History > 2006 > USA > Politics (V)

November 25, 2006

Experts Concerned as Ballot Problems Persist

NYT        26.11.2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/us/politics/26vote.html

Experts Concerned

as Ballot Problems Persist

November 26, 2006
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA and CHRISTOPHER DREW

After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation’s voting system, this month’s midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts.

Tens of thousands of voters, scattered across more than 25 states, encountered serious problems at the polls, including failures in sophisticated new voting machines and confusion over new identification rules, according to interviews with election experts and officials.

In many places, the difficulties led to shortages of substitute paper ballots and long lines that caused many voters to leave without casting ballots. Still, an association of top state election officials concluded that for the most part, voting went as smoothly as expected.

Over the last three weeks, attention has been focused on a few close races affected by voting problems, including those in Florida and Ohio where counting dragged on for days. But because most of this year’s races were not close, election experts say voting problems may actually have been wider than initially estimated, with many malfunctions simply overlooked.

That oversight may not be possible in the presidential election of 2008, when turnout will be higher and every vote will matter in what experts say will probably be a close race.

Voting experts say it is impossible to say how many votes were not counted that should have been. But in Florida alone, the discrepancies reported across Sarasota County and three others amount to more than 60,000 votes. In Colorado, as many as 20,000 people gave up trying to vote, election officials say, as new online systems for verifying voter registrations crashed repeatedly. And in Arkansas, election officials tallied votes three times in one county, and each time the number of ballots cast changed by more than 30,000.

“If the success of an election is to be measured according to whether each voter’s voice is heard, then we would have to conclude that this past election was not entirely a success,” said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan election group that plans to release a report Wednesday with a state-by-state assessment of voting. “In places where the margin of victory was bigger than the margin of error, we looked away from the problems, but in 2008 we might not have that luxury.”

Accusations of missing ballots and vote stuffing were not uncommon with mechanical voting machines. But election experts say that with electronic voting machines, the potential consequences of misdeeds or errors are of a greater magnitude. A single software error can affect thousands of votes, especially with machines that keep no paper record.

There were a few signs of progress this month. Several states that faced computer difficulties in the primaries fixed the kinks by Election Day and were better stocked with backup paper ballots. Fears that more stringent identification laws in Indiana and Arizona would create confusion at the polls did not pan out.

And though recent test runs of new computerized voter registration rolls in Indiana and Missouri revealed large numbers of errors, on Election Day reports of problems with the databases were few and isolated. The National Association of Secretaries of States, which represents top election officials from across the country, has said Nov. 7 was generally “a good day.”

But some of the biggest states have not been able to overcome problems with new technology or rules and the lightly trained poll workers who must oversee them. In Ohio, thousands of voters were turned away or forced to file provisional ballots by poll workers puzzled by voter-identification rules. In Pennsylvania, the machines crashed or refused to start, producing many reports of vote-flipping, which means that voters press the button for one candidate but a different candidate’s name appears on the screen.

Perhaps most notoriously, officials in Sarasota County say nearly 18,000 votes may never have been recorded by electronic machines in a Congressional race, even though many voters said they tried to vote.

The recent problems will probably help propel legislation that has stalled for months in Congress mandating that electronic voting machines have a paper trail to better enable recounts. Less clear, experts say, is whether anything will be done to address concerns about the lack of technicians to troubleshoot machines, polling places with too few machines and poorly trained workers, and a system run by partisan election officials who may decide conflicts based on politics rather than policy.

“These types of low-tech problems threaten to disenfranchise just as many people, if not more, but they tend to get less attention,” said Tova Wang, an elections expert with the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in New York. “We still have a long way to go toward fixing the biggest problems with our election system.”

Election workers and experts say the advances in technology have simply overwhelmed many of the people trying to run things on the ground. At a hearing in Denver last week, one focus was on how hard it has become for the poll workers, often retirees getting paid $100 for a 14-hour day, and what it would take to attract younger people who are perhaps more savvy about computers.

“It used to be that you would come in, set up the machines, make a cup of coffee and say hello to your neighbors,” said Sigrid Freese, who has worked at Denver polling places for more than 20 years. Now, she said, the job is complicated and stressful, and “I know a lot of people who said, ‘Never again.’ ”

After widespread confusion and controversy caused by the hanging chads of the 2000 presidential election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 to help states phase out old-fashioned lever and punch-card machines and to introduce electronic voting equipment. But with malfunctions reported from a handful of states in the primaries earlier this year, many voting experts and state officials feared that the new technology might have only swapped old problems for newer, more complicated ones.

On Election Day, two voting-rights groups, Common Cause and the Election Protection Coalition, fielded nearly 40,000 telephone calls on two national hot lines from voters’ reporting of problems or seeking information, and both groups are due to release their findings within the next two weeks. An initial review of their data, along with interviews with officials and experts, reveals that Florida, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania were among the states with the most calls reporting trouble, including long lines, names missing from voter registration rolls, poll worker confusion and computer failures.

In a few places, the difficulties started as soon as voters walked up to the sign-in tables.

In Ohio, even a congressman, Steve Chabot, a Republican, was turned away from his polling place because the address listed on his driver’s license was different than his home address. Mr. Chabot was able to vote only after he returned with a utility bill. The state’s top election official had to fax a midday notice to all precincts that such minor discrepancies were acceptable.

In Denver, the culprit was a new electronic poll book, which workers had to consult through laptop computers. The system was supposed to verify each voter’s name in less than a minute. But it started slowing at 7 a.m. and eventually had to be turned off and rebooted, after taking up to 20 minutes to find each name.

As a result, voters waited in line for two to three hours. Liz Prescott, a computer industry executive, said she twice tried to vote but was deterred by the lines. “I’m just flabbergasted that this system at all levels failed,” Ms. Prescott said.

John Gaydeski, Denver’s election director, acknowledged that the system had not been tested properly before the election.

In Arkansas, Florida and Pennsylvania, the questions were about the voting machines themselves. In addition to the Sarasota issue, which may have been caused by a software problem, there were similar problems in the Florida counties of Charlotte, Lee and Sumter. In those counties, said Barbara Burt, vice president and director for election reform at Common Cause, more than 40,000 voters who used touch-screen machines seemed not to have chosen a candidate in the attorney general’s race. But since one candidate won by 250,000 votes, the anomaly has been generally overlooked.

On election night in Arkansas, officials discovered that erroneous results had been tallied in Benton County. After retabulating the votes, they announced that the total number of ballots cast had jumped to 79,331 from 47,134, which meant a turnout of more than 100 percent in some precincts. After a third tallying, the total dropped to 48,681.

In Pennsylvania, computer problems forced polling places in Lancaster and Lebanon Counties to stay open late. In Westmoreland County, a programming error in at least 800 machines caused long lines.

Mary Beth Kuznik, a poll worker in that county, said she had to reset every machine after each voter, or more than 500 times, because the machines kept trying to shut down.

Howard Shaub, the elections board chairman in Lancaster County, counseled patience. “We used those old lever machines for 20, 30 years,” Mr. Shaub said. “We just have to have better quality control and the new machines will work fine.”

But Ms. Kuznik said one man refused to vote on the electronic machines and demanded a provisional ballot. “At least my vote will be on a piece of paper,” Ms. Kuznik recalled his saying.

Bob Driehaus contributed reporting from Cincinnati.

    Experts Concerned as Ballot Problems Persist, NYT, 26.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/us/politics/26vote.html

Op-Ed Contributor

Political Command and Control

November 18, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID W. ROHDE

Durham, N.C.

THE midterm elections have been widely viewed as a sudden change of direction, with Democrats seizing the wheel from Republicans. While that may be true, the big electoral news — news that has gone largely unnoticed — is this: After decades of weakness, after sideswipes from independent candidates, the two major parties are back. Indeed, they are more potent and influential than at any time in the past century.

Parties, which grew strong in Congress after Reconstruction, began to fray after 1910, when a group of progressive Republicans joined with the Democratic minority in a revolt against the House speaker, Joseph Cannon. With the speaker’s power diminished, the power of seniority in the chambers grew. The most senior member of the majority party on a committee became chairman — whether or not he was loyal to the party program or leadership. This system insulated committees from party control.

During much of the next half-century, it was pretty much downhill from there. Political analysts have considered the national political parties weak and inconsequential, both in the electoral process and in government. Officeholders were seen as free agents, motivated by personal career goals and preferring weak parties that would not interfere with their interests. Meanwhile, the percentage of independent voters increased, as did ticket splitting.

The resurgence of party power was slow, but showed its first glimmers in the 1970s, when Democrats began dismantling the seniority system and centralized power in their party leadership.

This move also contributed to party polarization — Democrats and Republicans moved farther apart. In the past, the views accommodated by each party ran from one end of the political spectrum to the other. The liberal Senator Jacob Javits was a Republican while the conservative Senator John Stennis was comfortable as a Southern Democrat. This diversity no longer exists. Today, the parties accommodate only views that run from the middle to the opposite ends of the spectrum.

This makes it easier for them to grow in strength. Why?

For starters, members want their parties to help them secure and retain office. To this end the national parties have built a formidable capacity to raise money and provide campaign assistance. This year, the parties provided more than $230 million in direct support to candidates — and they did so without the benefit of “soft money,” the unregulated large donations that were banned under the new campaign finance law. The last time the House of Representatives changed hands, in 1994, the parties spent less than $40 million. Thus party spending has increased nearly 500 percent in 12 years. Money, not surprisingly, breeds loyalty.

But it’s not all about money — there’s also candidate recruitment. Sure, it’s been a while since parties stood by and waited for the primaries to produce a slate of candidates. But this year marked the apex of the trend, with the parties pursuing and supporting attractive candidates with greater fervor than ever before.

Representative Rahm Emanuel and Senator Charles Schumer, leaders of the Democratic Party’s campaign committees, were assiduous in recruiting candidates they thought could win while discouraging others from making a try. (Why, you might ask, did the Democrats support a candidate like Jim Webb in Virginia — someone who is outside the party’s traditional orthodoxy? The longer that parties are barred from power, the more likely they are to accept candidates and strategies that depart from the wishes of “the base.”)

The behavior of voters in 2006 was perhaps the greatest sign of party strength. Voters approached the race more like British voters casting votes for a parliamentary majority than like Americans weighing the unique merits of individual candidates.

Exit polls and other research show that voting has become more strongly correlated with party identification and that ticket splitting has declined. Voters also see party control as more consequential.

No result from 2006 was more striking in this regard than the Rhode Island Senate race. Exit polls showed that the incumbent Republican, Lincoln Chafee, had a robust approval rating, 63 percent. Yet his constituents voted him out of office largely because 75 percent of them disapproved of his fellow Republican, President Bush.

The 2006 election results confirm that the parties have been growing stronger, not weaker. The current political environment, in which two parties with sharply divergent views vie for power in closely contested elections, seems likely to persist. As long as it does, powerful, centralized parties will dominate the land- scape.

David W. Rohde is a professor of political science and the director of the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program at Duke University.

    Political Command and Control, NYT, 18.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/opinion/18rohde.html

Editorial

Still Waiting for Bipartisanship

November 17, 2006
The New York Times

The voters sent a clear message last week that they do not want the far right of the Republican Party calling the shots in Washington. But President Bush has ignored the message, resubmitting a group of archconservative, underqualified judicial nominees that Senate Democrats have already said are unacceptable. With the Democrats about to take control of the Senate, it is highly unlikely that these men will be confirmed. But the renominations suggest that when it comes to filling judgeships, Mr. Bush is still not looking for either excellence or common ground.

The four most controversial nominees that President Bush resubmitted are ideological in the extreme. William Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for mining and timber interests, would no doubt use his position on the San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to gut environmental laws. William Haynes II, who helped develop the administration’s torture and “enemy combatant” policies as the top lawyer for the Pentagon, could be counted on to undermine both civil liberties and reasonable limits on executive power.

Terrence Boyle, a district court judge in North Carolina and a former aide to Senator Jesse Helms, has a long record of insensitivity to victims of race and disability discrimination. He would be able to pull the law in the wrong direction in these areas if he became an appeals court judge. Michael Wallace, a former lawyer for Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, has a bad civil rights record, including arguing in favor of letting Bob Jones University, which discriminated on the basis of race, keep its tax-exempt status.

Beyond their ideology, these nominees embody values that the American people rejected in the midterm elections. The voters were angry about the influence of lobbyists and special interests. But Mr. Myers would bring that influence onto a powerful appeals court. The voters were upset about the incompetence this administration has shown on everything from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina. But Mr. Wallace is the very rare appeals court nominee to receive a unanimous “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.

A fifth appeals court nominee, Peter Keisler, is likely to face stiff opposition for well-founded procedural reasons. When President Clinton tried to fill this seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Republican senators blocked him, saying the court needed only 10 judges. Since then, the court’s caseload has decreased. It is unlikely that Democratic senators will allow the Republicans to fill the seat now.

President Bush’s decision to resubmit these names could be a final sop to his far-right base. Perhaps, once this slate fails one more time, he will make more reasonable choices. Mr. Bush may have no other choice, if he wants to get any nominees confirmed in the next two years. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, has said that “the days of hard-right judges” are over, and when Democrats take over in the Senate, he will be in a position to see that they are.

    Still Waiting for Bipartisanship, NYT, 17.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/opinion/17fri1.html

Op-Ed Contributor

Putting Faith Before Politics

November 16, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID KUO

Alexandria, Va.

SINCE 1992, every national Republican electoral defeat has been accompanied by an obituary for the religious right. Every one of these obituaries has been premature — after these losses, the religious right only grew stronger. After the defeat of President George H. W. Bush in 1992, the conventional wisdom held that Christian evangelicals would be chastened. As one major magazine put it, Mr. Bush’s defeat meant that “time had run out on their crusade to create a Christian America.” Yet in the next two years, the Christian Coalition grew by leaps and bounds; in 1994, it helped usher in the Gingrich revolution.

