Sarah Palin clearly was in her comfort zone when she chatted on-air Tuesday with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. As The Ticket noted , she presented a persona and offered some lines that could serve her well in her Thursday debate with Joe Biden.
Tuesday also saw the broadcast of another of her several interviews with Katie Couric of CBS.
This segment may not spark more calls from conservative commentators that Palin give up her spot on the Republican national ticket. But in front of the television cameras -- and in the face of more pointed questioning -- the self-assurance that marked her conversation with Hewitt continued to elude her.
One answer by Palin will do little to quell concerns about her position on global warming. As she did with ABC's Charlie Gibson a few weeks back, she did her best to skirt a direct answer on its causes.
From the transcript:
Couric: What’s your position on global warming? Do you believe it’s man-made or not?
Palin: Well, we’re the only Arctic state, of course, Alaska. So we feel the impacts more than any other state, up there with the changes in climates. And certainly, it is apparent. We have erosion issues. And we have melting sea ice, of course. So, what I’ve done up there is form a sub-cabinet to focus solely on climate change. Understanding that it is real. And …
Couric: Is it man-made, though in your view?
Palin: You know there are -- there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, these impacts. I’m not going to solely blame all of man’s activities on changes in climate. Because the world’s weather patterns are cyclical. And over history we have seen change there. But kind of doesn’t matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is: it’s real; we need to do something about it.
Pardon us for asking, but would it not be difficult to devise an effective policy to mitigate the effects of global warming without a firm grasp on what caused it?
Sarah Palin, who has struck many as a refreshing break from politicians-as-usual, seemed to do Thursday what politicians usually do as their horizons expand -- moderate a previous position on a controversial subject.
By the same token, a close reading of what she said shows a lot of hedging on her hedge.
The subject was global warming, covered in Chapter 2 of ABC's multi-part interview with the Alaska governor whom John McCain cast as his running mate. Just a few weeks ago, in an interview with the conservative-leaning website Newsmax.com, Palin had this to say: "I'm not one ... who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made."
Asked about that view by anchorman Charlie Gibson in a clip played on "Nightline," her initial response was: "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change."
A shift, to be sure, but note the use of "can be" instead of "are."
Borrowing another page from those oh-so-loathsome typical politicians, she sought to re-frame the discussion. Said Palin: "Regardless, though, of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet -- the warming and the cooling trends -- regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it, and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution.... Things are getting warmer. Now what do we do about it? And John McCain and I are gonna be working on what we do about it."
Gibson wasn't ready to move on, though. He said: "Yes, but isn't it critical as to whether or not it's man-made? Because what you do about it depends on whether it's man-made."
She responded: "That is why I'm attributing some of man's activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now."
Again, an apparent shift. But note the wiggle room she left herself with that word "potentially."
Somewhere inside the Beltway, grizzled politicos were smiling.
DENVER -- "Clearly, the economy is an issue," says Heather Higginbottom, domestic policy director for Barack Obama.
But the first months of an Obama adminstration, she said during a panel discussion today at a downtown Denver hotel, would:
* "Responsibly" end the war in Iraq.
* Push for comprehensive health care reform
* Launch a similar effort on the energy front, with an aim of eliminating U.S. dependence on foreign oil and tackling in a more aggressive way climate change.
Laudable and ambitious goals.
But some Democrats -- increasingly worried about the apparent closeness of the presidential race (John McCain pulled into a lead nationally today in the Gallup daily tracking poll) -- may have wanted Higginbottom to emphasize the economy just a wee bit more (as they would like Obama to do on the trail).
Later, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, a panelist who hadn't arrived yet at the forum when Higginbottom held forth, tellingly named first a middle-class tax cut when asked what an Obama administration could accomplish that would make for a bright midterm election for Democrats in 2010.
Higginbottom also offered a concise summation of why Obama, despite his newness on the national stage, decided to seek the presidency (a question no doubt still bugging Hillary Rodham Clinton cadres). Said the aide: "The stakes were so high, the opportunities so ripe."
-- Don Frederick
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John McCain came face to face Tuesday with the "passion gap" in this year's presidential race. It came in the form of Doug Englekirk, a wiry 46-year-old contractor from the Lake Tahoe area.
Repeated polls have shown great gusto among Democrats excited about November’s election and the prospect of voting for the party’s presumptive nominee, Barack Obama. For many Republicans who are pondering their choice ... well, not so much.
