Why women are edging toward Bush By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A growing group of ‘security moms’ puts national safety at the top of their list, weakening a traditionally Democratic base. …

[D]ata show the traditional breakdown between men and women. The latest American Research Group poll shows Bush beating Kerry 51 percent to 42 percent among men, while Kerry beats Bush 50 percent to 42 percent among women.

But no Democrats are resting easy, as long as some polls show Kerry with trouble retaining women’s votes. They know that in a race that remains close, they must turn out their base voters – and that there’s little margin for error. According to Lake, 66 percent of undecideds are women.

CAPTURE THE FLAG By Alexander Zaitchik
Can the GOP protect the national-security lie until November?

[T]he administration’s response to 9/11 has been “a catastrophe.”

If you think “catastrophe” is an overstatement, ask yourself a few questions: If Osama bin Laden were guiding the U.S. defense and homeland security budgets, how would he spend the money? Would he triple funds for the Nunn-Lugar Initiative, which seeks to put a firm clamp on loose nuclear materials in the ex-U.S.S.R., or would he pour billions into Cold War crap shoots like missile defense and spaced-based lasers? Would bin Laden have pumped steroids into our anemic human intelligence capability, or would he have pulled Arabic-speaking case officers out of Afghanistan in 2002, then overstretched the U.S. military by launching and escalating a hopeless counterinsurgency war and p.r. shitstorm in oil-rich Iraq? Would he have supported a vigorous investigation into how 9/11 happened and how it could have been stopped, or would he have stonewalled the project, then cut its funding at first chance?

If voters were forced to smell the Bush record up close, we’d be looking down the barrel of a 1964-style Kerry trounce in November, followed by several high-level prosecutions and a steep, generational decline in the fortunes of the Republican Party.

The latest in an uninterrupted stream of post-9/11 examples of backward GOP priorities came last week, when the Republican Senate blocked attempts to increase funding for more than a dozen programs in the 2005 Homeland Security spending bill.

Richard Perle, a top Iraq advisor in 2002 and 2003 – when he headed the Defense Advisory Board (Secretary Rumsfeld’s top advisory committee) – made this prediction one year ago today:

The problems in Iraq are ahead of us, but we’re doing better than people think. And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation. Thanks.

[Applause.]

AEI – Events

Rooftop Revolt – By the People

The Daily Howler

What’s the history here? Barnes’ first public statement about Bush-and-the-Guard occurred in 1999 — back in a time when the national press was avoiding this topic for all it was worth. Barnes was forced to testify in a court case about his role in this matter. George Lardner reported the story for the Washington Post:

LARDNER (9/28/99): Former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Ben Barnes said under oath today that he recommended George W. Bush for a pilot’s slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War at the behest of a Houston businessman close to the Bush family.

Testifying in a deposition for a lawsuit that has stirred up allegations of preferential treatment for Bush, now the governor of Texas seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Barnes said he relayed that information to a top Bush campaign official, Don Evans, more than a year ago.
—–
To the Editor of the New York Times:

Re “Portrait of George Bush in ’72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time” (front page, Sept. 20):

Surely the simplest way to determine whether President Bush fulfilled his duties as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard is to ask him to produce his personal pilot’s log book.

As a former Navy fighter pilot, I am aware that all military pilots are required to keep a log book that is a detailed record of the pilot’s activities, both in the air and on the ground, while in uniform. Not only is each flight recorded by date, aircraft, mission and flight time, but also all ground drills, flight physicals, qualifications and training are entered as well.

Production of Mr. Bush’s log book would reveal how much flight time he had in the F-102 and whether he fulfilled his duties. In the interest of the American public, he should now provide full details of his Guard service.

Richard Moody
Princeton Junction, N.J.
Sept. 20, 2004

USATODAY.com – Plan isn’t a takeover, despite Bush claimsBy William M. Welch, USA TODAY

President Bush’s charge: Taking aim at one of the Democrats’ favorite issues, Bush charges that John Kerry’s plan to improve health care coverage amounts to a federal takeover of the nation’s health care system.

“A massive, complicated blueprint to have our government take over the decision-making in health care” was the way Bush described Kerry’s plan this week. It would, Bush said, “have bureaucrats become the decision-makers.”

Democrats’ response: Kerry structured his plan to extend health-insurance coverage to more Americans in a way intended to avoid just the charge Bush levels. He would make it easier for middle-income Americans to purchase private- insurance coverage and expand existing government programs providing coverage for children and the poor. …

Another view: Bush’s characterization of Kerry’s plan is a misrepresentation, said Jeffrey Lemieux, executive director of Centrists.org, a small bipartisan think tank that seeks moderate solutions to policy issues.

Kerry’s plan, he said, seeks to avoid the pitfalls of President Clinton’s failed 1994 health care plan, which was based on requirements that employers offer health insurance. Instead, Kerry would provide tax incentives for employers to offer health coverage to workers.

“They seem to have learned the lessons of the Clinton plan and not over-regulate,” Lemieux said. “It’s all voluntary.

“I really don’t see a government takeover here,” he said. “It’s still not a national health plan.”

MSNBC – Young voters register heavily in key states
18- to 24-year-olds are nation’s newest swing voters
The Associated Press

Voter registration drives aimed at young people are turning 18-to 24-year-olds into an important variable in the presidential election, especially in decisive battleground states such as Michigan — where nearly 100,000 young people have registered in recent months — and Wisconsin, where the numbers are even higher.

They are the nation’s newest swing voters, with polls showing their support for the major candidates has vacillated in recent months. A Harvard University poll found that, in a five-month period, 19 percent of young potential voters changed their minds about whom they’d support.

“It’s a big population of fluid voters, and they’re largely unknown,” says Ivan Frishberg, outreach and communications coordinator for the nonprofit New Voters Project, which has registered tens of thousands of young people across the country. …

Officials in several other battleground states — New Mexico, Ohio and Florida among them — see clear signs that more young people are interested in this election. And some election experts believe that polls of “likely voters” often miss young people because the population is so mobile. …

At that rate, he says Rock the Vote’s registration numbers may surpass those from 1992 — a year when young voter turnout topped 50 percent for the first and only time since 1972.

One political scientist says he’s particularly interested to see what happens this time in Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, where voters can register on Election Day. Data has shown that young people are particularly likely to take advantage of same-day registration.

Home – New Voters Project

The New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate

President Bush and Senator Kerry have agreed – in writing – to address your 12 greatest concerns through The New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate. We’re proud to give under-35 year olds their first-ever opportunity to choose the questions answered by the top presidential candidates.

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Greens For Impact

Greens for Impact is an organization of principled, pragmatic Green Party members and progressive populists dedicated to the goal of defeating George W. Bush in his bid for a second term as president, while simultaneously furthering the growth of the Green Party as an independent alternative to the corporate-dominated parties.