"A Heavy Heart." That was the subject of the email I received today from Senator Chris Dodd. After fighting tooth and nail for many months, with a coalition cobbled together on the fly, brought together by a fundamental drive to protect the Constitution, the Senate was finally able to force through a new FISA bill including retroactive immunity for telecom companies.
It's been an educational road for netroots activists in particular and Democratic activists in general. Developing effective methods of demanding and receiving accountability from out elected officials is still a work in progress. But in a number of very encouraging ways, the FISA fight over these many months has helped uncover what ideas held promise and afforded the chance to refine them. We may not have won this one, but we sure as hell made it a lot harder along the way.
A number of Democrats abandoned the Fourth Amendment to vote for immunity, including Senator Dianne Feinstein. It's been a relatively tough year for the Constitution when Feinstein's been faced with challenging votes, and this sadly was no exception. But it's important to hear Senator Dodd's words today:
...let us stand tall, knowing that by working together we were able to make wiretapping and retroactive immunity part of the national discourse these last number of months.
We came together - all of you, Senator Feingold, bloggers like Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply wanted to make sure that this one, last insult did not happen with ease.
I'm sorry we weren't successful.
And so Rick Jacobs put the accountability challenge to Courage Campaign supporters today via email. What are we going to do about it? His email is on the flip.
Here is the text of my latest letter to Senator Feinstein on FISA and telecom immunity. It appears that we have been corresponding for so long that I now have a pretty good record to go by to understand her position. To see where she was, and where she's gone on this issue is not pretty.
Please note that I did take one last thing out of this letter before I faxed it, but I left it in for the readers here to understand just how I feel.
June 29, 2008
Senator Diane Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Via Facsimile (202) 228-3954
Re: FISA Telecom Immunity
Dear Senator Feinstein:
For over two years, I have been writing to you about my outrage over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. You have somehow found it possible, given your busy schedule selling out our civil rights, to respond to my communications from time to time, and I thank you for it. I would like to both review your positions on the issue, and respond to them, now that the Senate is considering a bill that would give the telecommunications companies that colluded with the administration immunity for their undisputed wrongdoing.
I first wrote to you about my concerns in early 2006. On April 12, 2006, you responded via email as follows:
I have carefully reviewed the Constitution and the laws relating to this domestic intelligence activity, along with the President's statements and those of the Attorney General and other Administration officials. I believe that the electronic surveillance program was not conducted in accordance with U.S. law. The program, as described, violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a court order for surveillance of Americans.
Congress has updated FISA many times since 9/11 in order to provide our nation with all the necessary tools to fight terrorism. The Administration has never asked for the authority to conduct this program.
I believe the Administration also violated the National Security Act, which requires all members of the Intelligence Committee to be fully and currently informed of all significant intelligence activities other than covert actions. I am a member of the Intelligence Committee, and yet I was not told about this program until it was made public.
On October 20, 2007, I again wrote to you, via facsimile, when it became clear that you had backed away from your original position, as set forth above, because you were "undecided" as to whether to grant immunity to those telecommunications companies that had done what the administration wanted, in spite of the manifest illegality of doing so. I laid out a timeline of what I considered relevant events concerning warrantless wiretapping. I believe that timeline is as trenchant now as it was then, and I will again impart it to you:
1) On October 13, 2007, The Washington Post reported that based on documents released from the trial of Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest Communications, that the government had enlisted the telecommunications companies' assistance with its warrantless wiretapping program (the program) on February 27, 2001, fully six months prior to the attack on the World Trade Center (9/11);
2) While Quest refused, maintaining the program was illegal, other companies did participate;
3) At least one telecommunications company, Verizon, not only participated, but also demanded and received payment of $1,000 each time it provided information pursuant to the program;
4) Verizon was paid for its participation over 700 times;
5) The program, and telecommunications companies' illegal acts in support of it, failed to prevent 9/11;
6) According to fully corroborated testimony by James Comey before the Senate Judiciary Committee (upon which you sit), on March 11, 2004, although it had previously done so, the Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to affirm the legality of the program, but the President allowed the program to continue, despite DOJ's refusal;
7) The President, on April 20, 2004, publicly denied such warrantless wiretapping was taking place;
8) In December 2005, the existence of the program was disclosed by The New York Times;
9) In response to the disclosure, the President admitted to the existence of the program, but claimed that it (a) began after 9/11, and (b) prevented an attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles (which the President called the "Liberty Tower");
10) Subsequent investigation revealed there was probably no imminent or even credible threat to the Library Tower;
11) In the ensuing months and years, the Administration has claimed that such warrantless wiretapping has been conducted very rarely, and only in extreme circumstances;
12) Subsequent investigation by the FBI's Inspector General revealed that such a claim is patently false; the FBI has abused its ability to issue National Security Letters and obtain private communications without warrants on hundreds of occasions, and many if not most of those letters were issued in connection with investigations wholly unrelated to terrorism;
13) On August 3, 2007, 60 Senators, including you, voted for the Protect America Act (PAA), which gives the Administration increased ability to engage in warrantless wiretapping;
14) After the PAA became law, several members of Congress indicated the Administration had warned them of an imminent threat of a terrorist attack upon Congress, which bore upon their votes;
15) Subsequent investigation reveals there was no such imminent threat;
16) In the ensuing weeks since the passage of the PAA, the President has claimed that the members of the "Gang of Eight" in Congress had been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program;
17) At least three members of the "Gang of Eight" have indicated that they were not so briefed;
18) The President continues to claim that the warrantless wiretapping program was undertaken in response to 9/11.
