How worried Is The Clinton Campaign?

The Politico is reporting that a new poll shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton in Iowa - within the error of margin of the poll, but leading. Could this be why her campaign may be attempting some dirty tricks?

Sen. Barack Obama is statistically tied with Sen. Hillary Clinton for the lead in the make-or-break state of Iowa, and considered trustworthy by twice as many people, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

"There’s going to be a caucus and not just a coronation," said Bill Burton, national press secretary for the Obama campaign.

The poll found 30 percent supporting Obama and 26 percent for Clinton – a statistical tie, since the poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, at  22 percent, was also tied with Clinton. After that, 11 percent backed New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

An analysis by Gary Langer of ABC News says those are little changed since July: Edwards is up four, Obama is up 3 and Clinton is unchanged.

Asked which candidate is “the most honest and trustworthy,” 31 percent of respondents said Obama; 21 percent said other, none or no opinion; 20 percent said Edwards; 15 percent said Clinton; and 13 percent said Richardson.

That last item may be the most damaging item in the poll. Obama is seen as more trustworthy than Clinton by more than a two to one margin? That is a very bad sign, indeed. After Clinton's last performance in a debate, many pundits said she had stopped her slide or turned things around. This poll indicates that the damage may already have been done and a good debate might not be enough to fix things.

In a fairly evenly split electorate, a candidate with high negatives cannot afford to lose any votes at all. To be seen as untrustworthy may be enough to seal the fate of the candidate. We'll see. But this does not bode well for Clinton. At all.

Clinton Channeling Nixon?

Fox News reports that Robert Novak is standing by his story, published Saturday. He claimed that the Clinton campaign was letting it be known that they had "scandalous" information about Barack Obama - but was holding it back. Obama reacted angrily to that and demanded that Clinton release it if such information existed. Clinton responded that it must be some Republican dirty trick. Novak says Clinton is acting in much the same way as Richard Nixon did, back in his day.

WASHINGTON —  Columnist Robert Novak stood by his story Monday that the Clinton campaign is spreading the word that it's holding back on dishing dirt on Barack Obama, and charged the Democratic frontrunner with playing "Nixon tricks."

Novak, a FOX News contributor, added that he did not believe there were any Republicans behind the effort — as some have alleged since his column was published Saturday — to force Democrats to fight against each other.

Novak's initial report said: "Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information" about Obama, "but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed."

On Monday, Novak told FOX News that claims that there is actual dirt on Obama might not pass the sniff test.

"This is very similar to the kind of trick that Richard Nixon used to pull, where he would say, 'I know some very bad information about the communists supporting George McGovern, but I can't put that out because it wouldn't be right, but I'm just too good of a guy,' " Novak said.

A message left seeking comment from a Clinton campaign spokesman was not immediately returned.

Is this something the Clinton campaign is capable of? Of that I have no doubt. Novak says he did not get any of this information from Republican sources. I frankly don't see him having any incentive to lie about that. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand has every reason to lie. They have also shown in recent weeks that they are perfectly capable of rather large missteps. Is this one? It very well could be. Novak points out:

"Senator Obama's only hope is to portray Sen. Clinton as a manipulative, almost Nixonian-type of candidate who would do anything to win and can't be trusted. Obviously, Senator Obama is in a different position — he must win in Iowa," Novak said, but, "Iowa caucus-goers might be put off by any kind of allegation of dirty tricks on the part of the Clinton campaign."

Maybe so, maybe not. They reelected serial liar Tom Harkin despite a fairly big campaign scandal about some dirty tricks in his last reelection campaign.

Tom Harkin's Listening Tour
There's scandal brewing in Iowa's Senate race, where the campaign manager for incumbent Democrat Tom Harkin "apologized Monday after acknowledging that his staff released the transcript of a closed-door Ganske for Senate campaign meeting, while Republicans called for a criminal probe to find out who taped the private proceedings," the Quad-City Times reports. Rep. Greg Ganske is Harkin's Republican challenger.

It's not clear who taped the meeting. "According to Iowa law, it is not illegal to tape communications if the person 'is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent' to the interception," the Times explains–so if someone legitimately in attendance did the taping, presumably no laws were broken. Republicans, however, are raising the possibility that Harkin's people planted a listening device. They also argue that the taping was illegal, even if one of the meeting's participants did it, because the state law doesn't allow taping for the purpose of committing an "injurious act."