Or, as Englekirk told McCain at a town hall session in Sparks, Nev.: “I speak for a lot of conservatives. I’m not very excited about this election.”
To a smattering of applause, Englekirk asked McCain what he might do or say to kindle a bit more enthusiasm from the right.
The Arizona senator responded with a question of his own: What (in so many words) was Englekirk’s beef?
He responded with a litany: McCain’s stance on illegal immigration -- which Englekirk dubbed “amnesty” -– his support for campaign finance reform, his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, his running with “the global-warming crowd” and his membership in the Senate’s so-called “Gang of 14.”
McCain addressed two of the complaints, starting with the “gang” -- a bipartisan group of senators who worked in 2006 to avoid a legislative meltdown over the appointment of federal judges.
McCain noted that he has voted for plenty of conservatives judges, including Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and said he would appoint to the bench only judges “who will strictly interpret the Constitution.”
McCain also said “global warming is real” and needs to be seriously addressed -- a position he staked out early in this campaign and one widely seen as an effort to distance himself from President Bush.
Wrapping up his response to Englekirk, McCain said: “I’m a conservative. Unabashed conservative. But I also believe I am in keeping with the vision of one Ronald Reagan. It’s healthy to have disagreements.”
Afterward, Englekirk said McCain had sold him -- up to a point.
He appreciated the candidate's answer about the Gang of 14, but worried the federal government would just use the global warming issue as an excuse to pick taxpayer pockets.
“I can’t vote for Obama,” Englekirk said, a baseball cap pulled low on his brow. “I’m going to vote for McCain. I’d just like to be excited about it.”
Ticket readers no doubt remember our item the other day about German Chancellor Angela Merkel sending out a spokesman to express "great skepticism as to whether it is appropriate to bring an election campaign being fought not in Germany but in the United States to the Brandenburg Gate."
It's a really nice-looking gate all right, not in the Wyoming sense, but in that monolithic, stone European horses-and-chariots sense. In fact, the Brandenburg has horses on top.
It would make a terrific backdrop for some freshman senator from Illinois with not that much foreign affairs experience to be seen giving a speech on, say, foreign affairs.
Ronald Reagan, who was also from Illinois, spoke there as a sitting president, not someone running for it. And when he went against his advisors' urgings and called on Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, the gate was a symbol of the Cold War.
Today, it's a symbol of German unity. But to Americans, it just looks really foreign -- in large part because nothing in the United States would be allowed to stand like that for 219 years.
Not without being rezoned for lofts.
Foreign-looking is all an American candidate really needs anyway.
Friday, just two days after the Germans seemed to ...
Our colleague Noam Levey has a story today weighing John McCain's voting history and public stances on a wide range of energy issues. It's a mixed bag, Levey reports:
"At times he has backed measures to ease restrictions on oil drilling off the coast and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other times he has voted to keep them.
"He has championed standards to require that automakers make vehicles more fuel-efficient, yet opposed standards to require that utilities use less fossil fuel by generating more power from renewable sources, such as wind and solar.
"McCain has rejected federal tax breaks for renewable energy producers, but backs billions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear industry.
"He has criticized corn-based ethanol for doing 'nothing to increase our energy independence.' Yet while campaigning in 2006 in the Midwest corn belt, McCain called ethanol a 'vital, vital alternative energy source.'
"Senior McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin said McCain's positions reflected a pragmatic approach to governing. 'Sen. McCain is interested in getting results,' he said."
Beyond the policy confusion this can engender (and we'll leave that for others to dissect), it points up the inherent problem any legislator faces in running for president: The longer the service, the bigger the pool for opposition researchers to swim in.
So in an odd bit of political irony, here Barack Obama's relative lack of legislative experience could be an advantage -- fewer votes, fewer points of exposure.
The Democratic National Convention is making a show of trying to be environmentally friendly, and as longtime polar bear fans we can't object. And as fans of a certain beverage that has been part of the human experience since, well, forever, we can't object to the way they plan to fuel their ethanol cars.
Turns out Coors has been converting some of its bad beer -- yes, there is such as thing -- into ethanol at a plant in Golden, a Denver suburb. They make about 3 million gallons of it a year to blend with gasoline for E85 ethanol (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline).
