MCAULIFFE'S MISTAKE? Veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote November 5 that Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe's success in shifting Democratic primaries to earlier in the year could backfire. "Along with six other Washington Post reporters, I spent the last part of October interviewing voters in different sections of the country. All of us found the same thing. Outside of Iowa and New Hampshire, the field of nine Democrats is basically a blur of undefined faces and voices to those who will elect the next President. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark were the two names most often mentioned to us." The lack of a longer and later primary season, said Broder, means that candidates will have less ability to get their name recognition up among the voting population. "[W]hoever is chosen by March to carry the banner will be someone largely unknown to voters today," he wrote. "That is a heavy burden to carry into a race against an incumbent President."
THE LEADERS: A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted October 26 to 29 found four Democratic candidates breaking into double digits in a national poll of Democrats. "No Democrat holds a clear lead in the race for the presidential nomination," the Post reported November 2. "Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean leads the field with 16% of the vote, followed by Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (13%), Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (13%) and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark (12%). No other candidate gets more than 10% of the vote." Of course, there is no national primary, and Dean is still polling strongest in the first two important state contests, Iowa and New Hampshire.
LIEBERMAN ON INFANTICIDE: Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.), considered the candidate of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, issued an overheated denunciation of a piece of minimalist pro-life legislation-the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban-signed by President Bush on November 5. "Today, the President signs into law a bill that lets the political agenda of right-wing Republicans override the rights and health of American women," said Lieberman. "This bill broadly threatens the right to choose. It utterly disregards the safety and well-being of the mother. And the Supreme Court has already ruled a similar law unconstitutional. When I am President, I will do all I can to undo this bill-and make abortion safe, legal, and rare."
DEAN & THE GROTESQUE: Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean-who has dodged reporters' questions about whether he ever performed abortions in his medical practice-has no qualms about the partial-birth abortion procedure that a large majority of Americans finds to be so despicable. Dean released a statement November 4 urging Bush not to sign the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. "This law will chill the practice of medicine and endanger the health of countless women," said the former Vermont governor.
HOLLY'S LAW: Sen. Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R.-Md.), and Rep. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) will soon introduce "Holly's Law," named after Holly Patterson, an 18-year-old woman killed by RU-486 in California in the latest of a series of harms to mothers caused by the drug. She had taken the drug in order to abort her unborn child, but complications developed that quickly led to her own death. The bill, officially called the RU-486 Suspension and Review Act of 2003, will have 44 original co-sponsors in the House and would reverse the FDA's approval of RU-486, which many contend is harmful to women as well as their unborn children. Said Ed Szymkowiak, national director of American Life League's STOPP International, "California must conduct a full, thorough and impartial investigation of all Planned Parenthood facilities, reviewing the 'healthcare' standards and practices offered throughout the state."
SPECTER SHUFFLES RIGHT: Liberal Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) withheld his vote on a pro-abstinence amendment to the foreign operations bill (HR 2800) on October 30 until all the others had been cast, but ultimately went with the President. Bush wanted some of AIDS prevention money to be set aside for abstinence education, the only method that has yet worked in AIDS-suffering Africa. Specter, who faces re-election next year, cast his vote under pressure from Rep. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.), his conservative primary challenger. Specter, who has held on to his seat for 24 years by striking a precarious balance between right and left, has migrated rightward so far this year-presumably to head off Toomey's challenge.
