Cornell Democrats

Ahhh

2006-11-10T21:46:00.000-08:00

Veni, vidi, vici...

Obama may consider running in 2008

2006-10-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

Have you guys seen this? Barack Obama has backed off on his comment that he will definitely not run in 2008. He is now saying that he might run.

I know that there are a lot of Obama fans within the Democrats club, so I thought this would be exciting news to you all. :)

The Jack Abramoff Homepage

2006-10-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

Though it's not the best place to read in detail about the Abramoff affair (this WaPo story is a good place to start), I find the appearance of the official House Democrats' Jack Abramoff webpage to be hilarious, and it does list many important facts, such as the 485 contacts convicted briber Abramoff had with White House officials.

In a Republican-corruption related story, this youtube clip is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr8qQ-VX9i8&eurl=

And in other news, Republican majority leader Bill Frist, under investigation for insider trading, has declared that we ought to surrender to the Taliban.

The Republicans are collapsing.

How long did they know?

2006-10-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

I found this ABC news video on another blog, but I'm posting it here because everybody ought to see it. Key quote: "It turns out that Foley's obsession with sixteen and seventeen year old male pages has been known to Republicans on Capitol Hill for at least five years, but other than issue a warning, little else seems to have been done about the Congressman."

Bush: "Human Dignity...Open To Interpretation"

2006-09-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

"Common Article Three of the Geneva Convention says there will be no outrages on human dignity. It's very vague. What does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity?" It's a statement that is wide open to interpretation," - President George W. Bush

It's at about 3:57 here:

George Allen Strikes Again

2006-09-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I suggested that George Allen might not have known what he was saying when he twice used the word "macaca". I may have to take that back. From a Washington Post story today titled "Allen denies using racial slur in college":

"...Shelton reiterated that Allen frequently used the "N word" and he also recounted an episode in 1973 or 1974 in which he and Allen and a third friend shot a deer while hunting. Shelton said Allen cut the deer's head off, asked directions to the home of the nearest black person, and shoved the head into that person's oversized mailbox."

A Yee-Haw & a Tip o' the Stetson

2006-09-22T23:18:00.000-07:00

David Broder, the man U.S. News calls "the unchallenged 'dean' of what many political reporters like to think is their 'priesthood'," recently had something to say.

And say it he did -- in a column titled, fittingly, "Independence Days."

"...[Y]ou can see the independence party forming -- on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society -- the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.

"The center," ladies and gentlemen, "is beginning to fight back."

And your resident Texan, needless to say, could not be happier.

Read the rest of Broder's article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001586.html

U.S. Health-Care System Gets a "D"

2006-09-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek magazine, that font of left-wing propaganda, has a new story up: U.S. Health-Care System Gets a "D".

Interesting (although not new) info: "the U.S. spends more on medicine, by far, than any other country. Approximately 16% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) is devoted to health care, compared with 10% or less in other industrialized nations.... The U.S. ranks at the bottom among industrialized countries for life expectancy both at birth and at age 60.... if the U.S. improved and standardized health-care performance and access, approximately 100,000 to 150,000 lives could be saved annually, along with $50 billion to $100 billion a year.... As a share of total health expenditures, insurance administrative costs in the U.S. were more than three times the rate in countries with integrated payment systems."

In related news, there will be a rally outside Bailey Hall this coming Tuesday, before the Gubernatorial Debate, in support of single-payer universal health insurance. If you want to show your support for fixing our broken health care system, stop by at 5:30 or earlier.

Column Clarifications

2006-09-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

My Sun column for today is up. I'd encourage you to all read it: http://www.cornellsun.com/node/18172

I expect to get at least some hate mail, and maybe some opposing letters to the editor. My column was searingly critical of the Bush Administration, but did not point out any of the positive actions they have done to reduce the threat of terrorism.

Partly that was because of space concerns. I only had a thousand words, and my column was already busting over. I could have taken out something like the quote about the Russians "storing 30 tons of nuclear materials in wooden 1940s-era buildings," to make space for something positive, or not. I chose not.

I did this because the spin that the Bush Administration has been strong and tough on terror is so all-pervasive and surrounding that I thought it was more important to dispel it than to include banalities to try to sound evenhanded. Yes, we have arrested and foiled many terror plots. Yes, the terrorists can no longer openly and freely operate in Afghanistan. But we know this already. How many people know that Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone who talked about a plan for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion?