And come August, some of it will be poured into part of the Democrats' convention fleet of 450 vehicles, 20% of which will run on E85, DNC transportation director Al Timothy Andrew Ballard told KUSA-TV in Denver.
Coors is the official ethanol sponsor for the convention, and you have to wonder if someone in Coors marketing pondered the sagacity of being known as the firm that gave gas to politicians. But it all makes us wonder which will consume more alcohol August 25-28 -- the cars, or the delegates?
Jason Burnett has made a lot of news lately, criticizing the Bush administration for rejecting California’s request for a federal waiver that would allow the state to enforce greenhouse gas restrictions.
Burnett, until recently the associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, last month testified before a congressional panel about the possible White House role in overruling the EPA staff’s recommendation of the waiver. Since then, Burnett has given numerous interviews on the issue.
Now Burnett is using his checkbook to do his talking. After quitting the administration last month, he donated $3,600 to Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. That came on top of a $1,000 contribution he made to Obama before joining the EPA.
A Stanford-trained economist and a Democrat, Burnett, 31, said in an interview that he is moving back to Northern California to campaign for Obama and Democratic Rep. Sam Farr of Carmel. He's counting on them to support more efforts to curb greenhouse gases.
“Climate change endangers health and welfare," Burnett said. "The EPA is required to use existing law to reduce greenhouse gases. The sooner we begin addressing it in earnest, the better off we’ll be.”
Burnett predicted that California will get its waiver, either by court order or after the next president--Obama or his Republican opponent, John McCain--takes office.
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Californians who've contributed hard-earned cash to presidential campaigns finally will start to see some of what it buys: TV ads.
Democrat Barack Obama raises the curtain Saturday with the first television pitch by a presidential candidate on Golden State stations this cycle. The environmentally themed spot is slated to air on broadcast outlets in the Bay Area, according to a campaign official.
The 30-second ad's last lines encapsule Obama's efforts to define himself as a politician willing to break from the past: "We can't just tell people what they want to hear. We need to tell them what they need to hear. We need to tell them the truth."
Numerous political activists and consultants are quietly establishing campaign organizations these days with the goal of influencing the 2008 presidential campaign.
It’s tough to tell which will actually develop and have any impact on the race. But The Times' Dan Morain, who monitors campaign finances, has come upon documents for voters to keep their eye on.
It's the American Alliance for Energy Independence.
Given the events in Washington this week, a practiced eye might assume that the United States’ energy future is likely to be an issue in the 2008 general election campaign. Congress approved and the president signed one bill increasing gas mileage requirements for all vehicles, and a second measure to grant loan guarantees to power companies that might seek to build new nuclear power plants.
And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency blocked California’s effort to curb greenhouse gases.
While energy has received passing attention in the presidential campaign, two Democratic politicos are convinced that given the stakes, the issue needs a tad more attention. Hence, they took out papers recently to create American Alliance, a 527, so named for the revenue code section that defines rules governing such independent political organizations.
Both organizers come by way of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who had a short-lived presidential candidacy and sought to make energy a key issue before dropping out and endorsing Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Craig Varoga, the Alliance's president, was former campaign manager for Vilsack’s brief presidential effort. Joe Householder was the governor's communications director in his 2002 reelection campaign. In 2003 and 2004, Householder became communications director for Clinton, and now works at Public Strategies, a Texas-based consulting firm.
Varoga hopes to attract donations, say $2 million, for ads and activities to generate attention for the concept of energy independence and to urge presidential candidates to get specific on the topic, a perennial issue for the past several presidential contests.
“If we wake up in November 2008," says Varoga, "and there was no serious discussion about energy independence, we’ll be worse off.”
As an actor, Fred Thompson knows the value of repeats (nothing like residual checks to keep the bank account healthy).
As a presidential contender, he's hoping that repeated references to what's become known as his "hands down" moment will boost his political stock.
Amid continuing negative critiques of his campaign style, he is reveling in his one widely acclaimed star turn since entering the race -- his refusal, during last week's Republican candidate debate in Des Moines, to accede to the moderator's request for a raised-hand answer to a question on global warming.
In Iowa, his campaign bus now includes this slogan: "The Clear Conservative Choice. Hands Down." (You can take a look here.) He's also been telling voter after voter that he won the debate -- you guessed it -- "hands down."
