The Note

ByABC News
November 14, 2003, 10:43 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 13&#151;<br> -- Today's Schedule (all times Eastern):

9:45 am: Governor Howard Dean unveils his higher education proposals at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.10:00 am: Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaks at Metro High School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa10:30 am: Doro Bush Koch officially files papers for her brother, President Bush, to be a candidate in the New Hampshire Republican Primary, Concord, N.H.10:45 am: Senator John Kerry holds a news conference to discuss clean air, Concord, N.H.11:45 am: General Wesley Clark takes a downtown walk, Portsmouth, N.H.12:00 pm: Senator John Kerry visits Verano's Restaurant, Manchester, N.H. 12:05 pm: President Bush attends a Bush-Cheney 2004 fundraiser luncheon, Buena Vista, Fla.12:30 pm: Governor Dean officially registers to be a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Concord, N.H.1:00 pm: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice briefs reporters on the President's upcoming trip to the U.K., White House1:30 pm: General Clark holds a "Conversations with Clark" town hall forum featuring Kosovar Albanians to discuss national security, Portsmouth, N.H.2:05 pm: President Bush makes remarks on Medicare, Orlando, Fla.3:00 pm: Congressman Kucinich visits the Center for Active Seniors, Inc., Davenport, Iowa5:00 pm: Governor Dean holds a town hall meeting on education at Winnacunnett High School, Hampton, N.H. 6:05 pm: President Bush attends a Bush-Cheney 2004 fundraiser dinner, Ft. Myers, Fla.7:00 pm: General Clark attends the Merrimack County Fall Harvest Dinner, Bow, N.H.7:00 pm: Congressman Kucinich attends a meet-and-greet, Davenport, Iowa8:00 pm: Reverend Al Sharpton speaks to Broadway Democrats, New York City11:35 pm: ABCNEWS' Nightline profiles Vice President Dick Cheney (check local listings)

NEWS SUMMARY

Issues, smishues.

Try as it might to care about the interstices of Robert Pear's love affair with the details of a Medicare compromise, The Note lives and breathes ELECTIONS.

Wins and losses, tactics and strategy, checks and checkmates, gaffes and pratfalls these are the political dynamics that make up our very biorhythms.

No truly authentic (or are they?) campaign memos today from us (The cutie at Kinko's claimed there were none lying around last night.).

Instead, our focus is on two elections three if you count the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, along with next November's battle royale, and what appears to be a new Administration effort to, in effect, call for snap elections, Brit-style, in the 51st state of Iraq.

Your must must-read is a Wall Street Journal front-pager by Schlesinger and Cummings that adopts a relatively bullish Vilmanian world view casting the Democrats' prospects of beating President Bush as easy as 1-2-3-4-5.

"Now the Democrats' battle plan is starting to take shape, with five main objectives. Neutralize Mr. Bush's national-security edge by fanning doubts about his Iraq policy. Craft economic attacks that can work even if the economy keeps improving. Dent the president's reputation for honesty and competence. Mobilize Democratic partisans in 17 states that Mr. Bush barely won or lost in 2000. And maneuver around the new campaign-finance law by redirecting now-banned big donations away from the Democratic Party to a new set of groups that will coordinate attacks on Mr. Bush."

(Note how the Dow Duo sneakily obtained an on-the-record Bob Shrum quote!).

What else is there in this news cycle?

Howard Dean: more inevitability-flavored money/union/momentum stories.

John Kerry: took his New Hampshire one-day story "campaign in disarray" lumps (getting his two first-in-the-nation batterings out of the way).

Dick Gephardt: splashy New York Times front-page profile treatment, and Dave Neal and Tom Beaumont agree it's Dick Gephardt's fight for the nomination, too.

Mel Martinez: if you count electoral votes for BC04, the HUD Secretary must sure prospectively look a heck of a lot better sharing the top of the Sunshine State ticket than, say, Katherine Harris.

Watch for an 11:00 am ET gathering to announce the left side of the spectrum's answer to GOPAC in "PROPAC," an initiative from the Progressive Majority to "run the next generation of progressive elected leaders." Expected on hand for today's initiative kick-off: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Progressive Majority Executive Director Gloria Totten, and Progressive Majority Bob Borosage.

Says one of the event's organizers, "the message is a little more hard-edged, economic base than the traditional Democratic" one.

President Bush attends a pair of Florida fundraisers today. He'll also make remarks on Medicare in between. He's right around, or over, $100 million and closing in (or over, depending on how one counts checks) his 2000 number for the all-time record.

Governor Dean, Senator Kerry, and General Clark all campaign in New Hampshire.

Congressman Kucinich campaigns in Iowa today.

Reverend Sharpton campaigns in New York City.

Congressman Gephardt, Senator Edwards, Senator Lieberman, and Ambassador Moseley Braun all have no public events announced for today.

