Posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 by campaign2008
The New York Times looks at Sen. Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Benazir Bhutto.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a press conference yesterday that he had urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to offer the services of U.S. intelligence and security agencies for the investigation into Bhutto’s death.
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) will deliver a major speech today in which he will criticize U.S. policy toward Pakistan as having been “too much on personalities like President Musharraf and not enough on democratic principles and human rights.” In the speech, he will pledge that if he is elected, “not a penny more in aid will be provided to Pakistan to fight terrorism until Musharraf leaves office.”
Posted in General Election, Morning Update, Pakistan | 1 Comment »
Posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 by Joanna Klonsky
Time’s The Page blog lists in full the presidential candidates’ responses to Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination today. The candidates all expressed condolences to Bhutto’s family and followers, as well as grave concern about the region’s stability. Most of the candidates also emphasized the need for continued U.S. pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to stay on the path to democracy in Pakistan.
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) notably called on Musharraf to step aside and allow a “broad-based coalition government, consisting of all the democratic parties” to form.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) noted the “deep implications” of Bhutto’s death for U.S. security in light of Pakistan’s “strategic location, the international terrorist groups that operate from its soil, and its nuclear arsenal.”
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said he is convinced Bhutto “would have won” Pakistan’s upcoming elections, which are now apparently in jeopardy. He also called for a “transparent investigation” into her death.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) also released a statement urging the United States to “stop adding fuel to the fire” in the region.
Mike Gravel, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Fred Thompson have yet to release statements regarding Bhutto.
Update: Fred Thompson responded on Fox News to Bhutto’s assassination.
Posted in General Election, Pakistan | 0 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 by campaign2008
Fred Thompson told Radio Iowa he remains unsure whether climate change exists. “We’ve had cooling periods in our country. We don’t know the extent to which man-made causes are contributing to it,” he said.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) raised eyebrows when he said Sunday on Meet the Press that the United States is on a path to fascism, and that the Civil War could have been prevented. Asked if the United States should respond if Iran invaded Israel, Paul replied, “Well, they’re not going to. That is like saying ‘Iran is about to invade Mars.’”
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and his family spent Christmas Eve packing supplies (Des Moines Register) for the Iowa troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted in Climate Change, Iran, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 by campaign2008
“The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous.
One would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy.”
–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today, in response to Mike Huckabee’s comment in Foreign Affairs that the Bush administration’s foreign policy is guided by a “bunker mentality.”
Posted in General Election, Quote of the Day | 1 Comment »
Posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 by campaign2008
Gov. Bill Richardson, running about fourth Democratic presidential polls, attacked Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) yesterday for saying recently she would withdraw almost all troops from Iraq within a year of taking office. “She’s been saying she would keep troops in Iraq for five years, until 2013, and now she comes up with an inconsistent, incredible turnaround,” Richardson told the New York Times.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) yesterday reiterated his call for a special counsel to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) called the passage of the Comprehensive Nuclear Threat Reduction provision of the omnibus appropriations bill an “important step.” The plan, which Obama co-authored, requires that “all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material at vulnerable sites around the world are secure by 2012.”
Posted in General Election, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 by Joanna Klonsky
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has ended his campaign for the Republican nomination.
Though Tancredo’s campaign centered on his firm opposition to illegal immigration, he struggled to hold onto that niche as more prominent Republican candidates latched onto the anti-illegal immigration theme. In a December 2007 Republican debate in which other candidates argued forcefully over whom among them was toughest on immigration, Tancredo complained that they were all “trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo.”
Though Tancredo did not register on national polls, his single-issue candidacy, and the increased focus on immigration by other Republican candidates, reflects a growing sense of anxiety among some voters that their nation is under attack, or at the very least incapable of coping with the immigration question. Tancredo’s campaign picked up on that trend: “It’s your country,” his website reminded voters. “Take it back!”
While he made headlines far less often than mainstream candidates, Tancredo’s brand of hardline rhetoric on immigration received attention as an increasingly popular phenomenon. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza attributed the rise of “Tancredoism” to the Republican field’s push “farther to the right, especially on immigration,” and to the “disproportionate influence” of states like Iowa and South Carolina, where voters are polling as more concerned about immigration than the rest of the country.