Tuesday night, on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show, Thompson expanded his repertoire. Said he: "I'm not raising my hand until Chief Justice John Roberts swear me in (as president)."
A good line. But chances are he's going to need several more -- quickly -- to win a show of hands among political pros on his chances of emerging as his party's nominee.
The presidential candidates -- both Democratic and Republican -- have taken umbrage previously to being asked to stake a position during a debate with a show of hands. At today's GOP face-off in Des Moines, Fred Thompson flat-out staged a revolt.
Asked by moderator Carolyn Washburn to demonstrate, by raising their hands, whether they believed global warming was a serious problem caused by human activity, Thompson spoke out, asking for a minute to answer the question.
Denied, he snapped: "You want a show of hands. I'm not giving it to you."
A fractured discussion followed, with Duncan Hunter making a point to stress that, in his view, human activity is partially -- not totally -- fueling global warming.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets back in front of the camera (OK, as a politician he never really left, but still) as part of a new ad campaign geared toward pressuring recalcitrant members of Congress to move swiftly on legislation to lessen global warming.
The ad, to begin airing next week in 17 markets, was put together by Environmental Defense and features Schwarzenegger, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat, and Jon Huntsman Jr., the Republican governor of Utah. All notably are governors of Western states with wide areas of stunning natural beauty -- and the tourism-based economy that goes with it.
Schwarzenegger has been pressing the federal government on global warming, but also has his own well-heeled baggage on the issue. Frustrated with what they view as a lack of federal leadership on the issue, Schweitzer and Huntsman also have struck out on their own.
The reason for the ad campaign now? Environmental Defense wants to make sure the issue gets its due during the current election cycle. And with Al Gore still not running for president, the political dialogue has revolved primarily around the war in Iraq and healthcare. Place your bets on how much attention the issue gets in tonight's Democratic debate in Las Vegas on CNN at 5 Pacific time.
No more seizing on every strand of hope -- his daughter's wedding, his appearance on an NBC TV show, his sighting at a global environmental concert in New Jersey of all places -- that the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate would become the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate and save the party from more planted questions, who can get out of Iraq faster and who to tax more next.
Can it be true?
"I don't expect to be a candidate again," he told the New York Times. Maybe they got it wrong and what he really said was, "I do intend to be a candidate again."
But it doesn't look good for the Draft Gore movement here and here and here.
It seems Gore has taken a job in industry promoting a whole new string of coal-fired electrical-generating plants throughout the Ohio Valley. They wanted someone with good Washington connections and some environmental credentials to make the case for acid rain on "Larry King Live" and elsewhere.
Just kidding. The Times reports that Big Al has taken a part-time partnership in a Silicon Valley venture capital firm called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where he'll devote time to investigating the potential of new green industries, especially the growth potential of start-up companies in the alternative energy sector.
Al Gore already has an advisory role with Google in the Bay Area, sits on the board of Apple and is founder of Current TV, the San Francisco-based cable channel you've never heard of because it's devoted to viewer-created material.
Gore says he will donate his salary to promote national energy independence to the APSNWP, the Alliance to Promote Stripmining in National Wildlife Preserves.
Just kidding. He intends to contribute the money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit foundation. Maybe in 2012 we can try to get him to run again.
"A full two-thirds of respondents to a new Marist/WNBC poll said they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a 9-point increase from fall 2006. Harris' 'Alienation Index' has also risen slightly since last year, as more Americans told pollsters this month that they feel the nation's leaders don't care about them and are out of touch with the country at large.
"Considering such widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo, it's no wonder 58 percent of registered voters responding to a new Gallup/USA Today poll said the outcome of the 2008 presidential race matters more to them than previous elections. For many months the conventional wisdom had placed the blame for the public's angst squarely on President Bush and the Iraq war. But recent polls suggest that Americans are increasingly worried about traditional bread-and-butter issues, too."
And the butterhas been melting. So it's a "pox on both their houses" mood out there, though other polls show that more people think the Democrats are better suited to straighten the mess out than the Republicans. Those sentiments won't mean much in the primaries and caucuses, but they will come next November. And of course anything can happen between now and then to change the current mood.
But you have to wonder what might have happened had the national elections been this week instead of next year, and how many babies would have gone out with the bathwater.