In 1996, after Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole, Margaret Tutwiler, a Republican strategist, declared that in order for Republicans to win, “We’re going to have to take on the religious nuts.” Two years later, after Republicans failed to gain any ground on Democrats — despite Mr. Clinton’s impeachment — John Zogby, the pollster, concluded that “Christian absolutism” scared voters. Wrong again. Those same Christian “absolutists” helped sweep George W. Bush into office in 2000.

Jesus was resurrected only once. The religious right has been resurrected at least twice in just the past 15 years.

The conventional wisdom about the Democratic thumping of Republicans last week says something a little different about the religious right — that its members are beginning to migrate to the Democratic Party. The statistic that is exciting Democrats the most is that nearly 30 percent of white evangelicals, the true Republican base, voted Democratic. In addition, the red-blue split of weekly churchgoers has narrowed. Commentators are atwitter about the shrinking “God gap.”

Once again, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Yes, it is true that almost 30 percent of white evangelicals voted for the Democrats, up from the 22 percent Senator John Kerry received in the 2004 presidential race. But that 2004 number was aberrantly low. More typical were exit polls from the 1996 Congressional election, where 25 percent of white evangelicals voted for Democrats.

So before rearranging their public policy agenda in hopes of attracting evangelicals, the Democrats would be wise to think twice. There has been a radical change in the attitudes of evangelicals — it’s just not one that will automatically be in the Democrats’ favor.

You see, evangelicals aren’t re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities. That could be bad news for both political parties.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, the conservative Christian organization that gained notoriety during the 1990s when it represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton, wrote this after the elections: “Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality.”

He went on, “Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion and love for one’s neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches.”

Mr. Whitehead is hardly alone. Just before the elections, Gordon MacDonald, an evangelical leader, wrote that he was concerned that some evangelical personalities had been seduced and used by the White House. He worried that the movement might “fragment because it is more identified by a political agenda that seems to be failing and less identified by a commitment to Jesus and his kingdom.”

Certainly, the White House showed the heartlessness of politics in Ted Haggard’s fall. Mr. Haggard had once been welcomed at the White House, relied on to rally other evangelicals and invited to pray with the president.

Yet his downfall provoked only this reaction from a low-level White House spokesman: “He had been on a couple of calls, but was not a weekly participant in those calls. I believe he’s been to the White House one or two times.” To evangelicals who know that this statement was misleading, and know from the Bible what being kicked to the curb looks like, it was a revealing moment about the unchristian behavior politics inspires.

Perhaps that’s why a rift appears to be growing in what was once a strong alliance. Beliefnet.com’s post-election online survey of more than 2,000 people revealed that nearly 40 percent of evangelicals support the idea of a two-year Christian “fast” from intense political activism. Instead of directing their energies toward campaigns, evangelicals would spend their time helping the poor.

Why might such an idea get traction among evangelicals? For practical reasons as well as spiritual ones. Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus’ eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet’s poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush’s faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

There is also the matter of the record, which I saw being shaped during my time in the White House. Conservative Christians (like me) were promised that having an evangelical like Mr. Bush in office was a dream come true. Well, it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. The administration accomplished little that evangelicals really cared about.

Nowhere was this clearer than on the issue of abortion. Despite strong Republican majorities, and his own pro-life stands, Mr. Bush settled for the largely symbolic partial-birth abortion restriction rather than pursuing more substantial change. Then there were the forgotten commitments to give faith-based charities the resources they needed to care for the poor. Evangelicals are not likely to fall for such promises in the future.

Don’t expect conservative Christians in politics to start to disappear, of course. There are those who find the moral force of issues like abortion and gay marriage equal to that of the abolition of slavery — worth pursuing no matter what the risks of politics are for the soul. But the advocates working these special interests may, I think, be far fewer in coming years than in years past. Gay marriage was a less mobilizing force in 2006 than it was in 2004. In Arizona the ballot measure to outlaw it was defeated. The South Dakota abortion ban failed.

We will have to wait until 2008 to see just how deep this evangelical spiritual re-examination goes, and how seductive politics will continue to be to committed Christians. Meanwhile, evangelicals aren’t flocking to the Democratic Party. If anything, they are becoming more truly conservative in their recognition of the negative spiritual consequences of political obsession and of the limitations of government power.

C. S. Lewis once warned that any Christian who uses his faith as a means to a political end would corrupt both his faith and the faith writ large. A lot of Christians are reading C. S. Lewis these days.

David Kuo, the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, is the author of “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction.”

    Putting Faith Before Politics, NYT, 16.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/opinion/16kuo.html

Editorial

Counting the Vote, Badly

November 16, 2006
The New York Times
 

Last week’s elections provided a lot of disturbing news about the reliability of electronic voting — starting, naturally, with Florida. In a Congressional race there between Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, a Democrat, the machines in Sarasota County reported that more than 18,000 people, or one in eight, did not choose either candidate. That “undervote” of nearly 13 percent is hard to believe, given that only about 2.5 percent of absentee voters did not vote in that race. If there was a glitch, it may have made all the difference. Ms. Jennings trails Mr. Buchanan by about 400 votes.

The serious questions about the Buchanan- Jennings race only add to the high level of mistrust that many people already feel about electronic voting. More than half of the states, including California, New York, Ohio and Illinois, now require that electronic voting machines produce voter-verified paper records, which help ensure that votes are properly recorded. But Congress has resisted all appeals to pass a law that would ensure that electronic voting is honest and accurate across the nation.

Fortunately, that may be about to change. With the Democrats now in control of both houses, there is an excellent chance of passing tough electronic voting legislation. Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, had more than 200 co-sponsors for a strong electronic voting bill before this month’s election, and support is likely to grow in the new Congress. In the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will be chairwoman of the Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees elections, plans to develop a similar bill.

The problems with elections go well beyond electronic voting. Partisan secretaries of state continue to skew the rules to favor their parties and political allies. States are adopting harsh standards for voter registration drives to make it harder for people to register, as well as draconian voter identification laws to make casting a ballot harder for poor people, racial minorities, the elderly and students. Some states have adopted an indefensible rule that provisional ballots cast at the wrong table of the correct polling place must be thrown out.

Congress has failed to address these and other important flaws with the mechanics of the election system. But this, too, may be about to change. Senator Feinstein is saying that providing fair access to the ballot will be among her committee’s top priorities in the coming year. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, plans to revise and reintroduce her “Count Every Vote Act,” which takes an admirably broad approach to overhauling the voting system.

Election reform has tended to be a partisan issue, with Democrats arguing for reform and Republicans resisting it. It shouldn’t be. Congressional Democrats should make fixing this country’s broken system of elections a top priority, and Republicans should join them.

    Counting the Vote, Badly, NYT, 16.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/opinion/16thur1.html

Start U.S. Iraq Withdrawal in 4 - 6 Months: Democrats

November 12, 2006
By REUTERS
Filed at 9:52 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats, who won majorities in the U.S. Congress in last week's elections, said on Sunday they will push for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin in four to six months.

``The first order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy,'' said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is expected to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the new Congress.

Levin, on ABC's ``This Week,'' said he hoped some Republicans would emerge to join Democrats and press the administration of President George W. Bush to tell the Iraqi government that U.S. presence was ``not open-ended.''

Bush has insisted that U.S. troops would not leave Iraq until the Iraqis were able to take over security for their country.

``We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,'' Levin said.

Speaking on the same program, Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is expected to head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he supported Levin's proposal for a withdrawal.

    Start U.S. Iraq Withdrawal in 4 - 6 Months: Democrats, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-iraq-usa-democrats.html

Editorial

Democrats and Iraq

November 12, 2006
The New York Times

The Democrats will not be able to savor their victory for long. Americans are waiting to hear if they have any good ideas for how to get out of Iraq without creating even wider chaos and terrorism.

Criticizing President Bush’s gross mismanagement of the war was a winning electoral strategy. But criticism will not extricate the United States from this mess, nor will it persuade voters that the Democrats are ready to take back the White House.

Let us be clear. The responsibility for all that has gone wrong lies squarely with Mr. Bush. Even with control of the Congress, the Democrats’ role in changing things will be hortatory. And while we too are eager to hear the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — better known as the (James) Baker commission — it should be the start, and not the end, of a bipartisan discussion on Iraq strategy. The Democrats need to be ready to play a full role.

Under Republican control, Congress has exercised virtually no oversight of the administration’s misconduct of the war, and the new Democratic leadership is eager to hold extensive hearings. The public deserves a full accounting (backed by subpoenas, if necessary) of how prewar intelligence was cooked, why American troops were sent to war without adequate armor, and where billions of dollars in reconstruction aid disappeared to.

The Democrats will also need to look forward — and quickly. So far they have shared slogans, but no real policy. During the campaign, their most common call was for a “phased redeployment” — a euphemism for withdrawal — of American troops starting before the end of this year.

Threatening to pull out may be the only way to get cooperation from Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, who is thwarting even the most limited American efforts to disarm militias and set timetables for genuine political compromise on the most fundamental issues, like protecting minority rights and fairly apportioning the country’s oil wealth.

Unless America’s exit plans are coupled with a more serious effort to build up Iraq’s security forces and mediate its sectarian divisions, a phased withdrawal will only hasten Iraq’s descent into civil war — while placing American soldiers who remain behind in even greater danger. We also fear that Iraqis will have no interest in anything but retribution, until they see that security and rebuilding are possible. For that reason we have suggested one last push to stabilize Baghdad. That would require at least a temporary increase in American and Iraqi troops on Baghdad streets.

We are skeptical of calls, by some Democrats, to divide the country into three ethnically based regions. Most Iraqis — except for the Kurds — show little enthusiasm for the idea. And while there has been horrific ethnic cleansing, it hasn’t yet got to the point that boundaries could be drawn without driving many more people from their homes.

Such ideas deserve a full discussion, something the United States has not had since its troops first rolled into Iraq. We are not sure that any shift in strategy can contain the disaster. But we are sure that even a few weeks more of drift and confusion will guarantee more chaos and suffering once American troops leave. Voters gave the Democrats the floor — and are now waiting to hear what they have to say.

    Democrats and Iraq, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/opinion/12sun1.html

Black candidates head for middle at polls

Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:56 AM ET
Reuters
By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Black candidates in the U.S. midterm elections moved toward the political center, seeking votes across the spectrum and playing down race, academics and analysts said on Friday.

The strategy reflects a further shift from African- American leaders rooted in the civil rights era to a generation of politicians for whom race can be used best as a vehicle for appealing to universal themes such as overcoming poverty.

In one of the most high-profile races involving black candidates, Democrat Deval Patrick was elected governor of Massachusetts, becoming the state's first black governor, after running on a centrist platform.

"You are every black man, woman, and child in Massachusetts and America and every other striver of every other race and kind who is reminded tonight that the American dream is for you too," a victorious Patrick told supporters.

In Tennessee, Democrat Harold Ford lost narrowly in his run for the Senate in a state where there are more registered Republicans than Democrats.

Bidding to become the first black senator from the South since the post-Civil War era of Reconstruction in the 19th century, Ford adopted positions designed to appeal to conservative voters.

He said he loved hunting, opposed gay marriage and wanted a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out.

"It's not enough for a black candidate to say, 'Let's make history,'" said Artur Davis, a black Democratic congressman from Alabama who said he was considering running for governor or the Senate.

"Voters are not going to cast a ballot, which is the most important thing they have, around making something abstract like making history," he told Reuters, adding the idea that race determined politics was becoming "stale."

The sentiment echoes views held by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a rising star in the Democratic Party who says he is contemplating a run for president. Obama, who is black, campaigned on behalf of centrist Democrats in the elections.

BLACK REPUBLICANS

Commentators said it was difficult to draw many conclusions about black candidates and voters in an election in which Iraq and President George W. Bush's leadership dominated.

But the election showed blacks voted for Democrats even when a black Republican was in the race.

Republican Michael Steele lost his bid for an open Senate seat in Maryland and Republicans Ken Blackwell and Lynn Swann were beaten decisively in their bids to become governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania respectively.

"The White House and the Republican National Committee have long held as a goal increasing the percentage of black votes they get because ... if they can get above 20 percent they feel they can have a permanent Republican majority," said author and journalist Juan Williams.

"They hoped to break that loyalty .... (but) for the most part, black voters did not respond," he said.

Animosity toward Bush, memories of Republican opposition to laws passed in the 1960s to guarantee blacks the right to vote and affirmative-action policies to redress racial imbalances in the workplace and education helped explain the reluctance, commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson said.

"As African-Americans look at this (Republican) Party, it comes across as hostile, anti-civil rights and anti-black interest," he said.

Ford's loss to Republican Bob Corker sparked debate over whether race played a role, not least because an ad for Corker appeared to play on white racial fears of blacks.

"The question is, 'does appeal to race still make a difference in this part of the country?' Were there people who were unwilling to vote for an African-American and did the Republican campaign, at least in ambiguous ways, appeal to that?'" asked political science professor Bruce Oppenheimer.

Political scientist Marcus Pohlmann said people unwilling to vote for Ford would probably have voted Republican anyway.

    Black candidates head for middle at polls, R, 12.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-12T135614Z_01_N10255878_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-BLACKS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

G.O.P. Collapse in Indiana Emblematic of Larger Loss

November 12, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NOSSITER

EVANSVILLE, Ind., Nov. 10 — As he campaigned for re-election, the Republican who lost his seat in the House of Representatives here on Tuesday threw several incendiary barbs suggesting that the opposition was beyond the mainstream of these placid southern Indiana environs: “Homosexual agenda”; “San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi”; “New York liberal Charlie Rangel”; “Detroit liberal John Conyers.”

