Convention Notebook

Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008


Happy Mondays

"Will someone please convince me to vote for McCain?" Elizabeth Joyce, a supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., implored Monday night in a bar full of proponents of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The lifelong Democrat and editor of the political blog hireheels.com for the "Sex and the City" set, is ready and willing to cross over to the McCain camp . . . if only someone would give her a reason.

"A good little Catholic girl from Boston, I don't vote on the first date," Joyce said.

By 10 p.m., she still was not convinced, but Joyce does know she will not support Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Joyce and a handful of Clinton faithful at a Republican National Committee happy hour in Clinton's honor in downtown Denver were feeling jilted by the party's treatment of their candidate.

"I will never be for Obama. I don't believe he has been fairly chosen," said Marnie Delano, a New York member of People United Means Action, a PAC formed in June by Democrats who oppose Obama.

Delano, Joyce and a third Clinton supporter who would only allow his first name, Patrick, to be used, all alleged voter intimidation by Obama's camp during the primaries.

The event at the Paramount Cafe drew about 100 people, many of whom appeared to be McCain supporters from the beginning.

- by Anna Edney

Pay Equity Pushed

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said today pay equity legislation ought to be one of the first bills that Congress sends to the White House next year if Obama is elected president.

She was referring to her own bill that the House passed July 31, as well as the 2007 bill by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller of California to overturn a Supreme Court decision blocking sex-discrimination complaints.

Miller's bill also passed the House but both bills face Senate Republican filibusters and threatened vetoes by President Bush.

DeLauro drew a parallel to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which was the first major bill that President Clinton signed.

"Women and the economy is the number one issue in the election and it can be electorally transforming," DeLauro said. "Women feel economic impact with much greater force."
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said that "women have more at stake in this election than anybody else," and added that McCain has a pattern of "voting against the economic interests of women."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who was a strong supporter of Clinton's presidential campaign, said Clinton "was able to talk about economic issues in a way that reached people's reality" and that Obama "will be able to do the same thing."

- by Richard E. Cohen

Obama, McCain Top Bush

Americans have generally favorable views of both presidential candidates but are sour on Bush and Congress, according to a Diageo/Hotline poll released today. In the survey of 1,022 registered voters, 55 percent said they had strongly favorable or somewhat favorable views of Obama and 52 percent had similar views of McCain.

If the election were held today, 44 percent said they would vote for Obama, and 40 percent said they would back McCain. The race is tight among independents, with 38 percent saying they would vote for Obama, 36 percent saying they would pick McCain and 21 percent saying they were undecided.

Two-thirds of those polled, including 49 percent of Republicans, said Obama has done an excellent or good job "presenting himself as a potential president." Half of respondents, including 36 percent of Democrats, said the same about McCain.

Only 35 percent had favorable views of Bush and 33 percent approved of the job he is doing as president. While anemic, that rating is still twice as high as the 16 percent job-approval rating for Congress.

The poll was conducted last Monday through Sunday by Financial Dynamics and has a 3-point error margin. Obama picked Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware as his running mate after about 60 percent of the interviews were finished, but there was no appreciable difference in the pre-selection and post-selection numbers.

Rangel Plugs Tax Reform

New York Rep. Charles Rangel said he stands ready to do whatever Obama wants him to do on Capitol Hill in 2009, where Rangel chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, but that tax reform might provide the best opportunity for a quick legislative victory.

In an interview after the New York delegation breakfast Monday, where Clinton drew her strongest applause promising that an Obama administration would enact affordable health care for all, Rangel cautioned that would be "very difficult."

An Obama administration will have multiple priorities for its initial domestic legislative agenda: health care, economic recovery and climate change, among others. Each has a constituency demanding prompt action.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to revert to 2000 levels by 2011. Tax overhaul legislation would have to move through the Ways and Means Committee, where it, as well as parts of healthcare reform, must originate.

"I think tax reform will be easier," Rangel said, "and doing it first will make it easier to deal with health care, because you have to find a way to pay for healthcare reform."

Rangel said his goal is "to simplify and reform the over corrupt tax system."

Rangel reiterated he would be at president Obama's disposal.

"If he wants me to do the Colombia Free Trade Agreement first, sign me up," said Rangel, citing the highly controversial trade deal that sharply divides the Democratic Party, to make a point of his willingness to work with an Obama White House. No one expects Colombia to be an Obama priority.

- by Bruce Stokes

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