I also didn't include any praise because the Administration should not get credit for doing things that any responsible government would have done. Of course the government has taken steps to cut off the financing for terrorists- should they really be extolled for this? Wouldn't any sane and responsible administration have done the same? This argument works for nearly every positive step the Bush Administration has taken to reduce the threat of terrorism. They should not be praised for not being stupid in some cases: they should be criticized for not not being stupid in all cases. We really should demand better of our government than we have gotten.

My column also contained another missing element. It really could have been more partisan. It laid all blame on President Bush, and to a lesser extent Donald Rumsfeld. But all of these mistakes have really been made possible by the Republican control of Congress. There are many, many ways that the Congress has enabled the Bush administration to fail in the fight against terrorism, and I won't list them here. My column could have said that the best way to improve the fight against terrorism is to elect a Democratic Congress, but it didn't. It was, again, a space constraint.

Give 'Em Hell, Kinkster

2006-09-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. Eliot Spitzer is awesome.

But New York can only wish that it had a candidate for governor this cool.

WMP:

http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/multimedia/_video/kinkytoon_01/KF1_largeWM.wmv

Quicktime:

http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/multimedia/_video/kinkytoon_01/KF1_largeQT.mov

Olbermann '79 to Bush: Have You No Decency? (Turn the volume up on this one)

2006-09-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Who do we want in 2008?

2006-09-06T18:36:00.000-07:00

Since a bunch of people just signed up for this blog, I thought we should get some discussion going. Who do you guys want to see run in 2008?

I want Mark Warner (the former Governor of Virginia). He really fixed the state's budget, financed important social programs and public projects, and consistently had an above 70% approval rating in a traditionally conservative state. I think the Dems have their best bet with a southern Democrat who could have more populist appeal in the south.

I'm also fond of Biden and Richardson. But go Warner in 2008!

Let's talk about the Senatorial race in PA

2006-09-05T13:34:00.001-07:00

What are people's thoughts about Bob Casey? While I must admit that I agree with Casey's fiscal views more than his social views, I do think that he is far preferable to Santorum. Santorum is atrocious, and I simply can't support any candidate who believes that the government has ANY authority to legislate private behavior between two consenting adults.

Though I do not agree with Casey on abortion, he said he supports birth control and contraception (moreso than his father, in any case: Source). So at least he and I both agree that contraception is an effective way of preventing unwanted pregnancies, regardless of the moral ramifications of this.

I recall that on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Hillary Clinton stated that both sides of the abortion debate should reach a common ground and work to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place so that abortion would not have to be as prevalent (while still keeping it as a legal option). Though it's very possible that Clinton was just trying to do some political pandering in support of her potential Presidential bid, what do you guys think about this? Do you think that focusing our resources on preventing inadvertant pregnancies and increasing the number planned pregnancies through education, availability of emergency contraception, etc., rather than on the legality of abortion would enable "pro-lifers" to side with us on this issue?

Also, I feel as though having a Democratic majority in Congress (though this is more likely in the House than in the Senate) should be our top priority for 2006. With a Democratic majority, we can make it more difficult for Bush to pass his agenda unless he moderates some of his demands, especially on such crucial issues as social security. Given that as many as 1/3 of Americans would live below the poverty line without Social Security payments, we simply cannot afford to bargain with people's future incomes. So I feel as though we shouldn't really be sorting between the Bob Caseys and the Dennis Kuciniches in the party, but instead, on electing Democrats PERIOD (regardless of what their personal views may be) to Congress.

- Ray

Damn kids...

2006-09-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

You know, kids today don't work hard enough. They expect to be treated like royalty and get things like health insurance without even trying. We need to create a climate of personal responsibility in this country by making our people (and kids!) work for what they get. Maybe we aren't cutting taxes enough to improve children's work incentives, because last year 361,000 more kids couldn't pay for their health insurance, for a total of 8.3 million nationwide. It really is unfortunate that our kids are too lazy to afford health insurance, because "...uninsured children were less likely to be up to date on immunizations and to receive treatment for sore throats, earaches and other common childhood illnesses. A University of Texas study found that kids with insurance tend to have fewer school absences."

