*IF HE CAN MAKE IT THERE . . . : A Quinnipiac poll shows President Bush topping every potential Democratic candidate in liberal New York State. Bush would defeat even Hillary Clinton there 47% to 44%. He would beat both Lieberman and Kerry, 50% to 38%; and Gephardt, 49% to 38%.
*NO CHANCE? Beyond the new Bush bastion of New York, Gallup found that nationwide the public is evenly divided on the question of whether Bush already has a lock on reelection. Forty six percent said the President will "definitely" win reelection and 46% said the Democratic candidate has at least a chance of winning.
*NEW TUNE: When Bill Clinton was in office, Democrats prevented aggressive investigation of the money funneled by China into Clinton’s reelection campaign. Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) came closest to conceding the truth when he issued a personal supplement to a committee report conceding he had seen "considerable evidence of contributions to the 1996 presidential campaigns, particularly the Democratic campaign, from people or businesses with close links to the Chinese government or businesses controlled by the Chinese government."
Still, Lieberman-who later became Al "Buddhist Temple" Gore’s running mate-did not force Democrats to honestly pursue the issue. Now, however, he has written Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft calling for an investigation of whether accused Chinese spy Katrina Leung directed Chinese money to Republicans. "The prospect of a foreign government illegally influencing our political campaigns is a very troubling one, and any evidence that that might have occurred must be vigilantly investigated and pursued," wrote Lieberman.
*NEW NUMBERS: Lieberman’s Democratic presidential primary campaign got a bump last week from the Gallup Poll, which placed him over the previous frontrunner, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) A survey of 441 Democratic voters conducted April 22-23 returned these results: Lieberman, 23%; Kerry, 17%; Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.), 15%; Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), 9%; former Gov. Howard Dean (Vt.), 6%. The poll was taken before Gephardt announced his plan to repeal the 2001 tax cut and enact a nationalized health care plan-proposals designed to bolster his Democratic primary support among hard-left voters.
*‘PIE IN SKY’: Gephardt’s nationalized health care plan is so expensive-he admits it will cost $215 billion in the first year not counting $50 billion for prescription drugs-and so likely to destroy small businesses that even the most liberal Democrats are running from it. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D.), a left-wing doctor who has been running for President with health care as one of his top issues, called it "another pie-in-the-sky radical revamping of our health care system that has no chance of ever being passed." Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.) said "we tried it before." He was referring, of course, to the socialized medicine plan hatched by Hillary Clinton that helped sink the Democrats in 1994.
*HATED HARRY TRUMAN: Gephardt may have fibbed about his dad’s relationship with the Teamsters. In January, Gephardt said of his father: "He was a Teamster. He told me every time . . . we were at the dinner table that we had food on the table and clothes on our back because he was represented by a union that could bargain and get him fair wages for his work."
But the Hill newspaper last week pointed to an Oct. 17, 1999, article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in which Don Gephardt, Dick’s brother, told a reporter his father, Lou, "was in the Teamsters at Pevely, but that’s because he had to be" to get the job. "I don’t recall him talking much about the union, about how great it was. He prided himself on being a Republican. He hated [Harry] Truman. . . . He had the feeling that you had to make it on your own, that any kind of welfare program would just raise his taxes." The four-year-old article also noted that the deceased elder Gephardt "objected vociferously to Roosevelt-style government programs" like the health care plan proposed last week by his son.
*MAKING HISTORY: Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) has announced that his party will filibuster the nomination of Priscilla Owen, the Texas Supreme Court Justice nominated by President Bush to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Owen becomes the second appeals court nominee in history to be filibustered. The first was Miguel Estrada, the Bush nominee awaiting confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
*SUTTON SECURED: Not all nomination news was bad last week. Conservative Jeffrey Sutton was confirmed, 52-41, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. His nomination had been stalled for two full years.