Slightly different situation, though. In this case, Iowans are reportedly worried about electability. This might count as another strike against Clinton. She is such a polarizing figure that she can't afford to lose any potential votes. Let's see if Obama is able to use this effectively. It could get interesting.

Certainly Not For The Children

The city of Philadelphia has apparently decided that the issue of homosexuality is more important than the welfare of some 64,000 mostly inner-city boys. The city has notified the local Boy Scout council that it will lose the building that the council has occupied since 1928 unless they change a policy - put in place by the national council - against hiring gays. The local council is caught between a rock and no place at all.

Citing a local 1982 "fair practices" law, the city solicitor has given the Scouts until Dec. 3 to renounce its policy of excluding homosexuals or forfeit the grand, Beaux-Arts building it has rented from the city for $1 a year since 1928.

"While we respect the right of the Boy Scouts to prohibit participation in its activities by homosexuals," the solicitor, Romulo Diaz, said last week in an interview, "we will not subsidize that discrimination by passing on the costs to the people of Philadelphia."

The city has yet to complete an official assessment of the property. But it has tentatively placed the market value at $200,000 a year and has invited the Boy Scouts to remain in the nearly 100-year-old building as paying tenants.

The confrontation between the city and the nation's third-largest Scouts chapter has been building for four years, with each side blaming the other for backing out of previous agreements and for escalating tensions.

The local branch, which operates as the Cradle of Liberty Council, tried to skirt the bylaw in 2004 by issuing a four-line statement, which concluded: "Prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable within the ranks of Cradle of Liberty Council."

The statement satisfied the city until gay rights groups worried that "unlawful discrimination" gave the chapter cover to continue the anti-homosexual hiring practices of the Boy Scouts of America.

Funny how the mantra "it's for the children" gets kicked loose when that interferes with other agendas. The Boy Scouts are a private organization and have a Supreme Court decision affording them the right to bar homosexuals. The city is attempted to override that decision - on a local council - in defiance of Federal laws as well.

The Supreme Court ruled seven years ago that the national Boy Scouts, as a private organization, had the right to exclude homosexuals from its ranks. The Boy Scouts also prohibit atheists and agnostics from employment on the grounds that such beliefs are inconsistent with the values of the country's largest youth organization. Two years ago, Congress passed the Support Our Scouts Act to protect chapters from local government attempts to strip them of access to public facilities in response to the anti-homosexual policy.

Again, the local council serves mostly inner-city boys - about 64,000 of them. The city may be able to pat themselves on the back over their stand, but will they be able to look those kids in the eye? Philadelphia is experiencing a rise in violent street crime lately. Any organization that can help divert kids from crime should be encouraged - not driven out. This is an ill-advised fight that the city should not have picked.

US, Russia To Begin Disposal Of Plutonium

The United States and Russia have agreed to a plan that will see both countries begin disposing of 34 tons of plutonium - each - within about five years. The plutonium will be converted into Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) and burned in existing and future reactors. The agreement between the two countries is a substantial step forward for the plan.

The two countries, in a joint statement, outlined a plan where Russia agrees to modify its fast-neutron reactors so that they can burn the plutonium, yet ensure that additional plutonium will not be produced.

In turn, the United States, which also will dispose of 34 tons of excess plutonium from its weapons program, will continue to help Russia pay for construction of a plant in Russia to turn the plutonium into a mixed oxide fuel for the reactors and in research of a more advanced reactor that could speed up the disposal process.

The two countries tentatively agreed to the plutonium disposal program seven years ago when it was hailed as a breakthrough in safeguarding some of Russia's nuclear material. But progress stalled because of a variety of disagreements, most recently over how Russia would destroy the plutonium.

Russia's ambivalence in turn caused Congress to balk at approving money for the U.S. portion of the plutonium disposal effort because of what lawmakers called the apparent inability to get Russia to agree on a disposal plan.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Sergey Kiriyenko, director of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, Rosatom, in a joint statement outlined a "mutual understanding" as to how Russia's plutonium would be disposed of and reiterated both countries' commitment to the program.