Your response from January 22, 2008, via email, was remarkable, not only for the time it took to reach me (a mere six months), but for the amazing turnaround in your position on the matter:
I introduced an amendment on the Senate floor that would limit this grant of immunity. Under my amendment, cases against the telecommunications companies would go to the FISA Court for judicial review. The Court would only provide immunity if it finds that the alleged assistance was not provided, that assistance met legal requirements, or that a company had a good faith, reasonable belief that assistance was legal.
I believe that this approach strikes the correct balance: it maintains court review and a judicial determination of whether companies provided assistance that they should have known violated the law.
I have also filed an amendment to restore FISA's exclusivity, to ensure that no surveillance program can proceed outside the law in the way that the Terrorist Surveillance Program did for more than five years.
After reading your response, I responded the next day, with a facsimile that repeated the timeline, and included an additional point:
19) On January 10, 2008, it became publicly known that telecommunications companies had cut off FBI wiretaps because the bills had not been paid quickly enough to suit the companies.
I then received a letter via U.S. Mail that appeared to me to be a word-for-word repeat of your email. I am unsure whether you responded to my second facsimile at all, but suffice it to say that I was then clear about your position: you favored your judicial review that would grant immunity to telecommunications companies for a "good faith" belief in the legality something that they knew was illegal for over 30 years.
And so now the Senate is on the verge of voting on a bill that would go so much further than your pathetic "balanced" approach, in that the question of illegality of the wiretapping would never enter into the judicial review at all; rather, the review would be limited to deciding whether the companies were told they would somehow be protected by the Administration for breaking the law, and if they were, they become immune.
One has to wonder how we could have fallen so far into this Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole where "they told me I could" becomes the justification for excusing unlawful conduct. I think it is rather clear than when an important decision maker in the process moves from "I believe that the electronic surveillance program was not conducted in accordance with U.S. law" to "I introduced an amendment on the Senate floor that would limit this grant of immunity" that the responsibility lies, to a significant degree, with that decision maker, namely you.
From a negotiation standpoint, what you did makes no sense at all. Your amendment was a virtual capitulation from the beginning of the process that already gave the Administration more than it should have ever expected. There is no precedent in American law that would give intentional actors retroactive civil immunity for their acts, until you made such a notion possible. So, when Representative Hoyer began the negotiations that led to this bill, his side had already conceded a point that should not have been part of the calculus at all.
Further, I see no reason at all why the right of the American people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, was ever a negotiable point in the first place. That such a notion would have occurred to you makes me doubt your commitment to the Constitution and the People of the State of California, whom, I would like to remind you, you were elected to serve. We value our personal rights, as set forth in the very first provision of our State's constitution:
All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.
Finally, any notion that these companies acted in anything that would approach "good faith" is completely undermined by their eagerness to shut off the wiretaps for slow payment (and there has never been any suggestion that the government would not pay eventually) even if these taps were of great importance to ongoing investigations. The companies were not concerned with any notions of patriotism; they were only in it for the money. For you or anyone to maintain that telecom immunity must be passed in order to keep us from "being attacked by terrorists," is simply an insult. As I noted above, the illegal program was instituted before September 11, 2001, and it did not protect us then. This was an illegal, ineffective program that has produced nothing good in the short term, and promises to produce nothing but bad for our civil liberties in the long term.
