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W A S H I N G T O N, July 15, 2004—<br> -- NOTED NOW
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NEWS SUMMARY:Democrats who want John Kerry to be elected spend a lot their time these days fascinated and frightened by the prospect that President Bush will replace Vice President Cheney on the ticket.
Acknowledging that it all may be inside the Beltway clamor, the New York Times ' Elisabeth Bumiller looks at a new "rumor" in Washington that "Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush." LINK
How the talented Ms. Bumiller gets just above the front-page fold of her paper today with a story that includes the word "rumor" in the headline is really beyond us.
Look — the only reason to replace Mr. Cheney is if the calculus is made that doing so would increase the chances of Bush re-election.
And that calculation could NEVER be made precisely, since removing him would bring on at least some amount of base unhappiness (particularly if he were replaced by a moderate); some accusations of implicit concession of error on Iraq and other policies; and some charges of political craveness.
Bumiller's story has some clever suggestions that Republicans are a part of a three-way conversation on this, but for the most part, this is a Democrat-and-media dialogue.
In other political news (our all-time favorite transition … ), watch for and consider:
1. John Kerry at the NAACP, as the Congressional Black Caucus slams his new black-targeted ad campaign in the Los Angeles Times, and a likely escalation in the war of words between the two presidential campaigns on all this.
2. Another devastating media focus group in Ohio for the President.
3. The lessons learned from the gay marriage vote are all over the map.
4. Ditka's "no" leaves the Illinois GOP and George Allen without an obvious Senate candidate.
5. Sen. Clinton's convention role remains TBD.
6. The KE team on Imus included plenty of flirting but surprisingly little Edwards interrupting of Kerry; the duo brushed aside the usual questions about the $87 billion, the war, and others. And apparently, Kerry hasn't fully explained why he chose him. One interesting exchange:
Keying off of Sen. Edwards contention Monday on "Today" that Cheney has "lost touch," Imus asked Edwards if he knew how much a gallon of milk and a six pack of beer costs in Albuquerque, N.M.
Edwards said, "I know about what it costs. A half a gallon costs $2.30, $2.40."
Imus said a gallon costs $2.99.
Edwards declined to offer a guess as to the cost of a six-pack of beer, saying, "I haven't drank a six pack of beer in a long time. I haven't bought a six pack of beer in years. I don't know."
On the trail today, as we said/wrote, Sen. Kerry addresses the NAACP convention in Philadelphia this morning at 10:00 am ET after two down days in Boston, something President Bush declined, given the NAACP's ads and criticism of him since 2000. President Bush, though, plans to address the Urban League next week in Detroit.
Sen. Kerry also visits his first front porch as part of his campaign's "Front Porch Tour" in Lansdowne, Pa. at 1:30 pm ET, and travels to Charleston this afternoon for an evening fundraiser and rally.
President Bush signs the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act at the White House this morning at 10:05 am ET and meets with the president of Mongolia at 1:55 pm ET.
Sen. Edwards continues his first solo campaign run today in the South, attending a town hall meeting at 2:30 pm ET in New Orleans following his own "front porch" stop. He flies to Houston tonight for a fundraiser.
Today is the second "National Party for the president Day," and First Lady Laura Bush will be on a conference call with "tens of thousands" of Bush-Cheney supporters at 8:30 pm ET.
Mrs. Bush is also in the South today, speaking to the press after a Heart Truth campaign event in Jacksonville. After a Jacksonville fundraiser she travels to Nashville for the national Alpha Kappa Alpha convention.
Today is the deadline for Ralph Nader to submit signatures to be included on the Michigan ballot.
And the Senate debates and is expected to pass the FSC/ETI jobs bill today and afterward take up the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
Correction:
Newly hired Googling monkeys are required to master a 754-page style book and pass a test before they get their bananas, as it were.
Often, our monkeys have too much to do and we really need their help putting this Note out.
So we give them a one-page summary of the most important stylistic points. No embellishment from our stylistic analysts, no caveats. Just the facts, in black and white.
For reasons a special commission is investigating, although the given name of aforementioned New York Times super-writer Elisabeth Bumiller is spelled correctly in that style guide, sometimes, mistakes are made. Those monkeys (and humans) less accustomed to the Beltway sometimes replace the 's' with a 'z.'
We do so in yesterday's Note, and for that, we apologize. (We also apologize for making the exact same mistake in Noted Now this morning!)
Incidentally, we refuse requests to release the one-page summation of our longer report.
ABC News Vote 2004: Bush-Cheney v. Kerry-Edwards:
Susan Page of USA Today sat in on a Peter Hart-led focus group in Dayton, Ohio this week and discovered "the face of trouble for President Bush." LINK
This one is a must-read.
Following in the footsteps of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," C-SPAN and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania find through a soon-to-be televised focus group that Dayton voters are a "tough sell for both parties." LINK and LINK
ABC News Vote 2004: Kerry-Edwards '04:
Ron Fournier of the Family Wire breaks news that Sen. Kerry is reducing his ad buy in Missouri and Arizona and Virginia, but Tad Devine begs the world not to see any deeper meaning in all this. LINK
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wraps the Kerry campaign's "$2 million ad buy aimed at black audiences and news outlets." LINK
The Los Angeles Times' Anderson and Yang report the response to the new Kerry campaign ads from the Congressional Black Caucus' chair Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.). "Saying his opinion represented the consensus among the 25 or so caucus members who saw and heard the commercials, he added: 'We felt the ads just did not, would not grip African American people in a way that would cause them to be very excited about going to the polls for John Kerry.'"LINK
With what Patrick Healy of the Boston Globe referred to as "his strongest pitch yet to a key voting bloc," Sen. Kerry is not signaling fear of motivating the base. "The presumptive Democratic nominee, who has drawn lukewarm support in some quarters of the black community, chose to make the push now, a relatively early stage for niche advertising in a presidential race, to signal that blacks' support is important to him, advisers said."LINK
Healy has this: "One adviser said Kerry is so confident at this stage of the campaign that he plans to spend four days in Nantucket starting Saturday, away from the trail and working on his acceptance speech for the convention."
The UPN station in the Raleigh, N.C. area will benefit from the new KE04 African-American ad buy.
LINK
The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg was on the road with Sen. Edwards yesterday, and writes that his approach is still a work in progress. "Mr. Edwards is still very much feeling his way in his solo debut. As he melds his own vision with that of Mr. Kerry, the North Carolina senator must translate his hugely successful primary campaign speech about 'two Americas' — one for the rich and another for the poor — into a broader message that will highlight Mr. Kerry rather than himself." LINK
Our reporTER (The Edwards Reporter) Gloria Riviera (yep, she's BAACK!) phoned in this paragraph from last night, which we present to you unedited and left in its classic Blackberry style:
At the Kerry-Edwards "Victory Party" in Chicago last night, which Edwards and Elizabeth headlined, National Finance Chair Lou Susman announced a take of $750,000 dollars. All goes to KE04. Up and comer Barack Obama spoke, Lou intro'd EE (who btw has come a long way, baby, on her own oratory skills from a stumbling notes-in-hand intro back in IA in January to a smooth, crowd endearing intro last night) and EE intro'd "my guy, now your guy, John Edwards." Event was put together, they say, in five days. Obama's thoughts? "What a party!" He needs to get out more but anyway … Color: Edwards got a run by the river in just before the event last night, having had to skip his beloved workouts entirely last week.
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