Awesome.

2006-08-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Keith Olbermann '79 slams Rumsfeld. Just watch.

United Democrats

2006-08-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

Forgive me for my poor writing, I'm tired. And boy, this will be long. I didn't want to do any more Lieberman posts, but just when I thought I was out, they pull my back in. My friend Ben Birnbaum has a column in today's Sun, titled "Divided Democrats". It's filled with boilerplate Republican distortions and lies about the Democratic Party. I never thought that I would fisk a friend, but here it goes, with Ben's column in italics:

Not high enough, it turned out.

For every 48 Connecticut Democrats who gave Joe the thumbs up at the voting booth the next day, 52 gave him the finger and voted for challenger Ned Lamont, making the eighteen-year incumbent only the fourth senator in 25 years to lose a primary.

It was a cruel blow for the man Democrats had cheered as their 2000 VP candidate, a man who had mostly proven himself a model Democrat. Indeed, Joe had stood on the right side (i.e. left side) of virtually every social and economic issue important to Democrats.

Except that he hasn't. It's hard to list all of Joe Lieberman's non-foreign policy sins, but here are a few: he was the only northeastern Democrat to oppose Bill Clinton's universal health care plan from the right, he is more responsible than any other Senator for the early 90s decision to allow companies to not expense stock options (helped lead to the recent corporate scandals), he has supported a law that would let hospitals not offer emergency contraception, he supported the pork-laden energy bill, he took longer than just about any other Senate Democrat to announce his opposition to Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, he supported a Federal law to keep Terry Schiavo alive, in effect supported the bankruptcy bill, etc etc etc. There are a lot of non-Iraq related issues where Joe stood against the Democratic position.

On one side are the national-security Democrats — ideological heirs of FDR and JFK — who saw the 9/11 attacks as acts of war that merited a tough response and a long-range plan to empower Islam’s moderates and isolate its extremists. This group comprises most of the party establishment, outfits like the Democratic Leadership Council, magazines like The New Republic, and senators like Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and, lately, Hilary Clinton. (More on her later.)

On the other side are the mea-culpa Democrats — ideological heirs of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter — who believe that the 9/11 attacks, while unjustified, were merely a response to an arrogant American foreign policy and that the wisest course of action for the U.S. would be to immediately withdraw from Iraq, quit threatening Iran and Syria, outsource foreign-policy decisions to the UN and stop supporting those f-ing Israelis. This crowd includes most of Hollywood, “netroots” websites like MoveOn.org and the Daily Kos, magazines like The Nation, and figures like Lamont, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and — when he hasn’t taken his meds — Howard Dean.

Where to start? Every Democrat in Congress, including Dennis Kucinich, supported the Afghanistan War. The only exception was Barbara Lee (D-Berkeley). Everybody in the Democratic Party wants to fight the terrorists. We all wanted a tough and long range plan to empower Islam's moderates and isolate its extremists. Where we disagree with President Bush and many Republicans is that we feel that he hasn't actually fought the terrorists as hard as he could have, and he has engaged in an unnecessary and foolish war in Iraq that has made the real war on terrorism more difficult. His Iraq war has strengthened Islamic extremists everywhere in the world.

It's also unfair to throw together real Democrats, like Howard Dean, Ned Lamont, and Markos Moulitsas, together with antiwar protestor Cindy Sheehan. The Nation magazine has mixed views- it pubishes some fairly normal liberal authors, and some crazy Marxists. It doesn't reliably support Democratic candidates, and so it wouldn't be fair to call it a Democratic magazine. A more mainstream Democratic publication would be the American Prospect or Washington Monthly.

Those positions Ben claims that some Democrats hold are mostly just strawmen. There are some people who believe those things, but they don't seem to have any influence or power in the Party, or even among grassroots activists.

Dean’s meteoric rise during the ’04 presidential primary was indicative of just how much power this wing of the party had amassed. While original frontrunners Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt — all initially war supporters — were dividing their support mostly among the national-security wing, Dean was raising millions over the Internet from the mea-culpa wing.
Though Dean (or Lamont) wasn’t as radical as his detractors claimed, many of his most enthusiastic supporters — the “Deaniacs” — were. Though there were plenty of convincing national-security arguments not to invade Iraq, these militant pacifists rarely invoked them, instead flooding anti-war rallies holding signs with slogans like “War Is NOT the Answer,” “No Blood for Oil,” and “I Love Iraq — Bomb Texas!”