Fortunately for the People of California, we have at least one Senator who still respects us, the things that make us strong, and our Constitution. She and a dedicated group of her colleagues have managed to put the brakes on what has felt like a runaway train that would destroy our civil liberties. With what now seems like the luxury of time (a scant two weeks), perhaps you can reflect upon the fiasco that that you would create by supporting the FISA bill, and finally come to understand that it does no good and much harm.
Moreover, even if you were to decide that ultimately this compromise is somehow the right thing to do, there is simply no need to do it hastily. We still do not know exactly what the telecommunications companies did, upon whom it was done, and we have no idea whether it produced anything at all that would make anyone safer. I feel that as to the last point, it did not, or else this Administration, which has little or no regard for the protection of state secrets, except when it feels such secrecy is politically advantageous, would have already disclosed it publicly.
I know that there is a political calculation going on here, but I would like to suggest to you that what appears to be the conventional wisdom on national security is no longer reflective of how the American people (and certainly the people of California) truly feel. We are not ready to cower at the first sign of a threat on our soil, and we are ready to respond not in fear, but with the strength born of our principles of justice and liberty.
There is no doubt that a significant cadre of politicians will try to make an issue out of the failure to pass this bad bill, but their efforts will not succeed as they may have if this were 2003. This Administration is the most unpopular in history, and the political difficulties that would inure to you and those on the side of liberty is not worth avoiding when compared to the massive unearned benefit the Administration and its supporters in Congress would gain from the bill's passage.
Finally, if this is indeed such an important decision to make, there is no reason why it cannot be made by the next Congress, and a new President. There is every reason to believe that the next President will be someone who understands and appreciates the U.S. Constitution, rather than referring to it as a "g*******d piece of paper," and I would much prefer that he make the final decision before signing any bill of this importance. Any investigation that is in place has not been, and will not be affected by not enacting the bill, and if there is a need to collect new information, the Administration can do what it always could have done: GET A WARRANT.
You should be grateful to Senators Boxer, Feingold, Dodd, and the others who have held back this dangerous juggernaut of a bill that would help only a privileged few and cause irreparable harm to this country, its people, and its reason for existence. They have given you what you, for no good reason, have declined to get for yourself: time to come to the right decision, and the only decision you can make with a good conscience (assuming you have one). NOTE: I omitted the italicized parenthetical from the final letter, as I decided it might be a little "over the top."
I urge you to take a cue from your constituents and act from strength and not from fear. Please oppose any FISA legislation that includes telecommunications company immunity, and please support the Constitution and an American system of justice that does not reward those who break the law.
If you're following the FISA battle, you may know that Sen. Feingold and Dodd have vowed to filibuster the full bill when it comes to the floor for a vote. That's slightly less promising than it sounds. The motion to proceed has already been filed by Sen. Reid, and so without the votes on the Dodd-Feingold filibuster, it will be broken. They can stretch out the bill, hopefully to the July 4 recess, but in order to stop it in its tracks you would need less than 60 votes for cloture.
One of those votes may be Sen. Boxer, who just delivered this statement on the floor of the Senate:
One of the most basic tenets of our freedom is justice, and at the heart of justice lies the search for truth.
Throughout history, whenever the United States government has violated the trust of the American people, we have always worked to regain that trust by seeking the truth and allowing for a full examination of the abuses of government power.
In 1975, the Church Committee-which would later become the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence-looked into allegations of covert and illegal spying by the federal government on Americans.
What did the Committee find? The Committee found that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, and the CIA had engaged in spying on the political activities of American citizens.
As a result, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, setting up a new court with authority to approve electronic surveillance on a case by case basis.
But in late 2005, we learned that the U.S. government had again violated the trust of the American people when the New York Times published a story exposing a warrantless surveillance program authorized by President Bush shortly after 9/11.
Since that time, Congress and the American people have been grappling with the disclosure, and working, with absolutely no help from the Bush Administration, to find out exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, what we have before us today is a bill that would not only deny the Court the ability to finally make a judicial determination as to the legality of the NSA program, but would effectively guarantee immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Administration and violated the privacy of their customers.
Now, I would support granting the telecom companies indemnification, but this immunity provision blocks us from finding the truth.
I know that many of my colleagues in the Senate think we know enough about this program.
But we do not know enough. The Bush Administration trampled on the Constitution, and we are not doing anything in this bill to provide accountability.