Former Vice President Al Gore was named a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this morning for his work on global warming, capping 24 hours of speculation driven in part by his role in a San Francisco fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer's 2010 reelection bid.
Gore was the scheduled headliner for the Thursday afternoon event, but canceled late Wednesday to attend a hastily scheduled global warming conference with top government officials in China. Boxer's campaign scuttled the event, e-mailed supporters who had bought tickets and began making plans to reschedule it for next month.
But about 8 a.m. Thursday, Gore called Boxer to say he was still in the country. The fundraiser was back on, as was the speculation that Gore might have received an inkling of the pending announcement and decided he'd rather be on home ground than in China when the word came (which regular Ticket readers knew yesterday).
Speaking before more than 400 Boxer supporters in an ornate ballroom of the Westin St. Francis Hotel, Gore reprised his now-familiar call for a new bipartisan and international approach to attacking global warming, as well as humanitarian crises such as Darfur. Calling such issues "a moral imperative," Gore said the world needed to change its consciousness and work to end such vast threats to human life.
The appearance also sparked -- no surprise -- an impromptu crowd chant of "Run, Al, run!," which he sought to cut off by waving his arms like a baseball umpire calling a runner safe. Gore, of course, has maintained he has no intention of joining the already crowded Democratic field of presidential contenders despite the persistent urging of a loyal band of supporters.
Many Democrats still believe that Gore won the 2000 election decided by the Supreme Court. And he was greeted by the liberal Democrats in San Francisco as something of a conquering hero.
On stage, Gore followed a short musical set by pop performers Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. While talk of a possible Nobel swirled in the crowd, Gore did not mention it from the stage.
But the work that earned him the honor was front and center. Gore argued that half a century ago concerns that an unsettled Europe might spawn another world war led to the development of the Marshall Plan -- and the result is a much different world perception of Europe. Gore said:
"Europe saw things differently after they had the opportunity to work together. Consciousness has changed. Thinking has changed. It hasn't been that long ago that it wouldn't have been ... absurd to ask how likely is it that Germany will invade France or France will invade Germany. But now, thank goodness, because of the political changes in consciousness of the last 50 years, that ... is utterly absurd. We need to create a future in which when people say, 'How likely is it we'll have a genocide in Africa this year?' people will say, 'That's absurd.' Right now, it's not absurd."
Well, the Al Gore drafters are still not giving up. In an online fundraising drive last week, Draftgore.com raised $65,000 to buy a full-page ad in today's New York Times that appeals to the former senator, former vice president and former presidential nominee to reconsider his current stand and run for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
"Many good and caring candidates are contending for the Democratic nomination," the ad letter says, "But none of them has the combination of experience, vision, standing in the world and political courage that you would bring to the job. Nor do they have the support among voters that you enjoy and would lead you to victory in 2008."
"All we're trying to do," says Monica Friedlander, a 47-year-old Oakland public relations person who founded the group, "is persuade him that it's a moral imperative for him to be a candidate." That's all.
She says the group has amassed 136,000 signatures on a petition for Gore to run and is about to launch a California petition drive to get him on the state's Democratic primary ballot next year. It's also two days before Gore is prepared to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in the minds of supporters, for his work against global warming.
Gore is actually in the state today. He was to attend a San Francisco fundraiser Thursday afternoon for Sen. Barbara Boxer. But that event was canceled when Gore dashed off to China late tonight for a last-minute invitation to meet with Chinese officials on his favorite issue.
(UPDATE: The Boxer fundraiser is reportedly back on. Maybe Al wants to be around when he wins the big prize?)
Gore has said he has fallen out of love with politics and does not intend to run. But he's never said never. A spokeswoman repeated those sentiments today: "He deeply appreciates the heartfelt sentiment behind this ad and understands where this comes from," said Kalee Kreider. "But he has no intention of running for president."
See, that's where Gore always gets in trouble. That malleable word "intention." Some people may recall not too long ago Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig, the toe-tapping men's room customer who got in trouble in the Minneapolis airport, announcing it was his intention to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30.
It was a reunion -- however brief -- that must have been heartwarming for most Democrats (and a cause of heartburn for most Republicans).
It happened today in Manhattan, at an annual conference on world problems that Bill Clinton sponsors, now that he's not president anymore (and now that his wife is the family's working politician).
Clinton led the opening panel, and one by one he introduced its heavy-hitter participants: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Aghan President Hamid Karzai, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr.
