and personal.

As I’ve noted before, there are three governorships up this year - Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. Since they’ve lost California, Democrats need to win all three remaining races in order to retain their share of the nation’s governorships. That seems unlikely, given that all three races are very tight and Republicans have a slight partisan edge in all three.

The loss of Kentucky would be particularly hurtful for Democrats, since they’ve touted the race as a referendum on the “Bush-Fletcher economy.” President Bush will be stopping by in Kentucky to help Ernie Fletcher, the GOP candidate, who, if he wins, will be the first Republican governor of Kentucky in 32 years.

And then there’s the very interesting Louisiana race, which is just as scary for Democrats because 32-year-old Indian-American conservative Republican Bobby Jindal is winning endorsements from notable black leaders. If Jindal makes inroads into the black vote, he will have figured out a way to eliminate the Democratic advantage in the only state never to have elected a Republican US senator.

— PoliPundit

Wherever George W. Bush campaigns for a candidate, he brings victory.

Wherever Bill Clinton campaigns, he seems to bring the stench of failure along with him. Deborah Orin notes this remarkable string of Clinton failures:

Clinton helped launch [Weasel] Clark in a wave of media buzz by talking up the retired general as one of the Democrats’ top two stars - along with wife Hillary - and prodding allies like Mickey Kantor to back him.

But political novice Clark is sinking in most polls, down to also-ran status in Iowa and New Hampshire, and had a few deer-in-the-headlights moments at last Sunday’s debate.

Officially, Clinton now insists he wasn’t promoting the retired general, but other Democratics don’t buy it. “Yeah, and he never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” sniffed a rival strategist.

What now looks like Clinton’s Clark miscalculation comes on top of other missteps by the former president - like claiming the way to stop Arnold Schwarzenegger in California was for Gov. Gray Davis to copy his own strategy during the impeachment crisis.

Funny how Clinton disappeared at the end of that race.

Or take Clinton’s all-out 2002 push to beat President Bush’s brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, last fall. Jeb won by landslide. And many other Democratic candidates last fall asked Clinton to puh-leeze stay out of their states.

And guess whose big mug was grinning from ear to ear at Paul Wellstone’s “memorial service.”

— PoliPundit

PoliticsUS.com has posted a copy of RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie’s recent memo on GOP strategy.

— PoliPundit

George Stephanopoulos is predicting a Bush victory in 2004:

“It looks like we are coming out of the recession,” Stephanopoulos said. “Wages are starting to go up. Productivity is starting to go up. Generally if you look at polls across the country people respect President Bush even when people don’t agree with his policies. He has an amazingly strong hold on the Republican party. He’s not going to have a primary opponent. I think when you add all that up it puts President Bush in a very strong position going into the next election.”

Stephanopoulos said he expects the campaign will occur during a good economy and that national security will be the biggest campaign issue, something Democrats classically have had a hard time with. He was especially discouraged by front-runner Howard Dean’s campaign based on antiwar outrage, believing Americans will prefer Republican optimism.

“I was meeting with Bush officials today,” Stephanopoulos said, “and they were salivating to run against Howard Dean so they can accuse him of raising taxes.”

Despite his doubts about Dean, Stephanopoulos did not express confidence in any other primary candidates.

He said Gen. Wesley Clark has lost support because he lacks a defined platform, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was hurt by waffling on the war issue; Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is seen as too old; and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., is too young. He added that Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., originally polled high but hasn’t been able to excite Democrats or raise money.

This closely matches what I’ve been saying.

— PoliPundit