This bill goes along with the premise that we hold up the constitution when it suits us, and we set it aside when it hinders what we want to do.
Simply put, this bill is a fig leaf that attempts to hide the truth about the warrantless surveillance program at the expense of the rights of our citizens.
And if we vote for it today, we are perpetuating a cover-up.
However, she has not said whether or not she supports the filibuster. You can call her right now:
Barbara Boxer
(202) 224-3553
It's important to note that our hope here is to DELAY. The odds of limiting cloture to 61 people are remote. But if Dodd and Feingold take up all their time on the floor, and enough Senators are there to help and ask questions, we can stretch this thing out. DFA has some sample text for Sen. Boxer:
"I calling to demand Senator (Boxer or Feinstein) support a filibuster of any bill that will ultimately grant immunity to telecommunications companies who spied on innocent Americans. Can I count on the Senator to stand up to President Bush and his fear mongering?"
DFA, True Majority, and MoveOn are working on this.
Update: Everything failed cloture. McConnell's bad amendment failed and so did Reid's good-ish 30-day extension. Which means that nothing has changed and we're back to where everything was last week. Except that now President Bush has some nice fodder for his speech. Updated update: Senators Boxer and Feinstein voted against cloture on McConnell's and for cloture on Reid's extension. Good votes all.
All sorts of interesting developments on the FISA debate over the weekend as we swing into the next phase of the showdown. First, the New York Times blasted leading Senate Democrats in an editorial for even considering an extension of Bush's protections. It also went ahead to say what so many of us know already: the notion that amnesty for telecom companies is anything but an attempt to cover up what this administration has been up to is...well...crazy. The President contends that amnesty is necessary to get cooperation in the future, but it just doesn't pass the smell test. If the law is followed, it's not a problem. And if there's any question about legality, the time to sort it all out isn't well after the fact. That's the whole point of having a FISA court in the first place.
Senator Feinstein holds one of the votes that could be vacillating this week as FISA winds through vote after vote. Call her and speak your mind about the ugly notion of providing amnesty to the telecoms. She has many phone numbers:
202-224-3841 (Washington, DC)
310-914-7300 (Los Angeles)
415-393-0707 (San Francisco)
619-231-9712 (San Diego)
559-485-7430 (Fresno)
Wabooom. Kabbbam. Iowa cauces...couple of thoughts:
John Edwards' number rounds up to 30, Hillary Clinton's rounds down to 29 (by 3/100ths of a point - ouch). There is a reason why $29.99 appears far less than $30.00
With same day registration, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden calling no joy, and fierce Baracketting, New Hampshire looks like another upset win for Barack Obama on Tuesday
This means Nevada will become Hillary's first potential win. This puts California boots in play with the ease of traveling to Vegas/Henderson or Reno
Expect this to put a f-ton of small dollar money heading to Anyone But Clinton -- I think Obama could best $12 million by New Hampshire
Clinton isn't in the top 3 on the huge facebook poll by the League of Young Voters, Moveon, et al.
Californians are suffering through high levels of predatory loans and some of the nation's highest foreclosure rates because of it. I've got to say that Bush and the Democratic Presidential candidates are pulling the wool over our eyes on the housing crises.
On freezing interest rates for subprime loans, Bush's plan today is a total crock. The NY Times reports his plan would "exclude many - if not most - subprime borrowers" including those who are delinquent on their payments. In a nutshell it's a sham.
But what's worse: a President no one trusts making promises no one believes or the Democratic candidates trying to replace him covertly aiding and abetting his policies?
Jesse Jackson spelled out the problem recently, noting nearly every single Democratic candidate lacks an agenda to promote African American issues while condescendingly expecting votes from that community. Presidential candidate Senator Chris Dodd is a key example. While loudly denouncing Bush for allowing the housing crises to precipitate, as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he has been helping Bush's HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson to close the last remaining resource for helping homebuyers avoid predatory loans.
Senator Dodd is siding with Senate Republicans to oppose Maxine Water's and Barney Frank's bill in the House to save downpayment assistance programs, which allow nonprofits to help working families with the 3% downpayment necessary for Federally insured home loans.
The posturing on this is reaching new heights....but where is the press in uncovering the double talk? Absent as usual.
I was rendered almost ill by John Edwards' stance in the debate against the decriminalization of marijuana because "it would send the wrong signal to young people." Chris Dodd made a strong response that cut to the heart of our failed prison policy.