The agreement "reflects measurable progress towards disposing of a significant amount of weapons grade plutonium in Russia," said Bodman in a separate statement released by his office.

The amount of plutonium involved represents the raw material for around 8,000 bombs. The disposal process will take more than two decades unless more reactors are built or modified to use the MOX fuel.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

The original stars of the movie Ghostbusters will reunite to lend their faces and voices to a new video game. In fact, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, who wrote the original screenplay, will also write the script for the game.

Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson have all agreed to take part, says trade paper Variety.

Aykroyd and Ramis, who wrote the original films, will also pen the story for the game - which will be set in New York City during a new ghoul invasion.

The game is due out late next year. The original movie has been a big hit around here for a long time. I don't think the kids have watched it recently, though.

Political Persecution In Oklahoma

The Opinion Journal details a case in Oklahoma that certainly looks like a politically-motivated persecution. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, a Democrat, is charging three people who organized a drive to get a taxpayer's bill of rights into the ballot. Due to an arcane - and frankly unfair - rule, the signature drive was invalidated. Now the AG is going after the organizers in what looks very much like an intimidation campaign and an attempt to curry favor with Democratic activists and unions.

In 2005 Mr. Carpenter, a Tulsan, launched a signature campaign to get a state-wide vote on a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Tabor, as it is known, would cap the rate at which state government spending could increase. Mr. Jacob and Ms. Johnson were later brought on board to assist the effort. Not surprisingly, politicians and interest groups that favor big government have developed an intense dislike for Tabor spending limits, even though, like lawmaker term limits, they tend to be popular with voters.

This certainly proved to be the case in Oklahoma. Despite strong opposition from organized labor especially, Tabor petition advocates managed to gather some 300,000 signatures from registered voters, far more than the 219,000 needed to get the measure on the state ballot. Following a court challenge, however, the signatures were invalidated, not because the signers weren't legitimate but because the Oklahoma Supreme Court determined that nonresidents of the state had collected signatures.

Ironically, it is perfectly legal for opponents of a petition to solicit money and manpower from out-of-state. And sure enough, public sector unions opposed to the Tabor initiative recruited people from outfits like the Oregon-based Voter Education Project, an offshoot of the AFL-CIO that specializes in countering signature drives. They also set up Web sites that advertised the location of signature-gathers and urged their members to harass them.

After the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled, Attorney General Edmondson could have let the matter die. Instead, he decided that the best use of scarce prosecutorial resources was to indict the petition campaigners. There's reason to believe his decision has less to do with enforcing the law and more to do with warning activists to think twice before challenging political elites.

It is more than ironic that organizers can only use residents but that opponents can bring in all the outside help they want. It is more than a little suspect that this prosecution just happens to be one that sends a signal of political intimidation while also apparently also gaining Edmondson favor with the people he needs to help him secure a nomination to higher office. It doesn't matter which party you belong to, this behavior is wrong. The courts should not become political weapons for any party.

Drive Through Turkeys

Well, the Taco Bell chain either has a new mascot or someone was playing a prank. Customers at a Bakersfield, California Taco Bell were surprised to find five of the large, white refugees from a roaster wandering about. (Video at the link.)

About this time of year turkey stories start popping up. It just goes with the season. Or seasonings, as the case may be.

Another Khmer Rouge Official Arrested

Khieu Samphan, the former president of the Khmer Rouge has finally been arrested in Cambodia. His arrest may be the last one made by the tribunal that is finally trying to make these people pay for their crimes against humanity.

The former president of the Khmer Rouge regime has been taken from his hospital bed by armed men and arrested to face charges of crimes against humanity.

Khieu Samphan, 76, suffered a stroke last week according to some reports, but witnesses say he was able to walk to the waiting vehicles before being driven away.

He is the fifth, and possibly final, figure from the ultra-Maoist regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s to be arrested……

…..Experts say that as titular head of state Khieu Samphan was not much involved in the daily running of the regime and the case against him is weaker than for the other defendants. It rests on the allegation that he was aware of the genocide and did nothing to stop it.

Samphan already has an attorney. The same guy who defended Klaus Barbie, Carlos the Jackal and Slobodan Milosovic.

