Shifts in States May Give Bush Electoral Edge By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, NYTimes

Beyond issues like Iraq and the economy is one political reality that both the White House and Democrats say is already shaping next year’s presidential race: If President Bush carries the same states in 2004 that he won in 2000, he will win seven more electoral votes.

That change, a result of a population shift to Republican-friendly states in the South and West in the last several years, means the Republicans have a slight margin of error in 2004 while the Democrats will have to scramble just to pull even. …

”Before a vote is cast, we’ve increased our margin,” Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Mr. Bush’s campaign, said. ”In a race that’s very close, those small readjustments in the electoral map will have significance.”

Because of those shifts, both sides predict that 15 states may be up for grabs: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine and Florida. …

“No matter how well the economy is doing, no matter how well we’re doing in Iraq, and even if we’re running the best campaign in the world, this election will be decided within a margin of 4 or 5 percent,” Mr. Dowd said.

Op-Ed Columnist: Hack the Vote By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes

Inviting Bush supporters to a fund-raiser, the host wrote, ”I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” No surprise there. But Walden O’Dell — who says that he wasn’t talking about his business operations — happens to be the chief executive of Diebold Inc., whose touch-screen voting machines are in increasingly widespread use across the United States.

For example, Georgia — where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections — relies exclusively on Diebold machines. …

[Y]ou don’t have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results. Why expose them to temptation?

[L]et’s be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake.

See also Can we trust electronic voting machines?

G.O.P. Option at Convention: Luxury Liner By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, NYTimes

It is being billed as the perfect place for celebrations during the Republican National Convention next summer, with shows, fine works of art, health clubs, bars, cafes, amazing views, luxury staterooms and restaurants serving cuisine from around the world. And it is just a short walk to Midtown.

But before its visitors can cross a New York City street, they will have to pass over a gangplank. The Norwegian Dawn, a 2,240-passenger luxury cruise liner, has 15 decks, 14 bars and lounges and babbling brooks. But even docked at a pier on the Hudson River, it is not New York City. And, to many critics, that is the point.

The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, would like the ship to serve as a floating entertainment center for Republican members of Congress, and their guests, when the convention comes to New York City next Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.

”Our floating hotel will provide members an opportunity to stay in one place, in a secure fashion,” said a spokesman for Mr. DeLay….

Mr. DeLay’s idea has infuriated a cross section of New Yorkers, much to the delight of Democrats and the embarrassment of some Republicans. …

Republican strategists say being docked on the Hudson River would send out the message that they are a bunch of elitists who will not mingle with city residents — and just might be ducking New York’s laws, including the one that prohibits smoking in public places….

Still, few Republicans are willing to publicly challenge Mr. DeLay, whose nickname in Congress is the Hammer. …

One Republican strategist said he imagined that New York tabloids would run headlines like “Ship of Fools” or “Titanic.” …

Mr. DeLay has indicated that he has no plan to back off.

Mr. DeLay has won power — and loyalty — from Republican members of Congress by making sure they were treated luxuriously. He saw to it that House ethics rules were changed so that members could accept free trips and lodging to attend charity events.

This is the perfect metaphor for the Radical Right: a castle and moat to keep out the impoverished rabble while the rich indulge themselves endlessly. Didn’t the Right used to call the Left “elitists”? Probably still do — the hypocrits! mjh

See also: Tom Delay is corrupt

[The brochure] invites potential donors to give as much as $500,000 to spend time with Tom DeLay during the Republican convention in New York City next summer….

See also: Tom Delay: ‘I am the federal government.’

[Speaker of the House Tom] DeLay recently revealed how he felt about rules of general applicability. When he tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property, the manager told him it violated federal law. His response, according to The Washington Post, was, “I am the federal government.”

Editorial Observer: Turning Northeast Wyoming Upside Down in the Hunt for Coal-Bed Methane By VERLYN KLINKENBORG, NYTimes

The Powder River Basin is the most active region of coal-bed methane drilling in the nation, a place where in the next few years more than 50,000 wells will have been drilled to obtain, at most, a year’s supply of natural gas. …

In Wyoming, and in much of the country, mineral extraction is still considered the highest and best use of the land. … Extracting coal-bed methane means draining groundwater that is often charged with toxic salts. …

I’ve come to think of the coal-bed methane industry as a metaphor for something deeper that’s going on in our country. The methane play, as the industry likes to call it, is being sold on the grounds of energy security, as a way of ensuring that the American lifestyle can continue uninterrupted and undiminished. But what that means is turning everything upside down. All that drilling and scarring, all that animosity and moral erosion lead to one year’s supply of natural gas and the waste of billions of gallons of water.

Americans could essentially create that amount of energy through conservation, which is the true source of energy security. But conservation turns no profits, not to the owners of subterranean mineral rights or the gas companies or the pipelines or the lobbyists who drive this kind of extraction through the highest levels of government. No. The methane play is about short-term profits, not long-term security. A deal gets done, and soon you no longer recognize the country you live in.

Cooking Up a Storm An Interview with Former CIA Official Ray McGovern, By Steven Robert Allen,
alibi . november 27 – december 3, 2003

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern–co-founder of the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which seeks to heighten public awareness about the administration’s more blatant intelligence abuses–has been as vocal as anyone.

Right-wing Radicals

McGovern currently believes that the country is in the hands of right-wing radicals whose judgment has become clouded by their extremist geopolitical ideologies. According to McGovern, this has created a very dangerous situation for our nation.

”These guys were known in the ’80s, when I briefed the President’s father every morning, as The Crazies.’ If you referred to ‘The Crazies,’ everyone knew who you meant. So for us to watch these guys come back into power just a couple years ago is frightening. And this time, they’re not down in the bowels of the Pentagon, they’re running the country! Our worst fears were well-founded.” …

”I’ve been in this town watching things really, really closely for decades and never have I seen our country at such a perilous stage. And never have I been so frustrated by the American people’s lack of knowledge that this is the case, that their current government is a very dangerous one.”

by Walter Cronkite

There is an … issue that does go directly to Bush’s sincerity. That is his acknowledgement in the London speech of ”good-faith disagreements” over the war. How does that harmonize with the Republicans’ (and Bush’s) egregious use of such disagreements to bludgeon the Democrats prior to the 2002 midterm elections — a political mugging we can expect to see more of next year?

CNN.com – Reservist questions quick return to combat, faces charges – Nov. 28, 2003

Capt. Steve McAlpin, a 25-year Army reservist, spent most of last year deployed in Afghanistan and just returned home in January. Now his unit is about to ship out again, and he’s facing insubordination charges for criticizing the quick turnaround.

McAlpin questioned the legality of a waiver that his battalion was asked to sign that would put his unit back in a combat zone after just 11 months at home. Under federal law, he pointed out, troops are allowed a 12-month ”stabilization period.” …

“We signed up to fight our nation’s enemies and we are fully prepared to do that. But if they’re going to usurp the laws of this country at the expense of our most precious asset, our soldiers, then I will not stand for that, not for a minute.”

McAlpin served in Bosnia in 1996. Last year, [he was] stationed … in Afghanistan….

“I’m looking at something I love more than just about anything _ my service to the Army and my fellow soldiers — and they’re trying to stab me in the back,” McAlpin said.