Republicans:
The bad news for Republicans from Florida only adds to the sour mood in high-level party ranks.
1) There is a fragrance of the bad old days of '92 when President Bush's father was defeated, with a distinct loss of confidence in both the candidate and the people around him. The worst may be campaign workers counting the days until the election. That is acting like unhappy warriors.
2) The President still has not appeared in a confidence-building mode, reminiscent of how he appeared immediately after 9/11. Television ads were unveiled earlier than expected to slow down the Democratic rush, beginning with positive ads for Bush. However, the impact was dulled when the Democrats immediately trotted out fire fighters and relatives to protest using 9/11 images in the ads. The protested image of fire fighters carrying a dead body lasted less than two seconds, but the quick response from Democrats is something the Republicans will have to deal with all year.
3) Particularly depressing is the lack of liaison between the White House and the party's congressional leadership, with Bush and the House leadership seeming to go in opposite directions for the first time. The buzz on Capitol Hill Monday was a report that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.), under fire from conservatives for forcing passage of the Medicare bill, is going to present a House agenda without consulting the White House.
4) Budget debate in both the House and Senate this week is also a danger exercise for the GOP, raising doubts whether the Hill and the White House are on the same page. Congressional Republicans still have not figured out whether they want to risk the future projection of big budget deficits in order to make the tax cuts permanent as desired by the President.
5) The worst word from Capitol Hill is the increasingly heard musing among Republican members of Congress that it might not be so bad if Kerry were elected President. Their calculation: They will retain congressional majorities this year, Kerry as President would be hog-tied by those GOP majorities and chances of retaining those majorities will be better off in '06 if Kerry is President because, history says, a sixth year almost always loses seats in Congress.
Democrats:
In his first week as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Kerry showed some flaws that were not obvious in primary election run.
1) Kerry made two bloopers recently: a) In Mississippi, answering an African-American woman's criticism of gay marriages, Kerry got mixed up about a black man killed in Texas and incorrectly identified him as gay; b) In an interview, he said unidentified foreign leaders want Kerry elected and Bush defeated for President.
2) With the nomination assured, Kerry still seems to be pandering to the left, feeling it necessary to say he would have used U.S. troops to keep Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president of Haiti.
3) Meanwhile, the list of real possibilities for Vice President looks something like this: Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Rep. Richard Gephardt (Mo.), Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
EU-U.S.:
The European Union's imposition of some tariffs on U.S. goods was more symbolic than anything else.
1) This was not intended to be the first shot fired in a trade war. European trade commissioner Pascal Lamy wants no part in a war. The sanctions were imposed only hours after a meeting between Lamy and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, and reflect no bellicosity between the two.
2) The sanctions, which went into effect at midnight March 1, are in response to the U.S.'s failure to undo the tax break for offshore U.S. exporters that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled an illegal export subsidy.
3) Congressional leaders and the White House are willing to undo the "subsidy," but other plans for corporate tax law changes, together with deficits and election-year politics slow the process. Barring a politically driven filibuster by Democrats in the Senate, the law will be fixed this year.
4) The tariffs are a small portion of the $4 billion per year WTO is allowing the EU to impose. To begin with, the tariffs will be five per-cent duties on a few goods such as candles and roller skates, for which imports from the U.S. comprise a small minority of the European market.