As someone who was somewhat active in the Dean campaign, and attended many Dean meetups, let me tell you- those crazy hippie extremists were not present. The people there were mainstream, ordinary Americans who were fed up with the Bush administration, and supported the only mainstream Democratic candidate with the courage to fight back and tell the truth. The crazies who held "No Blood For Oil" signs generally supported Dennis Kucinich or other candidates further to his left.

The “Deaniacs” aren’t your average Democrats, of course, but that’s not what Karl Rove wants voters to think. And he doesn’t have to do much when people are holding “War is NOT the Answer” signs in one hand and signs for Dean, Lamont or any Democrat in the other. (On a personal note, seeing these “Democrats” embarrassed this once-proud Democrat into becoming an independent.)

Again, not sure what he's talking about. I'm sure that this did happen at least a few times, somewhere, but this seems to be more of a generic right-wing myth. I wonder if Ben feels that all Republicans should be blamed for what the most extreme right-wing activists do.

With the party faithful’s growing hatred of Bush in 2004, Democratic politicians from the national-security wing suddenly found themselves on the defensive for endorsing many of his wartime policies.

By mimicking Dean, John Kerry managed to secure the nomination.

He faced the general election, however, with a dilemma. He could: a) energize the mea-culpa Democrats with antiwar rhetoric and risk alienating national-security Democrats and undecided Independents or b) woo the center with tough national-security talk and risk the mea-culpa Democrats staying home on Election Day or voting for Ralph Nader.

John Kerry tried to do both simultaneously and ended up sounding a lot like, well, John Kerry.
John Kerry did sound like John Kerry, I grant him that. But he did best in the opinion polls after he finally came to a coherent position on the Iraq War- that it was a mistake. Unfortunately, it wasn't until October that he announced this clear position, and by then it was too late to matter, and probably too late to be believed.

How will Hilary Clinton, the Democrats’ ’08 frontrunner, manage that same dilemma? Until now, she has opted to moderate her liberal image with the general public, voting for the war (like a majority of Senate Democrats) and (unlike most of them) not recanting that vote. She is clearly getting nervous, though, that the mea-culpa Democrats will rally around an antiwar candidate in the primary, hence her decision — along with most other high-profile Democrats — to back Lamont after Lieberman announced that he would stay in the race as an independent.

Senator Clinton supports Ned Lamont for the same reason every other major Democratic leader supports Ned Lamont: he's the Democratic Party's candidate. Primaries count. Party leaders are obligated to support their Party's candidates in all but the most extreme situations. If they didn't, primaries would be meaningless, and the Party would constantly be divided during general elections. It wouldn't be fair to the Party's liberal wing to tell them that they have to support more conservative primary winners, but the conservative wing is not obligated to support liberal Democrats when they win primaries.

Any Democrat who supports Lieberman now is directly undermining the unity of the Party and the fairness of the primary process.

With the party establishment firmly behind Lamont, Lieberman looked like a lame duck — for about 36 hours.

Then came news that 24 Muslim extremists had been arrested by British authorities in the final stages of a plot to blow up ten America-bound planes.

Now he has a double-digit lead in the polls, garnering the support of 60 percent of independents, 75 percent of Republicans and still 35 percent of his fellow Democrats.

It's not clear that the terrorist plot had anything to do with Lamont's poll lead. And even if it did, that doesn't speak much of the public (I'll get to that soon). But the polls have varied- some show Lieberman up by double digits, and two more recent polls show him up by about 2%. This isn't surprising- Lieberman is a famous 18 year incumbent, and guys like that are hard to beat everywhere in the country. This incumbent was able to get most Republicans, a majority of independents, and some Democrats who still think he is a Democrat, to support him. That's not terribly surprising. Whether Lieberman can hold onto that support is something we'll find out over the next few months.

The lesson? Notwithstanding their Iraq blues, most Americans — unlike, say, Spaniards — want a testicular foreign policy. It’s what allowed a dope like Bush to win re-election even though polls showed that Kerry was trusted more on every other issue.

