Justin's Thursday Political News 10.04.07

Posted by Justin Baragona on 10.04.2007

Limbaugh hates on anti-war troops, the President vetoes a health care bill for children, and Clinton outpaces everyone in terms of fundraising

Welcome to another edition of Justin's Thursday Political News. I don't really have anything witty or cool to say to start this column off, so why not speak about the weather, huh? It is absolutely beautiful in St. Louis and has been for the past few days. I guess one thing you have to like about global warming is 85+ degree days in October. Is that enough banter? If so, it's time to jump into the news.


The following exchange happened on Rush Limbaugh's radio show on Sept. 26th between a caller and Rush. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, along with other veteran liberal groups, have since condemned the remarks:


"What's really funny is, they [Iraq war critics] never talk to real soldiers," the caller said. "They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media."

Limbaugh responded, "The phony soldiers."


The CEO of Clear Channel, Mark Mays, had this to say in a letter written to Reid in defense of Limbaugh, his employee: "Over the years Mr. Limbaugh has repeatedly praised the dedication and valor of our brave men and women in uniform. Given Mr. Limbaugh's history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn't share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq." This was in response to a letter that was sent to him on Tuesday from Reid and signed by 41 other Senators that called for Mays to publicly condemn the remarks of Limbaugh. Limbaugh has stated that he was, of course, taken out of context and that he was only referring to one person in particular who falsely claimed to be an Iraq War veteran. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this particular story. I just wanted to put another stupid comment by Limbaugh up here and let anyone who reads this make up their own opinion of it. Personally, I think he is nothing but a hypocritical twit who makes millions of dollars making stupid, un-researched, political comments on the air. Perhaps I'm just jealous of him. Maybe I would like to make assloads of money making an ass out of myself on the air daily.



The President had this to say in regards to his veto of a health care bill that was to expand children's health insurance over the next five years:


"I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system. I do want Republicans and Democrats to come together to support a bill that focuses on the poorer children."


The bill in question that Bush vetoed would have cost $35 billion over the next 5 years and would have doubled the number of children eligible for State Children's Health Program. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has stated that Congress will delay trying to override the President's veto until October 18th to give her a chance to speak to Republicans. The House voted 222-197 on Wednesday to delay the vote until that day, with the vote falling along party lines. It looks like if the vote were held today, the bill would fall 15 votes shy of overriding the veto. Pelosi feels she can pressure enough Republicans in Congress to switch their votes, as she has stated that Republican voters support this bill two-to-one. "It's very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care to 10 million American children for the next five years. It is a value that is shared by the American people across the board," Pelosi said.

The bill passed through the Senate by a 67-29 vote, so it should not have a problem in overriding the President's veto there, as 67 votes would be needed. However, the bill passed by a 265-159 House vote, which is shy of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. After the President's veto was announced, both supporters and critics of the bill came out with statements. "I think that this is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country. It is incomprehensible. It is intolerable. It's unacceptable," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). He also made a plea for Republicans in the House to switch their votes to overturn the veto. One Congresswoman invoked the amount of money being spent in Iraq in relation to money being spent on health care for children. "The president and Republicans in Congress say that we can't afford this bill, but where were the fiscal conservatives when the president demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq?" asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

Republican critics made more of a stink about Democrats using the delay in overriding the veto to play more political games, a GOP chestnut whenever they don't want to actually discuss the issue at hand. "The fact that they are delaying this for two weeks reflects that they're more interested in running radio and TV ads for two weeks than they are in expanding children's health insurance coverage as quickly as possible," said Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL). He also said he felt confident that the President's veto would be upheld. "The public can see that we're playing more political 'gotcha' than we are at really solving problems," said Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who also said the bill contained "all of these little hidden gizmos, among other things that we're going to provide health care to the children of illegal immigrants." Akin also made sure to get a shot at Hillary Clinton in by saying the bill was nothing more than an expansion on "Hillary' socialized medicine". Overall, the American people support the bill by nearly a three-to-one margin. The bill is designed to allow parents who make too much money to obtain Medicaid, but do not make enough for private insurance, to get coverage for their children. I guess Bush is just showing more of his compassionate conservatism here.



Barack Obama's campaign chief had this to say after 3rd quarter donation amounts were released:


"Many in Washington have spent the last weeks declaring the outcome of this race to be preordained and the primary process a mere formality. Yet, in this quarter alone, 93,000 more Americans joined our campaign, because they desire real change and believe Barack Obama is the one candidate who can deliver it. This grass-roots movement for change will not be deterred by Washington conventional wisdom, because in many ways it is built to challenge it."


In the third quarter, Hillary Clinton's campaign was able to raise $27 million while Obama's camp raised just about $20 million. This is a reversal of fortune from the previous quarter when Obama outpaced Clinton. In that quarter, Obama was able to raise an earth shattering $32.5 million while Clinton raised $27 million. Historically, fundraising is at its lowest during the 3rd quarter, so it should not be a shock to the Obama camp that they were unable to meet the amount of the previous quarter. However, they should be concerned by the fact that Clinton raised the same amount that she did the previous quarter. Overall for the year, Obama has raised about $75 million from 352,000 donors.

In regards to the other Democratic candidates, John Edwards was able to raise $7 million in the 3rd quarter, which was down slightly from the $9 million he raised in the 2nd quarter. He also announced that he would accept public financing for both the primary and general elections, and suggested that Obama and Clinton do the same. Overall, Edwards has raised $30 million and has $12 million in reserves. Public financing would add $10 million to that total. Bill Richardson reported that he raised $5.2 million in the 3rd quarter. He stated that the amount he has raised in both the 3rd quarter and overall shows that he is not a second-tier candidate and that it is now a four person race. He raised $7 million in the 2nd quarter, so the dropoff was not very much considering all other candidates either stayed stagnant or experienced similar dropoffs in this historically difficult quarter. Richardson also stated that the amount he has raised so far gives him the resources to compete in the early primary states.

On the Republican side, the candidates had not reported their fundraising totals yet, but it appears that Rudy Giuliani will be the leader for the 3rd quarter, followed closely by Mitt Romney. Many want to see what Fred Thompson was able to do for the quarter so they can assess how serious his candidacy should be taken. While he has been polling near the top of the Republican candidates, fundraising is just as important of an indication of whether a candidate is a legitimate threat. It is expected that his campaign will announce that he raised $7 million in the 3rd quarter as well as $5 million in June, prior to his announcing his candidacy. That amount should place him comfortably in 3rd among the Republicans. John McCain is expected to state that he has raised $5 million for the quarter and that he is in the race for the long haul, as he is polling well in many of the early primary states. Dark horse candidate (and Internet fave) Ron Paul is expected to announce that he has raised nearly the same amount, if not more, than McCain in the same period of time while also showing that he has a decent amount of cash on reserve.



Well, that's going to do it for me this week. No time for directing you to another writer's column, so I'll just say check everyone out on 411Politics. I'll be back next week with more news in the realm of politics.