Last to take the stage was Al Gore, who with Clinton formed the only Democratic team to occupy the presidency and vice presidency for two full terms since 1941 (a pretty amazing stat, when you think about it).
The symbiotic bond they once seemed to exude (remember the bus blitzkrieg through Middle America after their party's 1992 national convention?) has long since dissipated, frayed by a slew of political and personal recriminations. Still, a hint of a good vibe between them was in evidence....
And no, this isn't about music and the rock band David Byrne fronted. It's about the online Democratic presidential debate put together by Huffington Post, Slate and Yahoo!, which went live today. After being billed this spring as the first online debate and promising to make it interactive with viewers, the planners turned in a different direction and opted for the "mash-up" approach, according to Mario Ruiz, spokesman for Huffington Post. And with the candidates being asked questions separately by PBS' Charlie Rose, there was no debate involved.
For Web-savvy folks, this seems more like a missed opportunity than anything groundbreaking. The best that can be said for it is that users can narrow the presentation to the candidates they like, but it's still static. There's a mechanism for voting for your favorite candidate, and some message boards, but as of mid-morning the boards were mostly silent, even after moderators salted them with questions to try to start a dialogue.
And the one potentially interesting element -- letting users grab raw video from the answers and creating their own Q&A mashups -- died on the vine. Too bad. It could have been entertaining (though not very informative) to find alternative answers to the "wild card" question Bill Maher asked John Edwards on whether he would extend his criticism of SUVs to cows, since methane (and clear-cutting for grazing lands) also contributes to global warming. Imagine cutting and splicing answers to that question from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's responses to a question about Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress this week.
We would not have expected to find this piece in the Washington Times, the paper founded by Sun Myung Moon to provide a conservative voice in the nation's capital. But there it was ... and on its front page, no less: a detailed look at the early efforts by three presidential candidates to formally offset greenhouse gas emissions tied to their campaigns.
The trio--John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd, all Democrats--list payments in their campaign finance statements made to third-party companies that, as the article explains it, use the money "to plant trees, build clean-energy projects or take other steps that will lead to less carbon dioxide being emitted."
Reporter Stephen Dinan tracked down the information, and you can read his story here.
The steps seem pretty paltry right now. And in the grand scheme of combating global warming, the virtue of the candidates' offsets is mainly symbolic. Still, just as the Internet and YouTube are recalibrating the ways candidates communicate with voters, this strikes us as an idea that can only take root and grow--especially among candidates who want their commitment to the environment taken seriously.
Well, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's cover is blown.
Starting with his first mayoral campaign, Bloomberg has struck a populist tone, urging New Yorkers to take public transit and being seen to do so himself, so much so that Newsday dubbed him "regular Joe Commuter." Subway stories are a staple of his standard speech fare.
Unfortunately for that image, New York Times reporters staked out the mayor's home on Manhattan's Upper East Side for five weeks recently. The resulting story reported that the mayor was picked up every morning by two gas-guzzling police Chevy Suburbans. Most days they drove him all the way downtown to his office at City Hall.
About twice a week before driving all the way downtown to City Hall anyway, the Suburbans drive 22 blocks past two local subway stops to an express line station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where they drop the billionaire off for the straight shot down to City Hall.
The closest subway stop to the mayor's home is about a five-minute walk.
A mayoral spokesman said the mayor stopped walking there when he attracted hordes of cameras and photographers. Informed that Times reporters had never seen any photographers lurking near the mayor's home, the spokesman said, "So you're saying the solution worked."
Of course, when Bloomberg gets to the White House after the independent campaign he says he has no plans to run, he'll be able to commute by simply walking down some thickly-carpeted stairs.
A minor setback for those Americans patiently awaiting Al Gore's inevitable announcement of his candidacy for president.
According to a published report in the Boston Herald, one of his daughters, Kristin, recently said, "He's really not going to get in the race." C'mon, who's going to believe a daughter over newspaper speculation?
Then comes a Washington Times commentary by Donna Brazile, who managed Gore's 2000 campaign. She says, "Common sense should tell us he is not gearing up for another presidential run." What does she know? She lost in 2000.
And anyway, whoever heard of common sense in a presidential race that features 17 candidates so far, including Mike Gravel and Ron Paul? You know, Al himself has not totally ruled it out. He's told Larry King he's fallen out of love with politics. But love is a fickle thing. He's said he has no intention of running. Aha, but he hasn't said absolutely not.