DODD: Can I respond, I mean just why I think it ought to be? We're locking up too many people in our system here today. We've got mandatory minimum sentences that are filling our jails with people who don't belong there. My idea is to decriminalize this, reduce that problem here. We've gone from 800,000 to 2 million people in our penal institutions in this country. We've go to get a lot smarter about this issue than we are, and as president, I'd try and achieve that.
This, of course, is most acute in California, where we're waiting for the other shoe to drop on a federal court order that could potentially force the release of thousands of prisoners due to overcrowding. State Sen. Gloria Romero held her ground and didn't allow the usual spate of tougher sentencing bills to pass the Legislature this year. So once again, George and Sharon Runner will go to the ballot with a punitive measure designed to make themselves look tough while further battering a crippled prison system.
A year after bringing to California Jessica's Law, the crackdown on sex offenders, the husband-and-wife team of state Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner announced Monday a new initiative that would target gang members for tougher prosecution and dedicate nearly $1 billion annually to enforcement and intervention.
The Republican legislators from Lancaster hope to collect enough signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2008 ballot, and they have the backing of the father of the state's three-strikes law as well as law enforcement officials, including Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.
The Legislature has already rejected this bill, and it would again constrain the state budget with another walled-off mandate while doing nothing to address the major crisis in overcrowding. It's feel-good nonsense for "tough-on-crime" advocates.
By the way, let's see how the last initiative the Runners promoted, Jessica's Law, is working out:
Water-boarding is term that describes strapping an individual to a board, with a towel pulled tightly across his face, and pouring water on him or her to cut off air and simulate drowning.
When asked directly last week whether he thought waterboarding is constitutional, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was evasive. As noted by NPR, Mukasey "danced around the issue of whether waterboarding actually is torture and stopped short of saying that it is." "If it amounts to torture," Mukasey said carefully, "then it is not constitutional."
Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.
What about the Democrats in the U.S. Senate and other Democratic Presidential candidates? Will they oppose Mukasey unless he denounces the use of torture by our government?
Gov. Richardson, Sen. Dodd, and Sen. Edwards have offered both statements and resources for those suffering in our state this week.
John Edwards: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the more than 300,000 families who have been forced to flee their homes to escape the wildfires spreading across southern California. Those affected by this tragedy should take comfort in the fact that their fellow Americans are standing with them and will do whatever it takes to fight the fires and rebuild the homes and businesses that were destroyed."
Edwards is calling on his One Corps volunteers to assist in local projects in and around San Diego. You can sign up here.
Bill Richardson: "Today, we all extend our sympathies and prayers to those devastated by the wildfires in California. Millions of Americans are impacted by this natural disaster.
Neighbors should help neighbors in their time of need. As Governor of New Mexico, I ordered two fire crews (strike teams, with 5 engines and 21 crew members each) to California. As a candidate for President, I donated to the American Red Cross ($10,000 -ed.) and I encourage you to do so as well, click here to do so.
But as someone who believes the war in Iraq is a complete disaster and that we need to get our troops out now (www.getourtroopsout.com), I look at the natural disaster in California and feel compelled to also ask President Bush and every candidate who thinks it is okay for our troops to remain in Iraq until 2013 or longer - where is our National Guard?
It is a sad irony that yesterday, the very day I sent fire crews to California, 300 more New Mexico National Guard members were sent to Iraq. Just when we need them most at home, more of our brave men and women, true public servants, are sent away to a war we cannot win."
Chris Dodd: "As you know, Governor Schwarzenegger has had to ask other states for help because so many of California's National Guard, who provide critical support to the citizens while you are fighting the fires, were deployed to Iraq. In a Dodd Administration, never again will our houses be on fire because our troops are taking fire in Iraq. Never again will our first responders be left without the support they need because our President failed to do what it took to keep our communities safe. That is why in 2008, nothing will be more important than leadership that can get results that make us stronger and more secure. That's the first responsibility of an American President."
(Note: I posted this at Daily Kos recently, and based on a pretty good response I'm trying to give it a little more exposure. Hope you don't mind the crosspost)
John Edwards is pretty good when it comes to the credit card industry. To be sure, he has made an issue out of it, while I can't find much anything about the issue on either Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's websites. I'll give credit where it's due: He's willing to take on issues that matter to real Americans.
But then the flip-side of that is that I'm addressing this diary to him, and not to the others. They should listen too. But I think Edwards is the only one who might, and maybe is the one who can make the best political use as well.