The attack backfired, and the Republican incumbent, John Hostettler, lost, as did two other incumbent Indiana Republicans in what proved to be a crucial state for Democrats in winning the House.

The mechanics of those defeats offer insights into the larger loss, and point to traps that Republican candidates appeared to have unwittingly entered: In all three cases, to demonstrate being a Washington insider was to court doom, no matter how much the incumbents railed against the ways of the capital.

Nowhere was that dynamic more striking than in Evansville, an old industrial city on the Ohio River, with its stolid manufacturing plants at the edges and its seasoned red-brick neighborhoods downtown. Mr. Hostettler had fashioned a determinedly unconventional image for himself over 12 years, from his contrarian vote against the Iraq war to his claim that abortion and breast cancer were linked.

Mr. Hostettler was a principled “citizen legislator,” a “Mr. Smith,” his press secretary said, and when it came time to run for re-election in a district that President Bush won by 24 points in 2004, the congressman tried associating his Democrat opponent with the worst of Washington’s taint, at least in conservative eyes.

“Eighth District voters are concerned about the homosexual agenda,” Mr. Hostettler was quoted as saying. Ms. Pelosi was certain to “put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda,” a Hostettler radio advertisement said.

The flaw in that strategy was that Nancy Pelosi was hardly the household name on the banks of the Ohio that she was on the banks of the Potomac. Mr. Hostettler knew who she was, of course, but in Evansville and the little towns stretching up to Indianapolis, that was less of a sure bet, said Brad Ellsworth, the Democrat who beat Mr. Hostettler.

“The question I get the most is, ‘Who is Nancy Pelosi?’ ” Mr. Ellsworth said. “People to this day don’t know who Pelosi is.”

In any case, he said, attacks on Ms. Pelosi “offended a lot of women in this area.”

In the end, Mr. Hostettler ended up tarring only himself by demonstrating his superior knowledge of and close association with Washington. Mr. Ellsworth, by contrast, came across as the ultimate outsider: he appeared to struggle to remember whom he voted for in the 2004 presidential election, or whether he voted at all.

Mr. Ellsworth, 48, the easygoing sheriff of Vanderburgh County, was also nearly as conservative as his Republican opponent. He said he became a Democrat only because Republicans on the County Council voted against paying for bulletproof vests for sheriff’s deputies in the early 1980s.

A similar chain of events unfolded elsewhere in Indiana.

East along the Ohio in the neighboring Ninth District, supporters of Representative Mike Sodrel, the freshman Republican who lost his race for re-election, routinely described him as a nonpolitician inured to Washington’s ways.

“For most of us, we don’t look at Mike as a politician, we look at him as a patriot,” said Jan Whittenberg, the outreach director at Graceland Baptist Church in New Albany.

Yet the wealthy but down-home Mr. Sodrel, a self-made trucking magnate, was among the most assiduous of all House candidates in enlisting campaign support from Republican power brokers. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and various cabinet members made repeated visits to Indiana on Mr. Sodrel’s behalf — “essentially the entire Republican establishment,” said Abby Curran, the campaign manager for the Democratic candidate, Baron Hill.

Mr. Sodrel’s campaign came out with the usual Republican talking points, jabbing at Mr. Hill on gay rights, flag-burning and “Hoosier values.” A billboard on Interstate 65 in southern Indiana proclaimed Mr. Hill’s support for abortion, though Mr. Sodrel’s campaign said it was paid for by a third-party group.

But as in the other race, Mr. Sodrel found it virtually impossible to outflank his conservative Democrat. Outside Graceland Baptist two days before the election, Stephen Baldwin, a Sodrel supporter, said of his candidate: “He’s a member. He’s no politician.”

Yet the message conveyed by the cavalcade of Republican stars through southeastern Indiana was exactly the opposite.

“I think there was a perception out there, Who’s going to be the Washington insider?” Mr. Hill said. “He created an impression that he was going to be beholden to all these people.”

In the Second Congressional District, which contains northern industrial precincts, Representative Chris Chocola, a two-term Republican, saw his re-election bid fail under similar tactics. Mr. Bush made the district his first stop in a House race this election season, in February, and candidate and president formed a tight bond from the start.

“Chocola followed the Rovean line early on, to stick as close as possible to Bush,” said Peri E. Arnold, a political science professor at Notre Dame, which is in the Second District, in a reference to Mr. Bush’s adviser Karl Rove. “There was no effort to separate himself from Bush, and in this district he paid a significant price for that.”

Katie Nee, the campaign manager for the winning Democrat, Joe Donnelly, put it this way: “There was just a general feeling that Washington was not working for the people in this district.”

Days after the election, Republican operatives here continued to express bitterness and bewilderment at Tuesday’s outcomes, insisting that the best men — the experienced ones — had not won. Yet of Indiana’s three Democratic winners, the candidate with easily the biggest margin, Mr. Ellsworth, had the weakest ties to politics. Both of the other Democrats had run for elected office before (Mr. Hill, in fact, had served two terms in the House before he was defeated in 2004 by Mr. Sodrel).

But Mr. Ellsworth was such a novice that when Steny H. Hoyer, the House minority whip, called to recruit him to run, Mr. Ellsworth said he called Washington back and asked to speak with “Congressman Steny.”

Though national Democrats may have nudged Mr. Ellsworth into running, he insisted on a grass-roots, on-the-ground campaign up and down the district. “That’s the only way I knew how to run this thing,” he said. “Get out and meet people.”

His new constituents took note. Rick Wahl, a technician for Terminix pest control, finishing up a job at the First Avenue Diner here, did not vote for the incumbent and expressed gratitude at his demise.

“We’re the people who do the electing,” Mr. Wahl said. “He’s a servant of the people. And he seems to have forgotten who the people are.”

    G.O.P. Collapse in Indiana Emblematic of Larger Loss, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/us/12indiana.html

Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq

November 12, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ, DAVID JOHNSTON and THOM SHANKER

This article is by James Glanz, David Johnston and Thom Shanker.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — Congressional Democrats say they will press new legislation next week to restore the power of a federal agency in charge of ferreting out waste and corruption in Iraq and greatly increase its investigative reach.

The bills, the first of what are likely to be dozens of Democratic efforts to resurrect investigations of war profiteering and financial fraud in government contracting, could be introduced as early as Monday morning.

The move would nullify a Republican-backed provision, slipped into a huge military authorization bill, that set a termination date for the agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The agency’s findings have consistently undermined Bush administration claims of widespread success in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Oversight, the power wielded by Congressional committees to demand information and internal documents and to haul executive branch officials to hearings, by subpoena if necessary, is reverberating through Congress as a Democratic battle cry.

“The unilateral decision made by House Republicans to shut down this critical office should be reversed immediately,” said Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is poised to become the majority leader.

The House version of the bill will be introduced by Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat likely to take over as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, a member of Mr. Skelton’s staff said Friday. Mr. Skelton also said he would resurrect a subcommittee on oversight and investigations that was jettisoned by Republicans to investigate military spending.

In the Senate, Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that seeking a new strategy for Iraq would be his primary focus, but that he would also look carefully at military contracting.

“There have been serious allegations and evidence of misconduct among suppliers,” Mr. Levin said. “And the taxpayers, of course, get socked on that. And the troops are not properly taken care of when that happens.”

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said on Saturday that the administration was willing to have discussions with Congress on the proposal to extend the inspector general’s tenure. Mr. Fratto added, “We have a history of cooperating fully with and supporting inspectors general.”

Mr. Fratto said he could not speak more definitively on the subject because the legislation was yet to be released.

In a measure of the momentum behind the bill, it is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, along with co-sponsors Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, and Joseph I. Lieberman, who won re-election as an independent in Connecticut.

“It is inconceivable that we would remove this aggressive oversight while the American taxpayer is still spending billions of dollars on Iraq reconstruction projects,” Ms. Collins said.

Mr. Reid has said that after the lame-duck session ends, the Democrats will press ahead with Congressional oversight, particularly on Iraq. But Democratic leaders have also been conciliatory in discussing broader efforts to review the administration’s initiatives of the past six years.

The imperative to investigate financial misdeeds extends beyond the military. Congressional aides said that the House government reform committee under Representative Henry A. Waxman of California might also investigate spending related to domestic security and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Appropriations Committee, which is likely to be led by Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, is likely to review more closely spending like large supplementary requests for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, after the negative political fallout of corruption cases involving lawmakers, the Appropriations Committee is under pressure to curtail earmarks, which are spending measures for specific projects not sought by a federal agency but sponsored by a lawmaker — sometimes anonymously and often for a financial supporter.

Potentially explosive confrontations over foreign policy issues between Democrats and the Bush administration may be unavoidable. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, who is expected to become the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been a critic of the C.I.A.’s secret detention program and the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

It is unclear how far chairmen like Mr. Rockefeller may push the administration to obtain more information about secret programs. The committee, like many others, has often degenerated into partisan rancor over the past two years, and Mr. Rockefeller, like other incoming chairmen, has told colleagues that one of his priorities is to restore the committee’s historic bipartisanship.

But there is unlikely to be much downside for the Democrats in going after waste and fraud in government contracting, particularly in the Iraq war, which is not only unpopular with the American public but also where corporate giants like Halliburton, Parsons and Bechtel have committed highly publicized missteps in the rebuilding program.

Investigations by the Iraq oversight agency, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., have already led to convictions of American occupation officials on bribery charges and uncovered many instances of substandard construction.

Mr. Bowen’s investigations of Halliburton have uncovered tens of millions of dollars of charges for work that achieved little in the way of results, but apparently met the letter of the company’s contract with the United States to repair oil facilities. Mr. Bowen has also found that Halliburton has been using federal loopholes to impede investigations of its work by declaring nearly all information about company activities in Iraq to be proprietary, or sensitive because it could aid the company’s competitors.

So it came as a surprise to many that Mr. Bowen’s office was directed to go out of business on Oct. 1, 2007, by an obscure provision in an authorization bill that President Bush signed last month. The termination language was quietly inserted into the bill by staff members working for Representative Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who now leads the House Armed Services Committee.

As in the bill that the president signed, the new Senate proposal would expand the pot of money that Mr. Bowen could investigate, but it would not set a hard deadline for the agency’s work to come to an end. Both the House and Senate measures extend the deadline at least into 2008, by most readings, but the House measure would also add about $2 billion — for training and equipping Iraqi security forces — to the amount that the agency could investigate, a Congressional staff member said. Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who is expected to become the House speaker, said she would strongly support that legislation.

“Democrats want the inspector general to stay at work until the job is done,” Ms. Pelosi said. “Those individuals and companies responsible for shoddy work or fraudulent billing practices must be held accountable.”

Several officials on Capitol Hill said that the locus of resistance to extending the tenure of Mr. Bowen’s office came from the State Department, which believes that its own inspector general should begin taking on the job of investigating reconstruction in Iraq. But that notion finds resistance among some lawmakers who distrust the administration’s will to investigate itself.

Outside the reconstruction program, some agencies are likely to be singled out for special scrutiny, not only the Pentagon, but also the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Incoming Democratic chairman have said they plan to review the C.I.A.’s secret detention and interrogation program for important terrorism suspects and what some lawmakers have said is the sluggish pace of the F.B.I.’s effort to transform itself into a counterterrorism agency.

The Homeland Security Department has had at least some scrutiny from Congress in recent years, most particularly related to its performance and that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

But the new Democratic leaders, their aides said, intend to significantly broaden the oversight efforts, a step that may include more frequent subpoenas for administration officials who have declined to appear for some hearings, as was the case in the hurricane investigation.

One area that almost certainly will draw additional oversight is mass-transit security, said Dena L. Graziano, spokeswoman for Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is expected to take over the House Committee on Homeland Security.

And Democrats have long argued that the administration is too focused on aviation security, and has failed to devote enough money or attention to preventing bombings like those that have occurred in Madrid and London. Some Democrats, nursing years of slights at the hands of Republican appointees in federal agencies who ignored or brushed aside hundreds of their letters asking for information, are eager for answers. The Senate Judiciary Committee has staff members trying to compile a complete list of unanswered questions.

Some Democrats said before the election that they would inquire more deeply into some issues, asking for fuller accountability among senior officers and civilian officials at the Pentagon over the harsh treatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“I think the accountability for Abu Ghraib has not yet been accomplished in terms of finding out who was involved, at what level,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

For all the pledges of rigorous oversight, Democrats are moving warily, fearful of a misstep, mainly in national security areas, that could return them to the sidelines as a minority party.

That may explain the focus on less volatile issues like waste and fraudulent spending and why few Democrats are proposing inquiries on hot-button issues, like the underlying rationale for the war in Iraq or the underpinning for the administration’s counterterrorism policies.

Agendas are likely to shift over time, particularly in the House, where the leadership lineup will not be known with certainty for weeks. In addition, the transfer of majority control in both chambers means Republicans and Democrats must switch offices in the House and Senate. Republicans will be forced to dismiss some committee staff members, and Democrats will expand their workforce, in some committees nearly doubling staff size.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Skelton said that in the past, “the Congress has not worked, and has not asked the tough questions or held the administration to account.”

But he said it was the responsibility of every Democrat taking over a subcommittee chairmanship also to apply more scrutiny to government action, and not just those of subcommittees specifically charged with that mandate.

“Our subcommittee chairmen will be able to bring oversight back to their individual subcommittees,” he said.

David Johnston and Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and James Glanz from New York. Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Miami, and Mark Mazzetti and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.

    Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/washington/12oversight.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology

November 12, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBIN TONER and KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — The newly elected Democratic class of 2006, which is set to descend on the Capitol next week, will hardly be the first freshmen to arrive in Washington promising to make a difference.

The last time Congress changed hands, the Republican freshman class of 1994 roared into town under the leadership of Newt Gingrich as speaker and quickly advanced a conservative agenda of exceptional ambition.

Many in the class of 2006, especially those who delivered the new Democratic majorities by winning Republican seats, show little appetite for that kind of ideological crusade. But in interviews with nearly half of them this week, the freshmen — 41 in the House and 9 in the Senate, including one independent — conveyed a keen sense of their own moment in history, and a distinct world view: they say they were given a rare opportunity by voters, many of them independents and Republicans, who were tired of the partisanship and gridlock in Washington.

Now, they say, they have to produce — to deal with long-festering problems like access to affordable health care and the loss of manufacturing jobs, and to find a bipartisan consensus for an exit strategy in Iraq, a source of continuing division not only between but also within the parties.

Many of them say they must also, somehow, find a way to address the growing anxiety among voters about a global economy that no longer seems to work for them. There is a strong populist tinge to this class.

In general, they set themselves an extraordinary (political veterans might say impossible) task: to avoid the ideological wars that have so dominated Congress in recent years, to be pragmatists, and to change the tone in Washington after a sharply partisan campaign.

“I see myself, hopefully, as a bridge builder, a consensus person,” said Harry Mitchell, 66, a longtime state senator and former mayor of Tempe, Ariz., who defeated Representative J. D. Hayworth, an emblematic member of the class of 1994. “I can’t be a rabid partisan Democrat and represent this district.”

Nancy Boyda, who defeated Representative Jim Ryun, the legendary track star, in a district in Kansas that President Bush carried by 20 percentage points in 2004, summarized her mandate this way: “Stop the gridlock, stop the nastiness, get something done. People are tired of excuses.”

Claire McCaskill, who defeated Senator Jim Talent of Missouri in a fiercely competitive race, said: “I’m not from a blue echo chamber. I’m from a state that’s really like America — it’s divided.”

“The problem with Washington,” Ms. McCaskill added, “is you have so many senators who are from bright blue and bright red states; they’re not interested in common ground. They’re interested in making each other look bad.”

These attitudes could lead to tensions with the party’s liberal base in Congress — many of the party’s expected committee chairmen are traditional liberals — and thus occasional headaches over the next two years for the Democratic leaders, Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid.

But Democratic strategists say both leaders recognize that the new Democratic majority was elected, in large part, from Republican-leaning districts and states. If those new members vote in a purely partisan way, they — and the majority — will quickly be put at risk.

Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat who recruited many of these candidates as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, described the group as “moderate in temperament and reformers in spirit.” Conservatives tend to highlight the conservatism in the new class as a sign that Democrats are essentially ceding ground to the right on issues like gun control and abortion.

But many of these freshmen Democrats are hard to pigeonhole ideologically. Even among the most socially conservative, there is a strong streak of economic populism that is a unifying force.

Heath Shuler, for example, the former professional football player and newly elected House Democrat from North Carolina, is anti-abortion and pro-gun, but sounds like an old-style Democrat on economic issues.

“I was taught at a very, very young age about faith and personal responsibility, and through that, that responsibility was about helping those who cannot help themselves,” Mr. Shuler said. “If you look at what the Democratic Party stands for, it is about helping others who can’t help themselves.”

Like other Democrats, he supports legislation to increase the minimum wage and make college tuition tax deductible. He also opposes trade agreements that he says have led to a 78 percent loss in textile industry jobs in his state.

Similarly, Ms. Boyda of Kansas, a first-time office holder who relied on lengthy newspaper inserts to make her case to the voters, said, “The rural economy has been left out.” She added: “A lot of my district feels a great deal of insecurity about their jobs, their health care, their business, their family farm. They feel like they’re just kind of hanging out there.”

Carol Shea-Porter, a social worker and new House member from New Hampshire who considers herself a populist, said, “The theme of my campaign was, I’m running for the rest of us.” She added that no matter how much the Bush administration boasted of job growth, her voters “understood those were Wal-Mart jobs.” And, she said, “They understood when they talked about the stock market boom, that half of Americans aren’t even in the stock market.”

Jim Webb, who defeated Senator George Allen of Virginia, campaigned heavily on the idea that the middle class was increasingly at risk in an age of growing inequality. Bob Casey, who overwhelmingly defeated Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, said he looked forward to “a really intensive focus on health care that I hope to be a part of.”

That economic populism extends, for many candidates, to a new emphasis on expanding health coverage. Congressional Democrats who lived through the Clinton administration’s failed effort to create a national health insurance plan, which many believe was a crucial factor in the Democrats’ losses in 1994, have been wary of broad health legislation for years. (And being in the minority, they were unable to do much about it, regardless.) But the class of ’06 is adamant that something major can, and will, be done.

Dave Loebsack, a political science professor in Iowa who unseated the veteran Republican moderate, Representative Jim Leach, said he intended to sign on to proposed legislation to create a single-payer, national health insurance program “as one of the first things I will do when I get to Congress.”

“I have no idea where it’s going to go next year,” Mr. Loebsack said, “but at least we can give it a fair hearing.”

Steven Kagen, an allergist who won a Wisconsin district that has been represented by a Republican for much of the past 30 years, campaigned on a “No Patient Left Behind” plan. Mr. Kagen won despite doubters who called it “the Hillary hot potato,” a reference to the first lady turned New York senator who was the architect of the Clinton plan.

“This issue has blurred the lines between the two parties,” Mr. Kagen said. “You don’t have to be a Republican or a Democrat to be ill, and to understand that the health care system doesn’t work.”

Mr. Kagen is one of several new House members urging a renewed commitment to the more than eight million uninsured children in the United States, an issue that will move to the forefront when the State Children’s Health Insurance Program comes up for renewal next year.

Most of these new Democrats said they were also committed to changes in the new Medicare prescription drug program; in fact, giving the government the power to negotiate prices with drug companies is one of the first items of business in the Democrats’ “Six for ’06 Agenda.” The agenda also includes an increase in the minimum wage and expansion of embryonic stem cell research.

Ron Klein, a state senator who defeated the veteran Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr. of Florida, said he had often heard both from retirees who fell into the gaps of the new Medicare drug plan and from “taxpayers who were really put off that this was something that could have been done a lot better.”

Democrats, of course, had their chance to resolve the prescription drug problem in the past — their party held the Senate for a brief period in 2001-02 — and few issues have been more divisive on Capitol Hill.

But the new Democrats say they have high hopes of building bipartisan coalitions for these changes in Medicare, for expanding embryonic stem cell research, and for other parts of their agenda. “I’m still scratching my head” over Mr. Bush’s veto of last year’s stem cell bill, said Ed Perlmutter, a former state senator who won a House district in the Denver suburbs.

Representative Sherrod Brown, who is moving to the Senate from the House after beating Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, argued: “Tell me a whole lot of Republicans won’t work with us on finding a way for middle-class kids to get a college education, to vote for embryonic stem cell research, to raise the minimum wage. John McCain is already out there talking about prescription drug issues.”

The flip side to this, Democratic strategists say, is that Republicans could peel off a critical mass of conservative Democrats on certain issues. Some veterans on Capitol Hill remember the Democratic Congress of the early Reagan years, when conservative Democrats regularly broke ranks on tax cuts.

The true challenge to any new climate of bipartisanship will most likely come over Iraq. Many of the freshmen said they looked to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group — led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton — as an invaluable vehicle for consensus building.

“I pray, and I mean that literally, that their recommendation can be seen as a way forward,” Ms. Boyda said.

They also said they were pleased that Mr. Bush announced, the day after the election, that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would be replaced. Gabrielle Giffords, newly elected to a House seat in Arizona, said she had rarely given a speech without calling for Mr. Rumsfeld’s removal.

But there are still divisions in the Democratic caucus over an exit strategy for Iraq, although many of the freshmen come to Washington with a keen sense of the voters’ desire for change. Joe Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral who won a House seat in Pennsylvania, said: “I honestly believe this nation in its vote has said: ‘What are we doing in Iraq? We can’t stay there.’ I think they are rightfully leading the leaders to say, ‘Set a date; move toward it.’ ”

Others stop short of suggesting a fixed timetable. As they headed to Washington for their orientation, many of the incoming freshmen still spoke like outsiders. Tim Walz, a Minnesota teacher, retired National Guardsman and newly elected House Democrat, described himself as “a farm state Democrat-soldier who’s concerned about the environment and civil liberties.”

He has seen how ugly the partisanship can get in American politics, Mr. Walz said, and is adamant about changing it. “I’m convinced that what we need to do is heal,” he said. “Tuesday was not a Democratic referendum; it was an American referendum. It’s not that the American people are so enamored with the Democratic vision, but what they believed is what we said about cleaning up corruption, having some real open debate. It just seems so broken.”

    Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/us/politics/12class.html?hp&ex=1163394000&en=ceffce064221aee9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

New Democratic Majority Throws Bush’s Judicial Nominations Into Uncertainty

November 12, 2006
The New York Times
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — The impending Democratic takeover of the Senate, lawmakers and administration officials agree, will produce a vast change in an area that has produced some of the sharpest partisan battles in recent years: President Bush’s effort to shape the federal bench with conservative judicial nominees.

There is a strong consensus that the four most conservative of Mr. Bush’s nominations to the federal appeals courts are doomed. Republicans and Democrats say the four have no chance of confirmation in the next several weeks of the lame-duck Congressional session or in the final two years of Mr. Bush’s term.

The nominees are William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon’s chief lawyer who was responsible for the much-criticized military interrogation policies; William G. Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for the mining and ranching industries and a critic of environmental regulations; Terrence W. Boyle, a district court judge in North Carolina; and Michael B. Wallace of Mississippi, a lawyer who was rated unqualified for the court by the American Bar Association.

For the past six years, the relationship between Senate Democrats and Mr. Bush has been marked by unremitting rancor and suspicion. The Constitution gives the Senate the power to confirm or decline a president’s judicial choices; although Senate Democrats were in the minority for much of Mr. Bush’s term, they took the unusual step of waging filibusters to block several of the president’s nominees who they said were too conservative.

With that foundation of hostility, there is deep uncertainty now as to how Mr. Bush and the Democratic Senate will deal with each other come January.

Some Democrats say that how Mr. Bush handles judicial nominations will provide an early test of his pledge to compromise and de-emphasize partisanship. It will be significant, they say, whether he chooses to renominate his four most conservative choices in the next Congress, hoping for political reasons to paint Democrats as obstructionist, or instead drops them as hopeless and tries to reach compromises.

Ronald A. Klain, a former Democratic chief counsel for the Judiciary Committee and the White House counsel in charge of judicial nominations for President Bill Clinton, said Mr. Bush and the Republicans faced a decision with important implications.

“The Bush administration has played the game of judicial selection very hard and very far to the right for the past six years with little moderation,” Mr. Klain said. “They have to make a fundamental decision now as to how they want to deal with this. Do they move to the center or stay true to the right?”

A senior Democratic strategist in the Senate said his party was eager to see which direction Mr. Bush chose on judicial nominations.

“Those guys in the White House have governed unilaterally for six years,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as is customary among Congressional staff. “It’s been their way or no way, show no quarter.”

“Does he pivot and become like he was as Texas governor and work with both sides of the aisle,” the official said, “or does he send up these guys again and set us up for hard votes and call the Democrats obstructionist?”

That had been a political tenet of the White House. The administration had a no-lose situation in naming staunch conservatives to the bench: their choices would either be confirmed or their defeat would provide a strong campaign issue.

The chief Republican proponent of underlining Democratic opposition to Mr. Bush’s judicial choices was Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Mr. Santorum, as a Republican leader, once staged a round-the-clock “anti-filibuster” in 2003 in which the Senate was kept in continual session for 40 hours over two nights. Mr. Santorum was defeated in his re-election bid this week.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said this week that he thought Democrats were overreaching in viewing Mr. Bush’s actions as a test.

“The last time I read the Constitution, the president has the power to nominate whomever he wants,” Mr. Specter said. “The Democrats don’t have to vote for those people, but I don’t see it as a sign of truculence or defiance if he nominates people they won’t vote for.”

Mr. Specter said he hoped to move forward on other Bush nominees who were less controversial than those four. He said Peter M. Keisler, a senior Justice Department lawyer nominated to a seat on the appeals court in Washington, should be considered quickly.

“I don’t know of any substantive objection to his nomination,” Mr. Specter said. “It’s not good public policy to hold someone up without cause.”

David A. Yalof, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut and an authority on judicial selection, said the larger political objective for the Democrats might have little to do with individual assessments of the Bush nominees.

In the last two years of a presidency, Professor Yalof said, “The priority for the party not in control of the White House is not so much in stopping candidates based on their ideologies, but keeping as many vacancies open as possible on the theory that the next president may be someone of your party and will be able to fill those slots.”

If the Democrats follow that model, he said, they will be following the playbook of the Republicans, who blocked most of Mr. Clinton’s appeals court nominees in his last two years in office.

    New Democratic Majority Throws Bush’s Judicial Nominations Into Uncertainty, NYT, 12.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/us/12judicial.html

Democrats, Engaging Bush, Vow Early Action Over Iraq

November 11, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — Democrats sought on Friday to put their new political power to use in shaping the debate over Iraq, promising stepped-up Congressional oversight of the war and a resolution demanding a schedule for reducing the number of troops there.

After two days in which both sides pledged bipartisanship in the aftermath of the Democratic victory in the midterm elections, leaders of the new Democratic majority began asserting themselves, seeking to give Congress a greater role in both foreign and domestic policy after years in which, in their view, President Bush was granted too much latitude.

After meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House, Senator Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader, said “the first order of business” when Democrats formally take over in January will be to reinvigorate Congressional scrutiny of the executive branch, with a focus on Iraq.

“Let’s find out what’s going on with the war in Iraq, the different large federal agencies that we have,” said Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “There simply has been no oversight in recent years.”

The willingness of Democrats to begin confronting Mr. Bush and his party over Iraq suggested that the early promises of cooperation across the aisle would be tested quickly by deep differences over policy and political imperatives on both sides.

The post-election session of Congress that begins Monday, with Republicans still in charge, is likely to bring clashes between the two parties on a number of topics, including Mr. Bush’s call for the confirmation of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and for legislation authorizing the administration’s eavesdropping program.

With the White House having expressed a readiness to consider new ideas on Iraq, Democrats also said they were drawing up plans to keep the pressure on Mr. Bush to alter his approach to the war.

In doing so, they are trying to offer new strategy initiatives in a growing debate over Iraq that already includes the Iraq Study Group, a commission that is slated to make recommendations next month. Senior military officers have also ordered a broad review of strategy in Iraq and have enlisted a team of innovative officers to conduct it.

Though Democrats will not take power until January, the incoming chairmen of the committees with jurisdiction over national security said in interviews that they hoped to persuade Republicans to respond to their losses at the polls by backing resolutions — perhaps as early as the lame-duck Congressional session beginning next week — that call on Mr. Bush to change course.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who is in line to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress must be the agent “to make it clear to the Iraqis that we cannot save them from themselves.”

“They need to make the political compromises that only they can make,” Mr. Levin added. “We’ve got to let the Iraqis know there is no open-ended commitment.”

Mr. Levin has for several months advocated linking the presence of American troops to political progress in Iraq, a stance that Pentagon officials had dismissed as reckless but that is now gaining wider, even bipartisan, support. While there is no language yet for such a resolution, he indicated that it could describe the requirements for continued American military commitment to Iraq, and some specified number of months for its duration.

“At the end of this time period, we would begin the reduction of American forces,” Mr. Levin said. “I think such a resolution would have tremendous power on the president. It would not just represent a bipartisan majority of Congress, and its urgent recommendation. It would be a reflection of the people’s voice as expressed” at the polls.

Even before Election Day, Democrats were trying to focus attention both on management of the war and potential fraud and abuse by contractors. Jim Manley, an aide to Mr. Reid, said new oversight by the Democratic majority in the Senate would most likely continue those lines of inquiry. In Los Angeles, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is to lead the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, said in a speech that war profiteering could also be a likely subject for his committee.

Mr. Reid is also interested in completing the long-delayed second phase of an Intelligence Committee review into prewar intelligence and the administration’s handling of it, Mr. Manley said.

In his meeting with the president, Mr. Reid said he also raised the idea of a bipartisan Congressional conference on Iraq with Mr. Bush. “He didn’t reject it,” Mr. Reid said of the president. “He said he thought it was interesting. He wanted more openness on Iraq.”

The White House had little comment on Mr. Reid’s push for more oversight.

“I’ll let that speak for itself,” Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said. “The most important priority right now is to win a war on terror and keep America safe and figure out ways that both parties can work together with the shared responsibility of having victory in Iraq and also providing the tools for law enforcement and intelligence officers to be able to detect planned attacks on the United States and prevent them from taking place.”

Trying to tamp down concerns about a potential blizzard of subpoenas that some Republicans had warned of should Democrats control Congress, Mr. Reid dismissed that idea, and his aide said he was just trying to restore Congress’s traditional role.

“There will be times, on rare occasions, when subpoenas will have to be offered, but rarely,” he said. “If Congress does its job and does Congressional oversight, as has been done for more than 200 years, it’s good for everyone.”

While Democrats made criticism of the war a central element of their successful midterm election campaign, translating that into policy once they take charge on Capitol Hill is more problematic. The president, as commander in chief, directs the military and Democrats have consistently said they would not take steps like cutting off money for operations in Iraq.

But Democrats can use other tools to advance their ideas on the war, though they will also have to find some consensus among the current Democratic members of the House and Senate and those elected on Tuesday.

In calling for a timeline for American troop reductions, some Democrats have advocated a parallel increase in the number of American military trainers to improve the quality of Iraqi security forces. Some have called for maintaining substantial numbers of American ground forces in nearby Kuwait — or perhaps at major bases in parts of Iraq, such as northern Kurdistan, with lower levels of violence. Under this plan, the American troops would generally be pulled out of harm’s way in Iraq, but could act as a “quick-reaction force” to reinforce Iraqi security personnel if overwhelmed by insurgent attacks.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the Democrat who is to be chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he would press for an international conference on Iraq, inspired by the Dayton sessions that brokered an end to the bloodshed in Bosnia by summoning Serbs, Croats and Bosnians to an American military base in Ohio for talks.

Mr. Biden also called on Mr. Bush to sit down with members of Congress to find a consensus on how to proceed.

“I hope there is enough Republican as well as Democratic support,” he said, “for a bipartisan effort to press the president very hard to sit with us, anywhere from the White House to Camp David — without our staffs and cellphones — to actually hammer out what I think a number of us on both sides of the aisle believe are necessary elements of an Iraq policy.”

After that, Mr. Biden said, the president should convene “a Dayton-type conference” of Iraq and its neighbors to create the political process “of keeping the neighbors out” of Iraq and “contain Iraq to keep it from becoming a full-blown civil war.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

    Democrats, Engaging Bush, Vow Early Action Over Iraq, NYT, 11.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/us/politics/11elect.html?hp&ex=1163307600&en=c8f232af1f1c9a13&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House Memo

On a Shifting Field, a Sense of Rising Expectations

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — It was no doubt inadvertent, but it was hard not to find some symbolism in the moment Thursday in the Oval Office when President Bush seemed to forget that Vice President Dick Cheney was in the room.

Representatives Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader who is soon to become the first female speaker of the House, and Steny H. Hoyer, the Democratic whip, had come to the White House for lunch. As the two Democrats, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney sat in front of a fireplace, the president spoke about the importance of working together to get things done.

“Both of us recognize — all three of us,” Mr. Bush said, apparently referring to himself, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer, “recognize that when you win, you have a responsibility to do the best you can for the country.”

The omission of Mr. Cheney, the embodiment of the administration’s approach to national security, raised an intriguing question. As Mr. Bush grapples with the loss of his Republican majority in Congress, how far will he go to reinvent himself, and who — or what philosophies — is he willing to jettison along the way?

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has already been pushed out the door, and there were questions on Thursday about the future of Karl Rove, the political strategist whose divide-and-conquer tactics failed on Tuesday for the first time. Asked what role Mr. Rove would play now, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, offered little insight.

“That’s a good process question,” Mr. Snow said, “for which I don’t have an answer.”

It has been six years since Mr. Bush was elected on a record of working with moderate Democrats in Texas and a promise of being “a uniter, not a divider.” In that time, his efforts at unity have been intended mostly to hold together and motivate his conservative base: social conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage, fiscal conservatives who demand spending restraint, neo-conservatives whose muscular foreign policy vision provided the foundation for the democracy agenda and the Iraq war.

Now that Republicans have taken what he calls “a thumping” — losing control of both the House and Senate in a virtual political earthquake — Mr. Bush is striking a conciliatory note. Last week, Democrats were weak on defense and wrong on taxes. By Thursday, Mr. Bush had this to say about them:

“We won’t agree on every issue, but we do agree that we love America equally, that we’re concerned about the future of this country and that we will do our very best to address big problems.”

It might seem like the new George W. Bush — or maybe the old one, returning to his Texas governor roots. But, Republicans say, it is really just the same President Bush — the first M.B.A. president, pragmatic enough to recognize, as he himself might say, that he must adjust his tactics to changing conditions on the ground.

“You’re seeing the George Bush who has always been adept at playing the hand he is dealt,” said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House.

Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman and lobbyist, put it this way: “I’ve never thought that George Bush was a rigid ideologue; I’ve never thought that he was a hardened partisan. He is a businessman first, and in business you don’t spend a lot of time crying about changed circumstances. You figure out quickly how to adapt, and that’s what he’s doing.”

But Mr. Bush demonstrated Thursday that he is not going overboard to adapt.

With his cabinet arrayed behind him, he greeted reporters in the Rose Garden to say that, before Republicans ceded control of Congress at the end of the year, he wanted them to pass legislation codifying his authority to run a once-secret domestic wiretapping program — anathema to many Democrats. Mr. Bush is also pressing the lame-duck Senate to confirm John R. Bolton, whom he installed as ambassador to the United Nations during a recess, circumventing Democrats who oppose Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Snow, the press secretary, was told that did not exactly sound like an olive branch, and he replied, “Let me put it this way, olive branches work in two directions.”

Neo-conservatives, though chastened by Tuesday’s results, said they did not expect radical change, despite Mr. Bush’s announcement that he would nominate Robert M. Gates, a former C.I.A. director, to succeed Mr. Rumsfeld.

“I don’t think Gates means the president is looking for a way out of Iraq,” said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine. “Gates means he knew he had to make a change and get a fresh face in to build public support. So long as Bush is president, he’s not going to want to withdraw from Iraq, and he’s not going to want to go back to a pre-9/11 foreign policy, and that’s really the core of it.”

Democrats, not surprisingly, were a tad suspicious. Tom Daschle, who served as Democratic leader of the Senate during the brief period when Democrats were in the majority under Mr. Bush, said he saw little evidence that the White House could depart from its “arrogance and extraordinary single-mindedness.”

Mr. Daschle invoked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who famously repaired his relationship with Democrats. “But I don’t think he’s motivated in the same way,” Mr. Daschle said of Mr. Bush. “Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to get re-elected. There’s no real motivation for Bush.”

But there is motivation for Democrats — and Mr. Bush intends to exploit that if he can.

“Their whole theme has been the do-nothing Congress,” Mr. Black, the Republican strategist, said. “Now, if they get in there and make themselves vulnerable to that charge, it hurts them in ’08. He knows that they have an incentive to get things done, and he’s going to take advantage of that.”

If it works — and that is a big if — some Republicans say it could be an opportunity for Mr. Bush to refurbish his presidency. It is an old saw of politics that you never win by losing, but Tuesday’s drubbing leaves Mr. Bush a liberated man, free to cooperate with Democrats without worrying about his base or the next election.

“It could be the saving grace of his administration,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, “because it gives him an opportunity to demonstrate real presidential leadership that is inclusive, right of center but not far right of center, which is where the American people are.”

    On a Shifting Field, a Sense of Rising Expectations, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10memo.html

Editorial

Bipartisanship on Hold

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
 

President Bush was back on TV yesterday, without the scowl he’d been sporting the day after the election but with the surviving members of his Cabinet. He talked about how much he was looking forward to lunching with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and working on “the great issues facing America.” Mr. Bush said his team would “respect the results” of the election.

Just maybe not right away.

Without missing a beat, Mr. Bush made it clear that, for now, his idea of how to “put the elections behind us” is to use the Republicans’ last two months in control of Congress to try to push through one of the worst ideas his administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have come up with: a bill that would legalize his illegal wiretapping program and gut the law that limits a president’s ability to abuse his power in this way.

Mr. Bush listed his priorities for the forthcoming lame duck session of Congress. It was an odd list that included only two really urgent items — passing the bills that keep federal money flowing and confirming the nomination of Robert Gates as the next secretary of defense. The rest was a grab bag that included one worthy but hardly urgent idea (getting Vietnam into the World Trade Organization) and a series of ideas ranging from bad to truly awful that Mr. Bush has been unable to get through Congress and hopes to ram through in the Republicans’ last weeks.

For example, he wants the Senate to ratify his recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. That vote, which is likely to be strongly debated, can easily wait for the new Congress, and should. Mr. Bush also pressed for quick passage of “the bipartisan energy legislation,” which had Congressional officials scratching their heads in puzzlement about which bill he might mean. And he wants immediate approval of his administration’s deal to sell civilian nuclear technology to India despite that nation’s refusal to sign or abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

That was a bad idea from the start. But the wiretapping bill is simply outrageous, and it has no business being discussed in this lame duck session.

The bill Mr. Bush wants was drafted by Vice President Dick Cheney’s lawyers and by Senator Arlen Specter, the outgoing Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Specter presented it as a compromise that would regulate the president’s ability to spy on Americans’ phone calls and e-mail without a court order. It really was a cave-in to Mr. Bush’s effort to expand his power beyond limits that have existed for nearly 30 years.

Mr. Bush has acknowledged that he authorized the National Security Agency to conduct certain kinds of domestic wiretapping without obtaining the warrant required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He has claimed that the law hindered the hunt for terrorists, but has not offered a scrap of evidence for that claim. He has also never described the program’s overall scope, and almost none of the lawmakers who will vote on this bill if Mr. Bush has his way have any idea what it entails.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is one of the few members who does know, has said there is nothing in the program that could not be done legally. She has proposed a more modest bill that would give the government more flexibility to eavesdrop first and get permission later. But Mr. Bush is not interested. He wants the bill that would gut the law, absolve him of illegal behavior and turn over the task of determining the constitutionality of his program to a court that is not equipped to make that judgment.

Since the White House has continued the wiretapping without legislative approval, there is no conceivable reason why Mr. Bush should see this as an emergency. His real motive could be to create a bargaining chip that would allow him to get a narrower bill giving the telephone companies immunity for helping the administration conduct the unlawful eavesdropping. That’s an absurdly bad idea.

There are plenty of responsible lawmakers in both parties who are sympathetic to the idea that the executive branch needed more flexibility to pursue terrorists after 9/11. It has been obvious all along that if the president feels current law is too restrictive, he should explain its shortcomings to members of Congress and ask them to amend it. The Republican majority was never going to insist on that, but the new Democratic leadership might.

