US 2008 presidential race to be most expensive ever

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The outcome of the 2008 White House election remains up in the air, but one thing is certain -- the bid to succeed President George W. Bush will be the most expensive race in history.

The cost of the last presidential campaign in 2004, considered a peak for its time, was 693 million dollars.

Common estimates of this year's total outlay have tended to come in at around one billion dollars, and Fortune magazine recently upped its overall cost projection to three billion dollars.

As a historical comparison, the campaign two decades ago that saw Republican George H.W. Bush succeed Ronald Reagan at the White House cost 59 million dollars.

Historians believe that the nation's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, spent 100,000 dollars in his bid to take the executive office in 1860.

In the countdown to "Super Tuesday" on February 5, when 22 states including New York and California hold their primary elections, White House hopefuls are furiously bolstering their campaign war chests.

The official tally of campaign finances for 2007 will not be published until January 31 by the Federal Election Commission, but top Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have already released their numbers.

The former first lady and current New York senator's campaign said she raised a total of 115 million dollars in 2007, of which 24 million was raised during the last few months of the year.

Illinois Senator Obama has said his drive raised 103 million dollars in 2007 of which 22.5 million came in during the last part of the year.

Clinton and Obama's campaigns raked in several million dollars more -- over six million for Clinton and eight million dollars for Obama -- following the country's first nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this month.

The campaign for Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani, who despite an early swell of support has been trailing in the presidential polls, has admitted to funding woes.

Giuliani said Friday his campaign has 12.7 million dollars, of which seven million is available as ready cash, and amid the cash shortage top staffers have agreed to go without their paychecks this month.

The admission by Giuliani's camp exposed the risks of his strategy, which aimed to reserve most of its energy and cash for the influential state of Florida and its January 29 primary, while rivals began spending heavily and gaining momentum in earlier nominating contests.

"It's not how much you raise, but how much you've got when you need it the most," said Dennis Johnson, associate dean of the school of political management at George Washington University.

Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney, a wealthy Mormon businessman, has already dished out 17 million dollars of his own, and early last week he divulged that he had reached in his own pocket for more -- though he did not say how much -- to fund his campaign in the blue-collar state of Michigan.

Of all the political aspirants in this year's White House push, Romney, formerly the governor of Massachusetts, has spent the most cash on his campaign.

According to his own estimates, as of September 30, 2007, he had spent an average of 100,000 dollars per day over the first nine months of the year.

But with Romney trailing in the polls, the breakout success of Republicans Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee and Arizona Senator John McCain has shown that money is not enough to win the election.

Just six months ago, McCain's campaign was widely viewed as dead in the water amid a cash crunch, and Huckabee had raised just two million dollars by the end of September.

But McCain surged to victory in New Hampshire and Huckabee surprised the nation with a come-from-nowhere victory in the Iowa nominating caucuses.

And in a sign that success just breeds more success, Huckabee raised eight million dollars in the last three months of 2007 and two million more in the first weeks of January, just after his Iowa splash.

read more | digg story

Romney Tied to Global Warming Denier Group

Aides and staffers of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are listed among the principals of a new Astroturf group set up last fall to deny the science of global warming.

The new group advertises itself as the American Environmental Coalition - "working to keep America beautiful, strong and prosperous." But the sole focus of its expensive website is to question the science of climate change.

As for its outreach activities, the AEC seems intent only on attacking Romney's presidential competitor John McCain, the Republican candidate with the best record on responding to climate change.

The AEC site was registered by Gary Marx , executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network and Mitt Romeny's Conservative Coalitions Director. Jay Sekulow, the co-chair of Mitt Romney's Faith and Values Coalition, is also listed among the AEC's members, a who's who of conservative Christians and oily advocates for the fossil fuel industry.

Take, for example, AEC co-chair George Landrith, whose Frontiers for Freedom survives on funding from such environmental stalwarts as ExxonMobil, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. The list also includes the likes of coal-blackened Pat Michaels and the tobacco and oil advocate-for-hire Steve Milloy.