And it’s why Lieberman will likely cruise to a fourth term.

I'm really not sure what a "testicular" foreign policy refers to. I don't think any Democrat, and especially not Ned Lamont, wouldn't have wanted to arrest those terrorists in Britain. I know that Ben isn't advocating for the Iraq War, so what does he even mean? Is it standing on rubble and shouting into a bullhorn? It is true that many members of the public have had a general fear that Democrats are going to be weak on terrorism. Karl Rove and the Republican machine have promoted this fear. But they don't have any specific issue to back it up with. And when they do have a disagreement where they claim the Democrats are weak, it tends to be over a relatively small issue (e.g. warrentless wiretapping), and the public tends to support the Democratic position.

But the fear that the Democrats are going to just be weak on terrorism has cost the Party some support. We have lost guys like Ben. I don't know what they're afraid of- are the Democrats going to start peace negotiations with Osama and offer him Andalucia?- but they are afraid.

But that battle won’t be over until November. And this civil war in the Democratic Party will continue for years.

I know which side I’m on. How about you?

There isn't any civil war within the Democratic Party over foreign policy. The Party is more united now than it has been at any time since the Clinton administration. With the exception of Joe Lieberman, who is no longer a Democrat, every Democratic leader seems to recognize that the Iraq War was a mistake, that is has been horribly mismanaged, and that it is going badly. There is some disagreement as to exactly how fast we need to withdraw, but nearly every Democrat claims to favor withdrawal as soon as possible.

Macaca

2006-08-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Senator George Allen is under fire for calling a young Indian-American man "macaca" twice in front of about 100 people, saying "Let's give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America." This incident doesn't make Allen look good- especially with his already existing vulnerability on racial issues. (Read this New Republic story from back in April to read about California-native Allen's love of the Confederacy).

The really interesting questions this brings up is where exactly did the word "macaca" spring up from in Allen's mind, and whether or not he knew what the word really meant. Allen's people have claimed that it was just a mistake, and that Allen maybe meant to call Sidarth "mohawk" a nickname the campaign had given him because of his hair.

The idea that Allen confused "mohawk" with "macaca" doesn't pass the smell test. Watch the video on youtube if you have any doubt.

In French, "macaque" (pronounced macaca), is a derogatory word that has been used against North Africans. Macaque is a genus of monkey. Senator Allen speaks French and his mother is a (white) French North African. Many people have used this to imply that Allen is clearly using a racial slur against Sidarth.

I doubt this. Senator Allen knows that he has a public relations problem on issues of racial sensitivity, and I believe that he is a smart and shrewd enough politician to not openly use a racial epithet, whatever his true feelings are. There may be a somewhat innocent explanation for all of this. When Allen was young, he likely heard his mother use the word "macaca" without knowing what it really meant. For Allen, the word was a gobbledegook insult, not a racial slur. He recently repeated this old word, without knowing that it was a racially-loaded term. So perhaps Allen is innocent of racism in this case.

But whatever the true explanation is, this controversy hurts Allen and helps Democratic candidate Jim Webb. That's a good thing.

Un-American? Or a Culture of Incumbency?

2006-08-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

Good points, Mitch. Here's one more: You quoted Lieberman as having said:

"I'm not saying we shouldn't have healthy disagreement and discussion about national security, but to make it into a partisan political football, it's just unacceptable and in my opinion un-American."

What's un-American is the suggestion that incumbents ought not be held accountable for their actions. If folks don't like something about a candidate or an incumbent, they can and even ought to mount a challenge against him/her. That's the point of a representative system. Accusing people of being "partisan" and "uncivil" is a rather cheap form of defense. Like you pointed out, Lieberman's questioning people's patriotism (and their fitness for the political system) because they dared to call him out on (one of?) the biggest issue(s) of the moment.

Thursday, in the Times , moderately conservative columnist David Brooks tried to make a case that there's a third way in American politics:

"The McCain-Lieberman Party begins with a rejection of the Sunni-Shiite style of politics itself. It rejects those whose emotional attachment to their party is so all-consuming it becomes a form of tribalism, and who believe the only way to get American voters to respond is through aggression and stridency."