The White House refuses to explain itself because this has never been about catching terrorists. It is about overturning the crucial limits placed on executive authority after Watergate and Vietnam. Mr. Cheney and a few other hard-liners have been trying to turn back the clock and have succeeded in some truly scary ways, including the military commissions act they pushed through Congress before the elections. It is vital that they not be allowed to do any more harm.

    Bipartisanship on Hold, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/opinion/10fri1.html

In Florida, Echoes of 2000 as Vote Questions Emerge

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

SARASOTA, Fla., Nov. 9 — A Democrat who narrowly lost the Congressional race here is seeking a recount after dozens of people reported problems using Sarasota County’s touch-screen voting machines and a significant number of ballots had no recorded votes in the high-profile race.

The Democrat, Christine Jennings, lost to her Republican opponent, Vern Buchanan, by just 373 votes out of a total 237,861 cast — one of the closest House races in the nation. More than 18,000 voters in Sarasota County, or 13 percent of those who went to the polls Tuesday, did not seem to vote in the Congressional race when they cast ballots, a discrepancy that Kathy Dent, the county elections supervisor, said she could not explain.

In comparison, only 2 percent of voters in one neighboring county within the same House district and 5 percent in another skipped the Congressional race, according to The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota. And many of those who did not seem to cast a vote in the House race did vote in more obscure races, like for the hospital board.

More than 100 voters have told the Jennings campaign that their votes for her did not show up on the summary screen at the end of the touch-screen voting process, and that they had to re-enter them. The candidate’s lawyers said they feared that not everyone had noticed the problem or realized that they could re-enter the vote.

“There is a spontaneous combustion of outcry in this county,” said Kendall Coffey, a lawyer who was on Vice President Al Gore’s legal team in the 2000 presidential recount and is now working for Ms. Jennings. “We are determined to do everything we can to make sure that every vote counts and everything we can to get to the bottom of this.”

A recount will almost certainly be conducted because the vote was so close. State law requires machine recounts when the margin of victory is half a percentage point or less, and manual recounts when it is a quarter of a percentage point or less. But it is not clear that a recount can recover a vote that was never properly recorded.

The Florida Elections Canvassing Commission, which includes Gov. Jeb Bush and two other state officials, both Republicans, will meet Monday and decide whether to order a recount. Secretary of State Sue M. Cobb announced Wednesday that she would send a team to conduct an audit of the county’s voting system.

Any recount results would be certified on Nov. 20, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of State. In a manual recount of touch-screen voting results, Mr. Ivey said, canvassers try to determine whether voters who skipped making a selection in a certain race did so unintentionally.

But Rebecca Mercuri, a computer scientist and an expert on voting technology in Hamilton, N.J., who has been critical of electronic voting, said it would be impossible to figure out voter intent in a recount of touch-screen votes.

“If a vote is not recorded electronically inside the machine for whatever reason, there’s no way to go back and recover it,” Ms. Mercuri said. “Chances are that nothing’s going to change, because those votes are gone.”

A preliminary review by The Herald-Tribune found that if Ms. Jennings had won the same percentage of the 18,000 missing votes as she did among counted votes in Sarasota County, she would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 373.

Ms. Jennings, a banker, and Mr. Buchanan, a car dealer, ran a bitter and costly race to replace Representative Katherine Harris, who left her seat to run for Senate but lost by a landslide on Tuesday. Ms. Harris, a Republican, was Florida’s secretary of state during the disputed 2000 presidential recount, supervising a balloting process widely considered flawed and certifying President Bush as the winner of Florida’s electoral votes.

Mr. Buchanan declared victory early Wednesday and began preparing for his new job, but Ms. Jennings has refused to concede. She has not ruled out going to court, Mr. Coffey said, but she will first wait for a recount to be completed.

Some state officials, including Ms. Dent, the elections supervisor, theorized that many voters skipped the Congressional race because they were turned off by vitriolic campaigning. But Mr. Coffey said if that had been the case, other counties in the same Congressional district would have had similarly high “undervote” rates.

So many voters reported similar problems in the state’s early voting period, Mr. Coffey said, that the Jennings campaign wrote a letter to Ms. Dent expressing concern. He said the results showed that an even larger portion of early voters — 20 percent of the total — did not vote in the Congressional race. By contrast, only 2 percent of voters using paper absentee ballots skipped the race, he said.

Mr. Coffey said Ms. Jennings wanted independent experts to come test the county’s iVotronic voting machines, made by Election Systems and Software of Omaha. Ms. Dent did not return a call seeking comment on Wednesday.

“I don’t think any of us would be satisfied with having the government do the verification,” Mr. Coffey said, “because, honestly, the government appears to be part of the problem here.”

Mike Lasche, a boat captain here, said that when he voted his vote for Ms. Jennings did not show up on the final review screen until he cast it a second time.

“If I had not checked carefully I would have gone on without ever thinking about it,” said Mr. Lasche, 50. “You have to wonder how many people it happened to and may not have even noticed it.”

Lynn Waddell contributed reporting from Sarasota and Terry Aguayo from Miami.

    In Florida, Echoes of 2000 as Vote Questions Emerge, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10florida.html

Gain for Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK

BOSTON, Nov. 9 — Lawmakers in Massachusetts, the only state where same-sex marriage is legal, dealt what appeared to be a fatal blow Thursday to a proposed constitutional amendment to ban it.

In a flurry of strategic maneuvering, supporters of same-sex marriage managed to persuade enough legislators to vote to recess a constitutional convention until the afternoon of Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session.

On that day, lawmakers and advocates on both sides said, it appeared likely that the legislature would adjourn without voting on the measure, killing it.

“For all intents and purposes, the debate has ended,” said Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat and the assistant majority leader. “What members are expecting is that the majority of constituents are going to say, ‘Thank you, we’re glad it’s over, we think it has been discussed enough.’ ”

The measure had been expected by both sides to gain easily the 50 votes required from the 200 legislators as the first step toward making same-sex marriages illegal.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which sponsored the amendment, called the recess vote a “travesty,” and, waving a copy of the State Constitution, said the legislators had “just said that it’s irrelevant.”

As for whether the fight was over, Mr. Mineau said, “We’re assessing the situation.”

Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, said the vote was a “triumph of arrogance over democracy.” He said that he would “explore any alternatives” to try to force a vote, but that “my options are limited.”

Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: “The fact that they put this off until the end of the year makes it easier for them to adjourn. If they were giving consideration, I think they would have recessed until tomorrow or maybe Monday or Tuesday next week.”

The action on Thursday came two days after Massachusetts voters elected Deval L. Patrick, a same-sex marriage supporter, as the state’s first Democratic governor in 16 years. Democrats were also elected to all of the statewide offices, leaving the state’s Republican Party in shambles.

But the fact that the amendment had enough supporters to pass the first 50-vote round indicated that the issue of same-sex marriage remains divisive three years after the state’s highest court ruled that such marriages were constitutional in Massachusetts. More than 8,000 same-sex couples have since married.

To bring the amendment before the legislature, the Massachusetts Family Institute had gathered 170,000 petition signatures. If the amendment were to get 50 votes, it would then require the votes of 50 legislators in another constitutional convention in the 2007-8 legislative session. Then it would be voted on in a referendum in November 2008.

Polls have generally found that just more than half of the citizens surveyed supported same-sex marriage, but about the same number wanted the constitutional amendment to come before voters.

The vote to recess followed a day of intense politicking and strategizing by supporters of same-sex marriage. Many legislators, even supporters of such marriages, had said they planned to vote for the amendment for fear that if they did not they would appear to be shirking their responsibility.

Gay rights advocates persuaded the legislators to first take up another amendment to ban same-sex marriage, one introduced nearly two years ago by a conservative lawmaker, but which was now considered by Mr. Mineau and other same-sex marriage opponents to be unable to pass constitutional muster because it would nullify the same-sex marriages that had already taken place.

Because that amendment had been initiated by a legislator and not a citizens’ group, it would have needed 101 votes to pass. On Thursday it was defeated unanimously.

Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said the plan was to give the legislators political cover with their constituents, because they “can all point to the fact that they fully debated same-sex marriage and took a vote on it.”

Same-sex marriage advocates also persuaded lawmakers to vote for a recess and not an adjournment because if they adjourned, Governor Romney could call them back into session.

Representative Michael A. Costello, a Democrat from Newburyport and a strong opponent of the amendment, said: “The way I looked at it was that we would kill it with a handgun or a hand grenade. It’s never been proper to put civil rights on the ballot. So we killed it through procedure, rather than on substance.”

The debate in the House was full of impassioned speeches.

“I’m 3,000 feet to the right of Attila the Hun, they tell me,” Representative Marie J. Parente, a Democrat from Milford who had lost her re-election bid on Tuesday, told her colleagues. “But you’re not. You’re the other side. The gracious people, the liberal people, the socially conscious people.”

For the 170,000 people who signed the petition and want a referendum, “does your graciousness end?” she asked. “Give the people the right to be heard.”

Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, who is gay and married, told the chamber, “It’s time for a little straight talk.”

Pointing to his wedding band, he said: “You don’t have to live next to us. You don’t have to like us. We are only asking you to end the debate,” so that “we will at least have the right to enjoy the same rights that the rest of you have enjoyed from time immemorial.”

Ariel Sabar contributed reporting.

    Gain for Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10marriage.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=483323395748e3b8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iran Leader Calls G.O.P. Loss a Victory

November 10, 2006
By REUTERS
The New York Times

TEHRAN, Nov 10 — Iran's most powerful leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in the congressional elections an "obvious victory" for the Iranian nation.

"This issue (the elections) is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world," Khamenei said in remarks reported by Iran's student news agency ISNA on Friday.

"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

The Democrats wrested control of both houses of Congress from the Republicans in this week's mid-term elections, partly because of voter concern over the war in Iraq.

Khamenei condemned Israel for its artillery attack on Wednesday on the Gazan town of Beit Hanoun which killed 18 civilians, and also the "silence" of Western nations over "this great oppression".

"The Zionist regime which ended its 50 years of military glory in Lebanon is taking revenge for its defeat on the Palestinian people," Khamenei said. "The daily crimes by the savage Zionists in Gaza once more prove that holding talks with this occupying regime is of no use."

Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas claimed victory in their war against Israel in July and August. Hezbollah is popular with Lebanon's large Shi'ite Muslim community and is supported by Syria and Iran.

    Iran Leader Calls G.O.P. Loss a Victory, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/10wire-iran.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=34ae417f0aef80c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Muslim’s Election Is Celebrated Here and in Mideast

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 — Keith Ellison wore his religion lightly on the campaign trail, mentioning it only when asked.

But Muslims across America, and even overseas, celebrated his election Tuesday as the first Muslim in Congress, representing Minnesota’s Fifth District in the House of Representatives, as a sign of acceptance and a welcome antidote to their faith’s sinister image.

“It’s a step forward; it gives the Muslims a little bit of a sense of belonging,” said Osama A. Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News, a weekly in Dearborn, Mich., a state with one of the heaviest concentrations of Muslims. “It is also a signal to the rest of the world that America has nothing against Muslims. If we did, he wouldn’t have been elected.”

Mr. Ellison’s success was front-page news in several of the Arab world’s largest newspapers and high in the lineup on television news programs.

Few of his supporters expect Mr. Ellison, a 43-year-old criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a 19-year-old college student, to effect any policy shifts in areas of concern to Muslim Americans, particularly when it comes to foreign policy and civil rights.

Mr. Siblani joked that even if all 28 new Democrats were Muslims, it is unlikely they would be able to sway the way Congress invariably votes in support of Israel. But many Muslims believe that just having a Muslim perspective around can make some difference.

“Congress needs to reflect the diversity of America, and that means its vibrant religious diversity as well,” said Farhana Khera, the executive director of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers and a former senior Senate staff member. “It’s good to have diverse voices on the House floor, in committees and caucus meetings. It is good for the country to have different views aired, especially when the primary national issues relate to Islam and affect Muslims in this country and Muslims overseas.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Ellison, who will also be the first black to represent Minnesota in the House, said his faith was particularly helpful in galvanizing the large community of Somali immigrants in his district, but the overall impact was difficult to assess. “For some people, it might have been a problem and other people it was a bonus,” Mr. Ellison said, noting that the campaign had received a fair amount of nasty e-mail and telephone calls denigrating Islam.

He said that his priority was to represent his district, but that he hoped to do it in a way that touched a wider swath of Americans.

“I think a lot of Muslims feel highly vulnerable and feel that they are under a tremendous amount of scrutiny,” he said when asked if he felt he was wearing a particular mantle, of representing Muslim interests. “I am going to do it from a standpoint of improving the quality of civil and human rights for all people in America.”

Many Muslim American activists hope Mr. Ellison will inspire other Muslims to run for office, some even comparing his candidacy to John F. Kennedy’s breaking the taboo against a Roman Catholic’s being president.

“I think it has inspired American Muslims,” said Adeeba Al-Zaman, 23, who flew from her home in Philadelphia to Minneapolis to volunteer to work in the last few days of Mr. Ellison’s campaign. “The fact that he won will probably motivate other Muslims that we have a shot and we matter and we are a part of the fabric of this society and we should be engaged because we have a chance.”

Ms. Al-Zaman also noted that with Mr. Ellison in office, Muslims would seem more normal, and that Congress and all Americans would see that “we care about things like health care and education and everything else that all Americans care about.”

The sense of vindication is even stronger because Mr. Ellison was attacked on religious grounds by his Republican opponent, Alan Fine. In September, Mr. Fine said that as a Jew he was personally offended by Mr. Ellison’s past support for Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the radical group Nation of Islam.