As Marc Ambinder blogs for Atlantic.com, Tancredo has forced at least four presidential candidates “to completely change the way they talk and think about immigration. Even Democrats call for border security first.”
Posted in General Election, Immigration | 1 Comment »
Posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 by campaign2008
In a blog post, Gov. Bill Richardson criticized his Democratic presidential rivals again on Iraq. “Some of my fellow candidates have decided to stop talking about Iraq,” he said. “I’m not sure if they think the surge is working, or just that their polls tell them it is simpler and safer to follow the media’s lead and just forget our brave troops and what this war is costing us.”
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) announced endorsements from “over sixty foreign policy experts, with experience ranging from the State Department and the Pentagon, to the White House and the U.S. Congress.”
The Senate passed Sen. Joe Biden’s (D-DE) Burma Democracy Promotion Act yesterday. The legislation imposes new financial sanctions and travel restrictions on the country’s military junta.
Posted in General Election, Iraq, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 by campaign2008
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s new campaign ad, titled “All Out,” draws contrast between himself and the frontrunning Democrats on Iraq:
Richardson’s new Foreign Affairs piece details his views on Iraq and other key foreign policy issues.
Posted in General Election | 0 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 by Joanna Klonsky
In her final fundraising push before the January 3 Iowa caucuses for presidential
candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) drew some 700 supporters to a Chicago fundraiser last night. At the event, billed as her “Illinois Grand Finale,” Clinton repeated her line from last week’s DesMoines Register debate subtly digging at her Democratic opponents, John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): “Some people believe you get change by demanding it. Some people believe you get change by hoping for it. I believe you get change by working really, really hard.”
Clinton continued to push her theme of “a new beginning” for America, including energy policy. “Aren’t you tired of sending all this money to the foreign countries that send us oil and then in return use the money we send them to use against us?” she asked the crowd. Clinton pledged to lead an “Apollo shot” for energy independence. “We’re going to get back to leading the world, instead of denying the problem when it comes to global warming,” she said, noting that her energy plan could create “millions of new good jobs” that “can’t be outsourced.”
On the economy, Clinton said the U.S. borrows billions of dollars a day “from countries from China to Mexico. We borrow money from China to buy oil from the Saudis,” she said. “This is not a smart strategy.”
Clinton missed the vote yesterday granting the Bush administration another $70 billion for war funding, including funding for the military in Iraq. But she repeated her promise to end the war in Iraq and called bringing the troops home the most “important task” she will face as president. She did not address her specific plan for phased redeployment of troops from Iraq, which her opponents have criticized as not going far enough to end combat missions.
Still, the crowd of Clinton supporters responded enthusiastically to her talk of ending the war, and her promise to take care of the troops returning from Iraq. “[T]oo many of them come home injured, without a job, without the help they deserve, without the compensation they have earned,” she said.
Clinton ended by saying she would “immediately begin working with the rest of the world again” when elected. She said she will ask “people of both parties” to travel abroad to bring the message that “the era of cowboy diplomacy is over.”
Posted in Energy Policy, General Election, Iraq | 0 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 by campaign2008
None of the four Democratic Senators running for president attended yesterday’s vote approving an additional $70 billion in funding for the wars (WashPost) in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic candidates have been running on a platform of removing or heavily redeploying U.S. troops in Iraq.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has unveiled a new economic plan, which includes measures for “market-based energy reform” and for lowering trade barriers.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) yesterday praised the passage in Congress of the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, which encourages divestment from Darfur. “This legislation takes a vital step in the right direction by empowering American investors, taxpayers, and pensioners to divest from businesses supporting the murderous Khartoum regime,” Dodd said.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) criticized the energy bill passed in Senate last week. While the bill “might make us feel better about ourselves,” he said yesterday, it the “does nothing to address the supply side of the equation.”
Posted in Africa, Energy Policy, General Election, Iraq, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