But dismissing energetic debate as a mere strategy, and dismissing that strategy as one of "stridency," itself neglects the fact that there are real - important - issues at stake, and that it's okay, and even desirable, to disagree on those issues.

Partisan Football?

2006-08-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

I don't want this blog or my posts to focus too strongly on the Senate race in Connecticut, but this was too good to pass up. This short post at the New Republic put two Lieberman quotes from Wednesday side by side:

"I'm not saying we shouldn't have healthy disagreement and discussion about national security, but to make it into a partisan political football, it's just unacceptable and in my opinion un-American."

Fair enough.

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out [of Iraq] by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

This is exactly the kind of thumb in your eye statement that has infuriated antiwar Democrats. The problem is not just that Lieberman is prowar- it's that he questions the patriotism and seriousness of anyone who disagrees with him in a manner very similar to Republicans. He could try to convince his fellow Democrats that his position is right, but for the past few years he has mostly chosen to attack them with overblown Republican rhetoric like the above. And then when those same Democrats question his loyalty to the Democratic Party, Lieberman takes cover behind calls for unity and an end to partisanship. It seems like Lieberman wants a big tent party, as long as everyone agrees with him. I say good ridance- and a new Zogby poll says that 79% of Democrats agree.

Lamont had a perfectly appropriate response to Lieberman's second statement: “Wow, that comment sounds an awful lot like Vice President Cheney’s comment on Wednesday. Both of them believe our invasion of Iraq has a lot to do with 9/11. That’s a false premise.”

A Pox On Both Your Houses?

2006-08-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

I just watched the Lieberman concession / Lamont victory speeches. While I supported Lamont before this, listening to their respective speeches really helped clarify things for me. Lieberman blamed "partisan polarization" and "partisan bickering" for our country's problems. So I guess Joe is blaming partisan bickering for stopping universal healthcare, a real minimum wage increase, responsible fiscal policy, rational foreign policy, etc. If he actually believes in the principals of his party, then his speech was irrational, and he chose to rhetorically help himself at the expense of his party. So then he shouldn't be the Democratic candidate. And if he doesn't believe in his party's principles, then he shouldn't be the Democratic candidate. Either way, I'm more glad than ever that Lamont won.

Now I just hope that Bill and Co can convince Lieberman to drop out soon. A Democratic civil war in CT threatens to play havoc with the House races there. As bad as Lieberman is, our priority as Democrats ought to be to take back Congress this fall. I hope that Ol' Joe has enough vestigial loyalty to his party to feel the same way and act accordingly.

Campaign Opportunities

2006-08-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

Progressive Opportunities

With the fall fast approaching, many campaign and political organizations are looking for the energetic and relatively inexpensive labor of College Students across the state. In my role as College Democrats of New York Communications Director, I'll hopefully be recieving a lot of information about State-wide events and job opportunities. As I find these, I'll be posting them on www.collegedemsny.com and also on our website. For starters, here are three ways to get involved beyond the shores of Lake Cayuga.

Spitzer for Governor
Kaplowitz for State Senate
CDNY Committees

I hope you're all enjoying your time off the hill and looking forward to a year with the best asses in the country.

Six for '06

2006-07-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate's top Democrat says 1994's "Contract with America," the Republican campaign agenda the year the GOP regained control of Congress -- was an "urban myth."

"The 'Contract with America' didn't accomplish anything," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. "(It) didn't change the election at all."

Republicans signed the 10-point plan with fanfare on the steps of the Capitol before they took control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Yet, even as Reid dismissed the "Contract with America," he and other Democrats were promoting their own election-year document of six broad legislative goals, called "Six for '06."

Democrats insist most of this year's campaigns -- 75 percent -- will be a referendum on President Bush.

But they also realize they have to give voters a reason to vote for them, not just against Republicans.

"It's closing the deal," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The document, which carries the title "A New Direction for America," is a brief compilation of six themes Democrats have been pushing in various ways all year:

National security
Jobs and wages
Energy independence
Affordable health care
Retirement security
College access for all

"This 100 days is about drilling in the different direction we as Democrats will take this country," said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

....

Emanuel said that their polls show 12 Democratic candidates currently ahead of Republican incumbents.

Source: CNN