Mr. Ellison denied any link to Mr. Farrakhan and reached out to Jews, eventually gaining some endorsements from Jewish groups.

In the end, Mr. Ellison won 56 percent of the vote in his district, a Democratic stronghold that covers much of downtown Minneapolis and its immediate suburbs. Mr. Fine took 21 percent, as did Tammy Lee of the Independence Party. The incumbent, Martin Olav Sabo, is retiring

Attacks on Mr. Ellison’s religion helped galvanize Muslim Americans nationally, with supporters raising money from Florida to Michigan to California. His supporters were quick to point out that they backed Mr. Ellison not simply because he was a Muslim, but also because of his progressive platform, which included calls for universal health insurance and a withdrawal of forces from Iraq, and because he was running a positive campaign.

Mr. Ellison’s victory was widely noted in the larger Muslim world. The day after the election, it was the third headline mentioned on Al Jazeera, the most popular satellite news channel in the Middle East, right after a report that 18 Palestinian civilians had been killed by Israeli artillery in the Gaza Strip and a report on the overall Democratic sweep in the elections.

The news garnered a rich variety of comments from Arab readers on the Web site of Al Arabiya, a satellite news channel based in Dubai. “God willing in the next election, half of Congress will be from the rational Muslims,” wrote one reader, while another said, “May God make this the beginning of victory for Muslims on the very ground of the despots.”

A third wrote, “We pray to God that you will be successful and will move forward in improving the image of Islam and the Muslims.”

Arab news reports highlighted the fact that Mr. Ellison would probably take the oath of office on the Koran, something which also upset Muslim-bashers in the blogosphere. Some suggested it meant he would pledge allegiance to Islamic law rather than to upholding the Constitution.

Mr. Ellison said he had not really thought about the swearing-in ceremony and had tried to keep the campaign focused on issues rather than his religion.

Mona el Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo.

    Muslim’s Election Is Celebrated Here and in Mideast, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10muslims.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=7cf3f29c52b67637&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Man in the News

Harry Reid, an Infighter With a Sharp Jab

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — Harry Reid began Election Day with 50 situps and 80 push-ups (very red state of him) and 40 minutes of yoga (very blue state of him).

He spent most of the momentous day in his Senate office, waiting. Just after 2 p.m., he finally heard some actual news: Britney Spears was filing for divorce.

“Britney Spears,” Mr. Reid said, shaking his head. “She loses a little weight, and now she’s getting all cocky about things.” He added, “Britney has gotten her mojo back.”

Few would peg Mr. Reid, 66, as someone with anything to say about Britney Spears or, for that matter, someone who would ever use the word “mojo.” But he is a tricky figure to pigeonhole or predict, a Democrat who is a Mormon opposed to abortion and who looks more like a civics teacher than someone set to become the most powerful person in the Senate.

He makes an unlikely front man, a role that was displayed Thursday amid chants of “Harry, Harry” at a Capitol Hill rally shortly after Senator George Allen’s concession in Virginia ensured that Democrats would have a majority in the Senate. Mr. Reid is low-key, deferential and somewhat sheepish, qualities that make it easy to misread or underestimate him.

“People can say he is a nice guy, but that just totally misses it,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. “He’s got a spine of steel, and he will go toe-to-toe with anyone.”

Harry Mason Reid is the product of the tiny desert town of Searchlight, Nev., whose father, a hard-rock miner, battled alcoholism and depression before killing himself at 58. The future senator hitchhiked 40 miles to attend high school in Henderson, where he became an amateur boxer.

He came to Washington to attend law school, working nights as a Capitol police officer. He was elected to the Nevada State Assembly at 28, served as lieutenant governor and later led the state’s Gaming Commission, a job that pitted him against organized crime figures. (Mr. Reid’s wife, Landra, once found a bomb under the hood of the family car.) He was elected to Congress in 1982, and moved to the Senate four years later.

Mr. Reid has brought his pugilistic sensibility to his career, often taking jabs at those he deems unworthy. In Mr. Reid’s two-year run as minority leader, he called Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, “a political hack”; Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment”; and President Bush a “loser” and a “liar.” Within that litany, Mr. Reid says he regrets only calling Mr. Bush a loser.

All of which has made Mr. Reid a reliable bogeyman among Republicans on the stump. But he has also enjoyed the loyalty and, for the most part, the unity of a potentially fractious Democratic caucus that includes several would-be presidential candidates.

That devotion was displayed and returned on election night, as Mr. Reid placed phone calls to successful Democratic Senate candidates from his suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

“Bob, you did it, my man,” Mr. Reid said to Senator Robert Menendez, who was re-elected in New Jersey.

“Hillary, you’re the best to work with,” Mr. Reid told Mrs. Clinton. “Love you,” he signed off. (Mrs. Clinton offers that she ended the call by saying, “Love you, too, Harry.”)

Mr. Reid also professed his love to Senator Kent Conrad, who was re-elected in North Dakota. (“Love you, man.”)

Later, when Claire C. McCaskill, another Democrat, was declared the winner in Missouri, Mr. Reid kissed the television.

He and Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New Yorker who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, kept whacking each other like kids. “Remember, Chuck, when they said Sherrod was too liberal?” Mr. Reid said of Sherrod Brown, the newly elected senator from Ohio.

Mr. Schumer said nothing, but gave Mr. Reid something between a pat on the head and a noogie.

By Thursday, the elation of early Wednesday had given way to exhaustion and talk of working with Republicans. “It is time for bipartisanship,” Mr. Reid said at the rally, a few seconds after he was introduced for the first time as the majority leader of the Senate. (It is not official until January.)

He took the stage to the blare of Sheryl Crow’s “A Change Would Do You Good,” but it looked as if a good night’s sleep would do him better. His makeup could not hide the bags and crags on his un-Botoxed face.

People who know Mr. Reid say he is much more suited to work with Republicans than his partisan reputation would suggest.

“His personality will be more conducive to being a majority leader than minority leader,” said Sig Rogich, a Republican consultant from Nevada and a close friend of Mr. Reid. “He has always been more of a consensus-building type than the over-the-top partisan that his current role has demanded.”

Some of those considered the most effective recent majority leaders have been strategists and rule-book students, like George J. Mitchell, Democrat of Maine, or Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas. Mr. Reid’s supporters say he fits in that tradition. “I doubt that anyone knows any more rules of the Senate than Harry,” said Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a longtime friend of Mr. Reid.

Mr. Reid is often credited with outmaneuvering his predecessor, Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, who had relatively little legislative experience when he became majority leader in 2003. Mr. Reid once shut down the Senate, invoking a little-used procedure to force closed-door discussion about the intelligence the Bush administration used to justify war in Iraq, and he succeeded in holding his caucus together to defeat efforts by Republicans to prohibit filibusters over judicial appointments, retaining a long-held Senate precedent. Mr. Reid voted against Mr. Bush’s nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court; opposed Republican efforts to abolish the estate tax; and supported giving the president authorization to invade Iraq, though he now advocates a phased withdrawal of American troops.

Mr. Reid will not venture a guess about what kind of majority leader he will be. “I’m going to throw bombs sometimes — I’m going to be conciliatory other times,” he said in his office late Thursday. “If it comes to me that Alan Greenspan is a political hack, I’m just going to say that. I’m just going to be who I am. “

Mr. Reid added that he would “try not to be obnoxious,” but also allowed that “the Senate is not a place for hugs and kisses.” He said he realized that as a legislator, he could not get anything done without compromising with the president, whom he was scheduled to meet with Friday morning. He said he could not remember the last time he was invited to the White House.

“I have hope it will change,” Mr. Reid said of his largely nonexistent working relationship with Mr. Bush and other administration officials. “Whether it will or not, I can’t say.”

Mr. Reid is nothing if not battle-worn and realistic, friends say. He describes himself as “a pessimist about everything in life,” which is generally not something politicians admit.

“I never thought we could do it,” he said of winning the Senate. “I knew it was possible in my head, but I never let my heart believe it.”

    Harry Reid, an Infighter With a Sharp Jab, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10reid.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=76271991a422d347&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Marines Get the News From an Iraqi Host: Rumsfeld’s Out. ‘Who’s Rumsfeld?’

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

ZAGARIT, Iraq, Nov. 9 — Hashim al-Menti smiled wanly at the marine sergeant beside him on his couch. The sergeant had appeared in the darkness on Wednesday night, knocking on the door of Mr. Menti’s home.

When Mr. Menti answered, a squad of infantrymen swiftly moved in, making him an involuntary host.

Since then marines had been on his roof with rifles, watching roads where insurgents often planted bombs.

Mr. Menti had passed the time watching television. Now he had news. He spoke in broken English. “Rumsfeld is gone,” he told the sergeant, Michael A. McKinnon.

“Democracy,” he added, and made a thumbs-up sign. “Good.”

The marines had been on a continuous foot patrol for several days, hunting for insurgents. They were lost in the hard and isolating rhythms of infantry life.

They knew nothing of the week’s news.

Now they were being told by an Iraqi whose house they occupied that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, one of the principal architects of the policies that had them here, had resigned. “Rumsfeld is gone?” the sergeant asked. “Really?”

Mr. Menti nodded. “This is better for Iraq,” he said. “Iraqi people say thank you.”

The sergeant went upstairs to tell his marines, just as he had informed them the day before that the Republican Party had lost control of the House of Representatives and that Congress was in the midst of sweeping change. Mr. Menti had told them that, too.

“Rumsfeld’s out,” he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on the cold floor.

Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his cigarette. “Who’s Rumsfeld?” he asked.

If history is any guide, many of the young men who endure the severest hardships and assume the greatest risks in the war in Iraq will become interested in politics and politicians later, when they are older and look back on their combat tours.

But not yet. Marine infantry units have traditionally been nonpolitical, to the point of stubbornly embracing a peculiar detachment from policy currents at home. It is a pillar of the corps’ martial culture: those with the most at stake are among the least involved in the decisions that send them where they go.

Mr. Rumsfeld may have become one of the war’s most polarizing figures at home. But among these young marines slogging through the war in Anbar Province, he appeared to mean almost nothing. If he was another casualty, they had seen worse.

“Rumsfeld is the secretary of defense,” Sergeant McKinnon said, answering Lance Corporal Davis’s question.

Lance Corporal Davis simply cursed.

It did not sound like anger or disgust. It seemed instead to be an exclamation about the irrelevance of the news. The sergeant might as well have told the squad of yesterday’s weather.

Another marine, Lance Cpl. Patrick S. Maguire, said the decisions that mattered here, inside Company F, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, were much more important to them than those made in the Pentagon back home.

There are daily, dangerous questions: When to go on patrol, when to come back, which route to take down a road, which weapon to carry, and, at this moment, which watch each marine would stand, crouched up on the roof, in the cold wind, exposed to sniper fire.

His grandfather fought at Iwo Jima, he said, and his father was a marine in Vietnam. This was his second tour in Iraq. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Someone points a finger at you, and you go.”

“The chain of command?” he added. “You know how high I know? My battalion commander is Lt. Col. DeTreux. That’s how high I know.”

And so between the marines and Mr. Menti and his family, the split reactions to news of Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation made for surreal scenes.

Mr. Menti, 50, a radiologist by training, spent part of the afternoon trying to impress the meaning of the news on the young sergeant beside him on the couch.

The war policy was soon to change, he said.

“I think in one year you return to America,” he said.

The sergeant sat implacably.

“This is good for you,” Mr. Menti said. “No?”

He spoke of years of fear. Under Saddam Hussein, he said, they were afraid. Now, with the American troops and insurgents fighting in Anbar, they are still afraid. He returned to the news of Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation.

“People in America are very happy,” he said. “I saw this on TV. And I am very happy. Thank you, American people.”

He pointed at the young marines before him, smoking on his couches, drinking his hot, sweetened tea. “These soldiers, in Iraq, they make freedom?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sergeant McKinnon said.

“What kind of freedom?” he asked.

He had been talking about the living conditions in the province since the night before, when the marines appeared at his door.

There are almost no schools, he said. There is almost no medicine. There is little food, and no electricity except from generators. The list went on. No water. No work. Violence. Abductions. Beheadings. Explosions.

His son-in-law had been kidnapped by insurgents seven months ago, he said, and a note the insurgents left said he was abducted for being friendly with American troops. He has not been seen since.

In Baghdad, he said, Iranian-backed death squads were killing Sunni citizens. The country was falling apart.

“You like freedom?” he asked the sergeant. “This kind? This way?”

“No,” Sergeant McKinnon said.

“I think you and I and many people do not like freedom in this way,” he said. “I believe this. I am sure.”

“It is wrong, the American Army coming here. It is wrong.”

He looked at Sergeant McKinnon, who is younger than many of his 14 children. He was trying to draw him out.

“If American Army came here for three months, four months, O.K.” Mr. Menti said. “But now is four years.”

If there were no American military presence in Iraq, he said, there would be no insurgents. One serves as a magnet for the other.

Mr. Menti spoke to the sergeant as if he were an American diplomat, as if he had some influence over the broad sweeps of American foreign policy. The sergeant remained quiet and polite.

“I don’t think he realizes that we’re trying to make this country safer for him,” he said to Lance Corporal Maguire.

“I think he realizes that we’re trying to make it safe, but that the more we stay here the more people come in and make it worse,” Lance Corporal Maguire replied.

They went upstairs, to pack their gear for the next move, planned for after dark, to another house and another night of looking down on the roads, waiting for an insurgent with a bomb to step within range of a rifle shot.

Sergeant McKinnon spoke of the squad’s isolation. “I only found out yesterday that the Saddam trial was over,” he said. “Another Iraqi told me that.”

He turned to the task of planning for the night’s fire support.