After learning how much he's making for 75-minute speeches on the environment, we can understand why Gore is delaying his announcement. He's making a fortune from talking about hot air.
And there was that recent flap about Gore the environmentalist eating endangered Chilean sea bass...
Well, now we have some explanation for why former vice president Al Gore is delaying the announcement of his 2008 presidential campaign. He's making a big bundle off the environment by talking about it.
Thanks to thesmokinggun.com website, we have access to a copy of the contract for the recent speech by Gore at the University of California, San Diego. It's an inconvenient truth that he got $100,000 for the 75-minute environmental slide presentation at the public school and agreed to an extra 10 minutes of questions.
Among the other requirements set out by Gore:
First-class roundtrip air transportation for himself and one traveling companion, who is also to receive $1,000 per day in expenses; all meal, phone and other expenses to be covered for both; a security guard for every minute of his visit; a sedan, preferably a hybrid but definitely not an SUV, for all transportation; no press access or interviews; no video or audio taping or broadcast of the event; no photographs; approval of all scenery, logos, banners and settings for the appearance; approval of all communications and mailings regarding the appearance; Gore agrees only to a brief reception with sponsors and invited guests; and the contents of the contract must be kept strictly confidential.
Other than that, the university was free to do as it pleased with the May 21 event.
As far as we can discern, Gore did not announce his presidential candidacy during that visit. But then again, because the press was barred, there's no word that he ruled one out either. There are, however, still 13 months left before the Democratic National Convention picks its nominee in Denver.
Al Gore, the former vice president and losing Democratic presidential nominee, is in Los Angeles this weekend for the wedding of his youngest daughter, Sarah.
The bride, who is 28, married Bill Lee,identified by a family spokeswoman as a 36-year-old Los Angeles businessman. Sarah is a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco. The ceremony was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
As he did at last weekend's Live Earth concert in New Jersey, Gore made no announcement during the wedding about any plans for a presidential campaign.
On Friday, John McCain opened the latest new phase of his troubled presidential campaign by stressing in New Hampshire --- where opposition to the Iraq war runs especially high --- that he remains foresquare behind President Bush's troop-surge plan.
On Saturday, as he wrapped up a swing through the all-important state, he took Bush on, criticizing the administration on global warming.
One thing about the Republican senator from Arizona, you can't say that he's a slave to consistency.
The Times Michael Finnegan was with McCain as he traveled to the rural town of Claremont and reports that the candidate opened a forum at a veterans hall with negative words about Bush's approach to climate change.
"I'm not happy that the Bush administration ignored this issue for a long period of time," McCain said. Reiterating his call for expansion of nuclear, solar and wind power, he said the U.S. must work more closely with other nations to reverse global warming. He added: "I'm convinced that it can be incredibly serious, and every day we wait in order to act will be a day that we cannot reclaim."
McCain took questions for more than an hour from the crowd of about 100, and was warmly received. But outside the hall, there was a clear sign of his diminished status in the state he took by storm during the 2000 primary season. A heckler wearing a McCain rubber mask was there to greet his entourage, holding out a tin cup and wearing a sandwich board that read, "My campaign spends money like a drunken sailor."
The barb not only referred to the financial problems afflicting McCain's campaign, but was a play on one of his tried-and-true laugh lines: after accusing Congress of spending money like a drunken sailor, he likes to say that he received a letter from a Navy vet with a drinking problem who said he resented the comparsion.
After spending Sunday at home in Arizona, McCain heads to Northern California Monday for a town hall meeting in Santa Clara.
The good news for Al Gore is that his Live Earth concert highlights show on NBC, designed to raise public awareness about global warming, attracted some 19 million viewers at one point or another Saturday night, according to Nielsen ratings released late yesterday.
The bad news is that more than 16 million of those folks switched away from the three-hour concert that consumed the network's prime time Saturday evening. Many, perhaps disappointed that Gore did not announce his candidacy for president, were no doubt out back gathered around smoking grills helping to further warm the earth's atmosphere.
This left NBC with about 2.7 million viewers to earn fourth place for the night behind ABC with 3.4 million, Fox with 4.6 million and CBS with 5.2 million. Times columnist Jonah Goldberg has a different take on the concert here.