So, Mitt Romney is campaigning on a platform to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and subsidize liquified coal (see video) while his aides promote science stories by discredited and compromised "experts" like S. Fred Singer and Sallie Baliunas.

The AEC is not an environmental organization.

It is not a science site.

It's a deliberate and transparent attempt to mislead. Romney should apologize for being involved and distance himself from the tactics.

read more | digg story

Will the Supreme Court Abandon Voters?

The Supreme Court heard arguments related to voter rights and Voter ID laws, last week.

The Law in Indiana is shown to disenfranchise large numbers of voters that are currently without driver’s license. This is particularly significant to poor and minority voters because many don’t have driver’s licenses and I’d be willing to bet that their vehicle ownership is much lower than any other class or white counterparts. This is a big deal for a number of reasons, but the less obvious reason is that America and the judicial system have joined forces to deny rights to disenfranchised people in America that it once defended without hesitation.

Shaking Up The Supreme Court

Many experts and pundits, including myself, were quick to voice opposition to the latest shakeup of the Supreme Court. It wasn’t a matter of qualification, which is typically the reason for such outrage. Instead, the reason for the anger had to do with the polarization of politics, government and now our judicial system. With the additions of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito, this shift in the court’s thinking was expected.

The cries of liberal and progressive activists throughout the world have been heard over the months. However, it doesn’t stop at liberal America. Libertarians that were once at the heart of the Republican party have been ostracized and laughed at by the new wave of conservative heroes that have taken over the party and rattled American leadership.

Here’s an excerpt from a NY Times Op-ed article on “Abandoning the Rights of Voters“:

As long as there have been elections, there have been attempts to keep eligible people from voting. States and localities adopted poll taxes, literacy tests, “white primaries,” “malapportionment” — drawing district lines to give a small number of rural voters the same representation as a large number of urban voters — and restrictions on student voting. In recent decades, the Supreme Court has rejected all of them.

Until now.

Manipulating Outcomes: Diluting the Votes

Texas

Only a few years ago, I started to recognize this trend myself. In Texas, redistricting is a hot issue and it is often the GOP that is leading the way in attempting to disenfranchise voters and force the state to permanently swing towards Republicans. It seems an odd strategy to me, considering that Texas is already a strong conservative State and doesn’t look to become liberal any time soon.

California

California is another example of a State that Republican special interest groups are targeting. If you haven’t heard, there is an effort to change the state from the traditional electoral system (Winner-takes-all) to a popular kind of system that would dish out electoral votes based on the proportion of votes each party earns. California presents an interesting case because of the amount of electoral votes it carries. By splitting up the vote and diluting the Democratic stronghold in California, it could help ensure that the Presidency remains in the hands of Republicans forever.

Historically, as the NY Times piece argued, the Supreme Court has been in favor of encouraging strong democratic ideals:

The court understood that the Constitution guaranteed a robust form of democracy and saw its clear value for the nation. During the tumultuous late-1960s, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that most of the country’s problems could be solved through the political process if everyone “has the opportunity to participate on equal terms with everyone else and can share in electing representatives who will be representative of the entire community and not of some special interest.”

In recent years, however, with a conservative majority in place, the court has become increasingly hostile to voters. During the oral arguments in the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor showed disdain for voters who had trouble with Florida’s disastrous punch-card ballots. After insisting that the directions “couldn’t be clearer,” she suggested that the court ignore the ballots of voters who had failed to master the intricacies. That is precisely what it did, by a 5-4 vote.

What is with Republicans and Voting, why is this a “Conservative” problem?

Haven’t Democrats equally tried to disenfranchise Republican voters in the past? If the answer is No, then why not? Is this just a matter of one party deciding that the ends justify the means? How is it that our legal system is getting involved in this mess? Is this a political question that the courts need to stay away from? Will the Supreme Court facilitate the GOP’s desire for dominance at the top of American leadership? More importantly, is this a true conspiracy unfolding before our very eyes or is this another case of liberals overreacting because this time they are on the outside looking in?

read more | digg story