Chris Dodd was the first Presidential candidate to speak out against the dirty tricks initiative being pushed by Arnold Schwarzenegger's old lawyer, that could steal up to 20 electoral votes in a right-wing power grab. Now John Edwards has gone a step further, setting up a petition to oppose the ballot initiative. I've added the full text on the flip.
I'm not sure where this petition is meant to go, or why it's only being sent to Californians - presumably everyone would be interested in stopping the Republicans from stealing the election. But clearly, it's interesting to see which candidates are stepping up and joining the chorus of those who want to see the next Presidential election decided fairly and free of dirty tricks.
August 19, 2007 - Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa (ABC) 8PM
August 27-28, 2007 - Cancer Forum, Cedar Rapids, IA (MSNBC & Live Streaming)
September 26, 2007 - Hanover, New Hampshire
October 30, 2007 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
November 15, 2007 - Las Vegas, Nevada
December 10, 2007 - Los Angeles, California
January 6, 2008 - Johnson County, Iowa
January 15, 2008 - Las Vegas, Nevada
January 31, 2008 - California
Of the top four candidates for the Democratic nomination former Sen. John Edwards is the only candidate who does not have any paid staff or campaign offices in the nation's largest state. The campaigns of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson all have devoted resources on the ground in California including offices and paid staffers.
Delegate rich California, with a population of 38 million people, will deliver a mega amount of delegates on February 5, 2008. In the latest SUSA poll Sen. Hillary Clinton has a 21 point lead in California over Sen. Barack Obama with Edwards finishing third with 15%.
"The Edwards insurgent road map is clear: convert progressive positions into labor endorsements, win Iowa, ride a big momentum wave in terms of press coverage and online money and then slingshot out to the bigger states" like California, said Democratic consultant Chris Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton White House who worked for Al Gore in 2000 and for 2004 presidential candidates John Kerry and Wesley Clark.
Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who's worked on presidential campaigns for Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt and Ted Kennedy, said if Edwards stumbles in Iowa "he won't have a California campaign."
However, Carrick said even while concentrating on the earlier states Edwards must establish a campaign in California if he is to take advantage of early momentum.
"If you don't have any preparation in California ... it makes it all the harder to be competitive here if you do get here," he said.
Carrick recalled that in 1988 Gephardt, the former Missouri senator, won Iowa and finished second in the New Hampshire primary, but lacking money he didn't have the organization in other states to be competitive and fell out of the race.
--
Edwards and Kerry carried California by double-digits in 2004, but surveys this year show the former senator trailing Clinton and Obama.
With Edwards' fundraising lagging millions behind Obama and Clinton he must pick his spots, said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
"You cannot campaign in California without spending tens of millions of dollars," Cain said. "He's got to think long and hard before he diverts money to California."
I was feeling pretty tired, so instead of thinking and writing, I made a collage! How fun! So, these are just some pictures from the weekend. Clockwise from top left, 1)Bill Richardson talking to hekebelos, dday, and blogswarm, 2) Charlie Brown blogging at Blue House at the Brew House, 3) Former Sen. Mike Gravel giving a speech Friday night, 4) Chris Dodd with dday, 5) Charlie Brown holding court at Karl Strauss Brewery, 6) Fabian Nunez with Hillary Clinton. In the center, Sen. Carole Migden is talking with a staffer before her energetic speech at the CYD caucus meeting.
So, I meant to include a picture of Jerry McNerney, but as I was playing with the thumbnails I accidentally grabbed a second Brown photo. Woops! Next time, Jerry. Any comments about the photos? Comment away!
Senator Chris Dodd sat down with several California bloggers to talk about the issues. In an extended interview he talked about the attention gap between the "first tier" and others. The media's limited focus seems to be ignoring the impressive Democratic Senator from Connecticut, but Sen. Dodd seems to be taking it in stride and working to get his name out there.
The interview then continues on to Iraq, where he believes that we cannot send any bill to W that does not have restrictions on time. His bill to restore habeus corpus seems to be meeting tough resistance in the Senate despite its strong support from citizen co-sponsors.
Later, Senator Dodd discusses why people are falling behind. He notes the decreasing number of union households and the failure of health care system to properly treat everybody in the country. He also addressed something that is important to me, the predatory lending and usury fees of check-cashers and payday loan operations.