In Britain, the BBC reported 3.1 million watched the show, which was less than a third of the 11.4 million audience for the Princess Diana concert two weeks ago. Of those 3.1 million, 123 rang up the BBC to complain about foul language during the concert. Madonna, among others, felt compelled to use the mf word.
Perhaps what we really need next is a live global concert to raise awareness about the omnipresence of live global concerts trying to raise awarenesses.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Al Gore and Cameron Diaz; Credit: Justin Lane/EPA
For someone who keeps saying he has no intention of running for president we keep seeing Al Gore pop up in all kinds of places where he can reach millions of people. Maybe billions if his 24-hour Live Earth global concert works this weekend, although there are reports of problems, including tepid ticket sales.
This morning Gore showed up on the Today Show on NBC, which just happens to be broadcasting the concert. “I don’t have any plans or intentions to be a candidate again," he said. He said he preferred to be involved in combating climate change, which he called "the most serious crisis our civilization has ever faced."
Then he made an admission. "“I’ve kind of fallen out of love with politics," said the politician.
But wait a minute. Then the former vice president and senator showed up on Larry King Live. Larry asked him right off about his son, Al Gore III, who was arrested early Wednesday for going 100 miles an hour in a Prius on the San Diego Freeway. According to a Times story, sheriff's deputies reported finding a small amount of marijuana in the car along with four types of prescription drugs--Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall--not prescribed to him. The 24-year-old Gore was released that afternoon on $20,000 bail to appear in...
Boy, you better not toss an aluminum can into the wastebasket at next summer's Democratic National Convention in Denver.
"It will be the greenest convention we've ever had," convention CEO Leah Daughtrytells the Rocky Mountain News. "We want to incorporate green principles into everything we do." The Democrats are working with the Coalition for Environmentally Friendly Conventions, which will also help the Republicans.
The Denver convention plans a wide range of environmentally-friendly measures to ease the impact of thousands of visitors to the five-day candidate-naming contest, Aug. 24-28. Bring your cuff clips because many will be expected to ride bicycles from downtown hotels to the Pepsi Center. Or take hybrid vans and taxis.
As you get off your plane on arrival, you'll be able to purchase carbon offsets to help repair the damage that your plane's jet engines just did to the atmosphere. You'll be asked to take shorter showers and use the same towel more than one day. The goal is a paperless convention with everything going by email, so be sure to bring your rechargers.
Wind turbines and solar panels may go up around the Pepsi Center.
Barack Obama showed up for a sparsely-attended news conference in Brentwood Tuesday to outline his plans to reduce greenhouse gases. The scene was a gas station that sells fuel made from vegetable oils. Good so far.
Trouble was he drove up in one of those big hulking SUVs that political campaigns (and the Secret Service) are so fond of driving. "When I'm president," Obama said, "any vehicle purchased by the federal government" will have a flexible fuel system that can run on ethanol. "Government should lead the way," he said.
His stop in Brentwood, meant to underline his green credentials, came on a day when Obama quietly backtracked on his longheld support for a controversial plan to promote the use of coal, as Peter Wallsten explains in a Times story this morning.
According to The Times' Seema Mehta at the Brentwood gas station, Obama acknowledged he is behind Hillary Clinton by double-digits in this week's Times Poll. "These polls are going to fluctuate and gyrate," he said. But he predicted a good showing in next month's quarterly campaign fundraising reports.
"We haven't gotten into the guts of this campaign," Obama said. "That will happen after Labor Day."
Whatever happened to starting campaigns after Labor Day of the election year, not the year before?
— Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.); Credit: Chris Carlson / AP
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Our Bloggers
Don Frederick has served as an editor helping guide coverage of every presidential election since 1984. He is a third-generation Washingtonian, so watching the political world comes naturally to him.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
The bad news is that more than 16 million of those folks switched away from the three-hour concert that consumed the network's prime time Saturday evening. Many, perhaps disappointed that Gore did not announce his candidacy for president, were no doubt out back gathered around smoking grills helping to further warm the earth's atmosphere. 
Trouble was he drove up in one of those big hulking SUVs that political campaigns (and the Secret Service) are so fond of driving. "When I'm president," Obama said, "any vehicle purchased by the federal government" will have a flexible fuel system that can run on ethanol. "Government should lead the way," he said.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
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