The Minefield

The Wall Street Journal reports that there is growing anxiety among Democrats over immigration issues (like the one in the previous post. Many of the politicians feel that they are in real danger of alienating traditional core constituencies over the party's stand on immigration. The issue is starting to become a very dangerous one for Democrats.

Democrats "are pretty jumpy on the issue," says Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who pushed for immigration overhaul in the House. "They would prefer to allow the Republicans to shepherd the Hispanic votes into the Democratic column without having to scare away a single other voter themselves," he says.

"That's not likely to happen. "This election could turn on this issue if we don't handle it intelligently," says Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate. After a recent Iowa City foreign-policy speech, four of the 30 questions passed up to him from the audience were about immigration.

In a Nov. 5 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 11% of adults — and 4% of Democratic voters — said illegal immigration is their top priority. But members of that minority, organized on the Internet, have created political turmoil by flooding lawmakers' offices with faxes and regularly raising the issue on the campaign trail.

Similarly, a November University of Iowa poll shows just 2.4% of Iowa Democrats consider immigration as the issue "most important" to determining their vote, but 85% said a candidate's position on immigration is important or very important to them.

The report indicates that blue collar, African-American and middle class voters are all in jeopardy for the Democrats if they turn too hard in the direction of appearing to champion immigrant's rights over the needs of those voters. (Which they essentially just did as I pointed out in the previous post.) This is a minefield for the Democrats. If the Republicans get this issue right, addressing concerns over border security and pointing out that stemming a flood of illegal immigrants is in the best interests of immigrants who are here legally as well as other groups who are feeling downward wage pressure, this could swing the election in a new direction.

Failure to address immigration issues hurt the Republicans badly in 2006. It could prove even more devastating to the Democrats.

A Problem For Democrats

The Democratic party may be already starting to hurt itself on immigration issues by this latest example that John Fund writes about today. Both the House and the Senate passed legislation that would shield the Salvation Army specifically and other employers generically from lawsuits over having English language requirements for employees. Nancy Pelosi has agreed to kill that bill after the Hispanic Caucus threatened to block a promised bill that would shield 23 million taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month. "I cannot imagine that the framers of the 1964 Civil Rights Act intended to say that it's discrimination for a shoe shop owner to say to his or her employee, 'I want you to be able to speak America's common language on the job,' " he told the Senate last Thursday.

But that's exactly what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to do. In March the EEOC sued the Salvation Army because its thrift store in Framingham, Mass., required its employees to speak English on the job. The requirement was clearly posted and employees were given a year to learn the language. The EEOC claimed the store had fired two Hispanic employees for continuing to speak Spanish on the job. It said that the firings violated the law because the English-only policy was not "relevant" to job performance or safety.

"If it is not relevant, it is discriminatory, it is gratuitous, it is a subterfuge to discriminate against people based on national origin," says Rep. Charles Gonzalez of Texas, one of several Hispanic Democrats in the House who threatened to block Ms. Pelosi's attempts to curtail the Alternative Minimum Tax unless she killed the Alexander amendment.

The confrontation on the night of Nov. 8 was ugly. Members of the Hispanic Caucus initially voted against the rule allowing debate on a tax bill that included the AMT "patch," which for a year would protect some 23 million Americans from being kicked into a higher income tax bracket.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a moderate from Maryland, was beside himself. Congressional Quarterly reports that he jabbed his finger on the House floor at Joe Baca, the California Democrat who chairs the Hispanic Caucus, and yelled, "How dare you destroy this party? This will be the worst loss in 10 years."

In order to head off the Hispanic Caucus threat, Pelosi and Hoyer had to promise to kill the amendment. The insistence on requiring employers to hire people who cannot speak English - and refuse to learn it - is likely to bite the Democrats. Forcing the hiring of non-English speakers puts an insane burden on the employer and is very likely to increase resentment in an electorate that is already very unhappy with Washington's inability to deal with immigration issues - especially illegal immigration issues.

I've mentioned before that my mother's parents were immigrants from Norway. They refused to allow my mother and my uncle to speak Norwegian at home and insisted on speaking English. Partly it was for the good of the children, but it was also for the good of my grandparents, who greatly strengthened their own English language skills as a result. There is nothing wrong with asking people who come here to learn to function here. The actions of the Hispanic Caucus are against the best interests of the people they claim to represent.