You know, Senator Dodd gave a solid speech in the general assembly floor. Nothing spectacular, but good. He says the right things and understands the issues. He would be a very good president. You want experience? This man has it. You want good positions on the issues? Look up and down Dodd's issue checklist and tell me there are candidates that you agree with more. Heck, Tom Friedman aside, this man has proposed a carbon tax and has addressed the great challenges of our time. He would be a solid workaday president. That the media persists in its praying to the idol of celebrity while ignoring the actual issues. Listed David Geffen has no nukes, isn't a major source of carbon, and does not imprison people without telling them why. So why does the media report the garbage about that? Hey media, check this guy out.
Oh, and yeah, he addressed the whole Senator (CfL-CT) Lieberman thing.
I'm certainly not the greatest cameraman in the world, so this is basically just a shot of the Senator mug-shot style. This is the raw feed of the video, but the quality on Google Video is quite good. So, feel free to click through to see a larger version.
Just wanted to send a quick shout out to those of you who attended the meeting Senator Dodd had with the California bloggers. I am so gratified that it happened. A special note of thanks to Dday for his write-up of the occassion.
It's tough breaking through the traditional media filter at times. When the first AP story after the debate came out, Senator Dodd was afforded a two word quote about President Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq. "Failed policy" -- those were the two words found in the second to last paragraph of the story. Hardly a thorough summation of the Senator's position on Iraq when you consider he is the only candidate co-sponsoring Feingold-Reid and the only other besides Governor Richardson to publicly acknowledge his support for the bill.
Anyway, just know that if any of you have follow-up questions for the Senator or just want to know where he stands on what and why, don't hesitate to reach out and ask me. I'll direct the question through the appropriate channels and get those answers for you as soon as possible.
ttagaris at yahoo dot com is the best way to reach me.
Thanks again, and Brigham tells me there might be video of the exchange -- can't wait to see it.
Yesterday the Calitics staff sat down with Sen. Christopher Dodd, Senate Banking Committee chair and candidate for President in 2008, for about a 30-minute interview. Dodd impressed me as someone who thinks clearly about issues and the implications of them, who carefully ponders all of his decisions, and who always strives to do the right thing. In other words, a Democrat.
He's also embraced new media, hiring Tim Tagaris, who should be familiar to the netroots as having worked on Ned Lamont's campaign (here's a bio). Dodd talked about the new media era and how it can impact a campaign like his that is looking to get their views out in the face of the media-hyped monster that his Hillack Clintobama.
The full interview (not transcribed, but paraphrased) on the flip:
Net neutrality, as a resolution for this convention, is in effect dead. The resolution has been referred to the Labor Caucus, and that ruling will stand.
Now there is some good news. Brad Parker, a member of PDA and a staunch supporter of Net Neutrality, is on the Labor Caucus. He has spoken to people on that caucus and people on the Resolutions Committee, and he believes that he can get a strong resolution to the floor by the next convention. So it's a waiting game.
What has not been resolved is the idea that you can refer a resolution to a caucus, which as I said is unprecedented. Parker intends to take it up in the Resolutions Committee happening right now, and if not there then in the Rules Committee. The shenanigans pulled here were unconscionable.
About the impeachment resolution: there is no doubt in my mind that the new substitute language will become one of the top 10 resolutions brought to the floor tomorrow. The Resolutions Committee members would not be able to leave that room if they didn't place it in the top 10.
No word on getting the Audit Committee to a floor vote, I'll check on that.
And the Calitics staff did an exclusive interview with Sen. Christopher Dodd, we should have something on that (with pics) soon.
After Kucinich wrapped up, several bloggers had the opportunity to meet with Senator Chris Dodd for a quick roundtable (details on the flip). Right now, contested Regional Districts are holding their caucus elections and I'm eavesdropping a little bit outside of the Resolutions Committee meeting. We have several bloggers in the room, which is packed, sweltering, and spilling out into the hall. There are 33 resolutions listed in the packet being handed out, and as Dday and others have been explaining all weekend, there are some real fireworks going on.
Lots of fresh blood and a lot of emotion swirling around the building over Iraq, global warming, net neutrality and myriad other issues. I've discussed and overheard a lot of frustration from people whose resolutions got shot down on procedural rules...Something that we'll need to be all over in the future for sure. Nevertheless, the motivation in the air to get things done and be aggressive about it is palpable. This is a convention full of people ready to take action, and even if that motivation gets outflanked with tricky dealings in committee meetings, we're on the right track.