ABC News Vote 2004: Bush-Cheney re-elect:

New York Times ' Maureen Dowd looks at the "Bizarro world" of Vice President Cheney and how just the sound of his voice "has the same effect on some male Republicans, starting at the very top, and even some journalists, that a high-pitched whistle has on a dog." LINK

Tonight, Nightline's Ted Koppel looks at the power and influence of Vice President Cheney in a half-hour broadcast on the man that U.S. News & World Report recently dubbed "The Man Behind the Curtain."

Koppel talked with columnist Robert Novak, former NSC officials Richard Clarke and Ivo Daalder, historian Douglas Brinkley, former CIA official Vince Cannistraro and the Heritage Foundation's John Hulsman to get a full picture on who Cheney is, how he ended up on the ticket in 2000 and the role he played on 9/11 and in the war in Iraq.

A sneak peak at what you'll hear tonight (and we promise you will not be disappointed):

Robert Novak: "I would say he is the second-most influential and powerful figure in the administration."

John Hulsman: "He's the guy who is the CEO of George Bush's corporation."

Douglas Brinkley: "He is the ultimate adviser you want, because he has no agenda for his future."

More Hulsman: "I think that Dick Cheney is probably the biggest story that isn't talked about out in the wider country as a whole. I think his power is unparalleled in the history of the republic, frankly, for that position."

Nightline airs at 11:35 pm ET check your local listings.

AP's Theimer reports that the Bush-Cheney campaign will be right around the $100 million mark after two fundraising events today in Florida that are expected to bring in about $1.5 million. LINK

And the Washington Times ' Donald Lambro looks at why an incumbent needs to raise so much money and why the new campaign finance laws actually help the president's re-election campaign "Mr. Bush, thanks to the GOP's huge donor base, can easily raise what he needs under the law's contribution limits. The Democrats, hampered by the soft-money ban and its much smaller donor list, needs billionaires like Mr. Soros to make up the difference." LINK

Ron Fournier writes that death tolls and Iraq policy are hurting Bush among military voters. Says one soldier, "I liked Bush. He comes off as a decent fellow But as commander in chief? No way. Not now." LINK

An NBC- Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday shows that 50 percent of respondents approved of Bush's handling of the economy, up from 43 percent two months ago, according to the AP. LINK

The Buffalo News previews Vice President Cheney's trip to upstate New York on Monday, where he will make stops in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.

"Monday's event could be the only campaign visit of either Bush or Cheney during the 2004 race. If campaign officials think that heavily Democratic New York State will tilt away from the GOP next year, Bush and Cheney could repeat past Republican patterns and avoid the state except for its Manhattan fund-raising nexus."LINK

Christopher Marquis reports in The New York Times that Bush's allies plan to block effort to ease ban on Cuban travel. LINK

The politics of national security:

The majors say the U.S. has reached a "turning point" in Iraq leading to a "major shift" in strategy, with most everyone using the numbers "2004" somewhere in their story. Today everyone gives chase to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Wednesday CIA memo scoop (Kudos to Mr. Landay!), Italy's Berlusconi vows to stay the course despite Wednesday's attack, and $87.5 billion becomes one of the magic numbers on the Democratic presidential campaign trail. (Please see entries under "Dean, Howard," "Lieberman, Joe," and, oh, just about everyone else )

In what is definitely not good news for a White House struggling to set American policy in Iraq right, the Washington Post 's Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks report the latest spate of attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq "has appeared to be so methodical and well crafted that some top U.S. commanders now fear this may be the war Saddam Hussein and his generals planned all along." DO read all Major General Swannack's quotes. LINK

The Wall Street Journal reports on the latest "Iron Hammer" American offensive then turns to the "more aggressive political strategy" now being implemented. "In an effort to calm Iraqi anger at the U.S. occupation and to leach off popular support for the insurgency, President Bush, his top national security advisers and Mr. Bremer have decided to speed up their timetable for Iraqi self-government. At a White House meeting Wednesday, a senior U.S. official said there was general agreement for dissolving the current Iraqi Governing Council, and over the next four to six months creating a transitional government with a prime minister and cabinet to present a clear Iraqi face to the nation and the world."

The New York Times Notes the "early transfer of power" would not bring with it a "withdrawal of American troops, administration officials said. But if an Iraqi government could command broad support within the country, it could enable a significant draw down of troops before the American elections next November." LINK

The Washington Post 's Robin Wright and Daniel Williams report that the Bush administration "plans to support the creation of a reconstituted governing body in Iraq that will assume a large degree of sovereignty by next summer and possibly end control by the U.S.-led occupation before the 2004 presidential election." LINK

And the AP out of Baghdad reports, "With rising U.S. casualties in Iraq now a factor in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, officials in Washington and Baghdad are looking at every option to advance America's political blueprint for a democratic and free Iraq by the end of next year." LINK