Up on the roof, Lance Corporal Maguire mused about the news. Whatever Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation might eventually mean, it did not matter here yet, and it would not keep them alive tonight.

Another marine, Lance Cpl. Randall D. Webb, was scanning traffic through his rifle scope, worried that they had been spotted and the insurgents would soon know where they were.

“I think they see us,” he said.

“Man, they all see us,” Lance Corporal Maguire said, and lighted another cigarette.

    Marines Get the News From an Iraqi Host: Rumsfeld’s Out. ‘Who’s Rumsfeld?’, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/middleeast/10marines.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

After Rumsfeld: Bid to Reshape the Brain Trust

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s choice to become defense secretary, has sharply criticized the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and has made it clear that he would seek advice from moderate Republicans who have been largely frozen out of the White House, according to administration officials and Mr. Gates’s close associates.

The administration officials said that Mr. Bush was aware of Mr. Gates’s critique of current policy and understood that Mr. Gates planned to clear the “E Ring” of the Pentagon, where many of Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s senior political appointees have plotted Iraq strategy.

Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said Thursday afternoon that Mr. Bush regarded his choice of Mr. Gates as “a terrific opportunity” to rethink Iraq.

In doing so, Mr. Gates will be drawing on his experience and contacts from the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, including the former security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. “Gates’s world is Brent Scowcroft and Baker and a whole bunch of people who felt the door had been slammed in their face,” one former official who has discussed Iraq at length with Mr. Gates said Thursday. “The door is about to reopen.”

A close friend of Mr. Gates’s described him as having been “clearly distraught over the incompetence of how the Iraq operation had been run.” The friend said Mr. Gates had returned from a recent visit to Baghdad expressing disbelief that Mr. Rumsfeld, whom Mr. Bush ousted Wednesday, had not responded more quickly to the rapid deterioration of security and that the president had not acted sooner to overhaul the management of the war.

Mr. Gates made his visit as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the commission that is preparing to make recommendations next month about overhauling Iraq strategy. Associates said that Mr. Gates had questioned military leaders there about whether more American troops in the capital could stem the violence, and whether the training of Iraqi troops could be overhauled.

“He didn’t take a view,” one colleague said of Mr. Gates. “But he understood the depth of the mess.”

Mr. Gates has said little in public about Iraq in his current role as president of Texas A&M University. The associates and administration officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because Mr. Gates will face Senate confirmation. But they made it clear that recently he had privately been critical of the administration’s approach.

Senior administration officials have said that pouring more troops into the most violent of the Baghdad neighborhoods is among the possibilities that Mr. Bush may now consider. But they cautioned that the president was hesitant to commit more forces unless Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki provided far more Iraqi troops to the effort. Until now, Mr. Bush has resisted calls from Republicans like Senator John McCain of Arizona, to increase the size of the American force, just as he has rebuffed calls for setting deadlines for the withdrawal of American troops.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Bush said, “I’m open to any idea or suggestion that will help us achieve our goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq’s democratic government succeeds.”

Meeting with reporters later, Mr. Hadley called attention to what he said was a change in tone. “I think you noted the president said the other day that what was going on in Iraq in terms of our efforts were not working well enough and not working fast enough,” he said.

During the campaign leading up to Tuesday’s elections, Mr. Bush declared unambiguously on several occasions that “we’re winning” and vowed not to leave Iraq until victory had been achieved. Over the past two days, however, several officials said that Mr. Gates would likely be given some latitude to redefine what constitutes victory.

Mr. Hadley sidestepped a question about a report Mr. Gates co-wrote two years ago urging direct engagement with Iran — a step Mr. Bush has so far refused to take until Iran suspends its enrichment of uranium. But Mr. Hadley said he was certain that before Mr. Gates accepted the nomination, the two men were “pretty confident themselves that they’re on the same page on the basic pillars of the president’s foreign policy.”

Other officials, however, said that Mr. Gates’s appointment was timed to anticipate the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, created earlier this year with the reluctant agreement of the White House. The two leaders of that group, Mr. Baker and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, resisted holding any discussions about what recommendations the commission should make until after the election, for fear their deliberations would leak or become politicized. The group will meet with Mr. Bush on Monday and Democratic leaders on Tuesday, and it will reconvene to settle on recommendations immediately after Thanksgiving, according to members of the commission.

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that Mr. Bush had not asked Mr. Gates before choosing him as defense secretary about any conversations he might have had with other members of the Iraq Study Group.

“He’s been very clear about the importance that that — those deliberations and that advice — remain confidential and independent,” Mr. Snow said of Mr. Bush.

Mr. Gates, 63, has not tipped his hand on the changes he would favor, and several officials said they now expected him to recuse himself from the study group’s deliberations, because he would have to advise Mr. Bush about which of the recommendations to accept. But several administration officials said they saw his appointment as part of a carefully orchestrated course change in which Mr. Bush fired the man who became the symbol of resistance to changes of tactics and hired one of his critics.

Inside the White House and the State Department on Thursday, officials were already speculating about the informal advisers Mr. Gates was expected to bring in with him, talking about them as if they were the cast of an old television show that suddenly developed a new life in reruns. Among them are moderate Republicans like Mr. Scowcroft and Mr. Baker who worked for the president’s father, including those who regarded Iraq as a “war of choice” that distracted the United States from bigger terrorist threats.

Mr. Scowcroft, who was a mentor to Mr. Gates and to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was traveling out of the country and could not be reached. But one of Mr. Scowcroft’s business partners, Arnold Kanter, a top State Department official when Mr. Bush’s father was president, said he expected that Mr. Gates would “take a thoroughly pragmatic approach to finding an Iraq solution.”

Mr. Gates, he said, “is poised to be George W. Bush’s Clark Clifford.” It was a reference to the elder statesman whom President Johnson tapped in 1968 to succeed Robert S. McNamara, the polarizing figure who became the face of a failed war.

    After Rumsfeld: Bid to Reshape the Brain Trust, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/middleeast/10policy.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=4340f6fe504514ab&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Democrats Weigh New Power as Leaders

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — When Democrats take control of the Senate in January, they will immediately assume far more power to influence President Bush’s agenda, particularly his choice of executive and judicial nominations that must pass through the chamber.

By virtue of their de facto 51-to-49 majority, Democrats will now control the committees and the floor schedule — a factor Mr. Bush will have to weigh in his selection of high-level candidates. (The Senate split 49 to 49, but tipping the scales toward the Democrats are Senator-elect Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democrat who ran as an independent after losing in the primary.)

“It means send us more moderate people or don’t waste your time,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-in-command and a member of the Judiciary Committee, which considers judicial nominees.

Republicans acknowledge that the shift will be a significant factor in high-profile nominations, such as any to fill Supreme Court vacancies, in the remainder of the president’s term. But they also say that the Senate tradition of respecting the rights of the minority gives them the same opportunities to influence the agenda that Democrats used during their years out of power.

“It is clearly going to be harder to get his people through, not easier,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and White House ally who also sits on the Judiciary Committee. “But the Senate is different from the House, and 49 Republican senators can certainly shape a piece of legislation that goes through, or if they feel it is bad enough, they have the power to kill it.”

The new majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, promised Thursday to have a more collegial relationship with the minority Republicans than he said was shown to the Democrats over the past four years of partisanship and procedural gamesmanship.

“They’ve set a bad example in not working with us,” Mr. Reid told cheering supporters who gathered across from the Capitol to celebrate the Democrat victory. “We’re not following that example.”

In contrast to the House, the Senate has experienced more regular shifts in party control over the years — Democrats were last in the majority in 2002 — and many current members are accustomed to suddenly going from committee chairman to ranking minority member. In fact, many of the Democrats in line to take over important committees have wielded the gavel before, sometimes alongside the Republican who will be leaving the chairmanship.

For instance, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and a leading party voice on military issues, has led the Armed Services Committee and has a good working relationship with senior Republicans on the panel. He will now play a major role in determining the approach on Iraq.

But there are pronounced ideological differences between the incoming leaders and those they will be replacing, as well as other lingering issues. On the Intelligence Committee, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat, has feuded with Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman, over Mr. Roberts’ reluctance to challenge the administration’s handling of intelligence preceding the Iraq war.

In what could be the biggest policy divide on the panels, Senator Barbara Boxer, the liberal California Democrat and environmental advocate, is in line to take control of the Environment and Public Works Committee from Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has disputed the existence of global warming.

“He thinks global warming is a hoax and I think it is the challenge of our generation,” said Ms. Boxer, who said she has a cordial working relationship with Mr. Inhofe. “We have to move on it.”

In other notable changes, Senator Robert C. Byrd, 88, the West Virginia Democrat elected to his ninth term, is expected to resume his role as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, also re-elected, will be back at the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware will be at the helm of the Foreign Relations Committee.

With new power, Senate Republicans said Democrats will now have to do more than criticize. “Now that Democrats will have control of Congress for the next two years, they have a new responsibility for one of the most important issues of our time,” said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader who is retiring at the end of the year. “Quite simply, how shall we win the war on terror?”

While there will no doubt be clashes with Mr. Bush, there are also some issues where he could find the new Senate easier to work with than the old one. Democrats have been much more supportive than Republicans of Mr. Bush’s broad approach on immigration and that issue could get new traction.

Democrats have been cheered by Mr. Bush’s new bipartisan tone in recent days and say they are willing to reciprocate. But some also noted that the president laid out a very ambitious agenda for the post-election session scheduled to begin Monday under Republican control, including seeking approval of the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton is serving as ambassador under an interim appointment after his nomination stalled in the Senate.

“The president has indicated that he understands the significance of Tuesday’s election and the need to work in a bipartisan fashion to move our nation forward,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and a Bolton critic.

“But,” he added, “trying to jam this nomination through during a lame-duck session may indicate that the president didn’t fully hear the voice of the American public — and that is troubling.”

Democrats have complained for years that Republicans have run roughshod over the minority party in both the House and Senate, and they promise to restore more traditional processes, including having open negotiations between the House and Senate over major legislation.

With the pickup of six Senate seats that even he did not anticipate, Mr. Reid is more than secure in his post as party leader, with Mr. Durbin as the assistant leader. The party is exploring ways to recognize the leadership role of Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. Mr. Schumer, the architect of the Democrats’ triumph as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has been invited to lead that group for the 2008 elections if he chooses.

In the House, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who led the successful campaign effort there, announced Thursday that he would seek to lead the Democratic conference — the fourth-ranking leadership slot. The decision could earn Mr. Emanuel, 47, further goodwill by averting a potentially divisive contest for the majority whip position with Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.

“I seek this post, and not any other, because I believe what we need now is a unified Democratic caucus, focused squarely on the business of moving this country forward,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement.

    Democrats Weigh New Power as Leaders, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10cong.html

Democrats Gain Senate and New Influence

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — Democrats gained control of the Senate on Thursday, giving them a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994 and increased influence over President Bush’s policies at home and abroad, starting with the war in Iraq.

The Democrats picked up the seat they needed to capture the Senate when the Republican incumbent in Virginia, George Allen, conceded to Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger, completing a broad realignment of power in Washington. Including two independents who align themselves with the Democrats, Democrats will have a 51-to-49 advantage in the new Senate.

Within moments of Mr. Allen’s announcement, Democrats rallied outside the Capitol to celebrate their victory, cheering and chanting, while their leaders began planning how to proceed after a dozen years in which their only taste of power in Congress was when they controlled the Senate for a period in 2001 and 2002.

“The election’s over,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who will be the new majority leader. “It’s time for a change.”

Mr. Bush continued adapting to the new political climate by having lunch with Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, who stands on the cusp of becoming the first woman to serve as speaker of the House. He invited Mr. Reid to join him at breakfast at the White House on Friday.

But even as he was extending courtesies to his new partners, Mr. Bush was demanding action on several contentious measures before the Republican-led Congress disbands next month. The president renominated John R. Bolton to the post as United Nations ambassador and asked Congress to complete work on a bill authorizing domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, both lightning-rod matters for Democrats.

As Washington was digesting the changed balance of power, there was a sign that the 2008 contest for the presidency had already begun. Tom Vilsack, the Democratic governor of Iowa, announced he was running for president, the first high-profile entrant in an expected parade of presidential hopefuls who will enter the race in coming months.

On the other side of the partisan ledger, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, a close associate of Mr. Bush’s political strategist, Karl Rove, said he would step aside.

In Virginia, the margin separating the two Senate candidates was roughly 9,000 votes, or less than one-half of 1 percent of more than 2.3 million votes cast. Under Virginia law, Mr. Allen was entitled to request a recount at state expense, but it was clear from a preliminary review of the ballots that Mr. Allen had little hope of reversing the verdict through recounts or lawsuits.

Senior Republican officials, including a lawyer deeply involved in the 2000 Florida recount battle, counseled Mr. Allen on Wednesday to withdraw rather than fight what would ultimately be a futile battle. After deliberating a day, Mr. Allen decided not to fight.

Mr. Allen said Thursday that he did not want to subject the people of Virginia or the nation to a recount fight that could have lasted until Christmas.


“I do not wish to cause more rancor by protracted litigation that would not, in my opinion, alter the results,” Mr. Allen said, speaking on an unseasonably warm mid-autumn day in Alexandria, Va., to a crowd of staffers and supporters, some in tears. “I see no good purpose being served by continuously and needlessly expending money and causing any more personal animosity.”

He congratulated Mr. Webb on his narrow victory and made note of the favorable environment for Democrats this year. “They had the prevailing winds,” Mr. Allen said.

Mr. Webb, a novelist, Marine combat veteran and former secretary of the Navy, claimed victory 90 minutes later at a rally in Arlington.

He brandished the sand-colored combat boots he wore throughout the campaign in tribute to his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq.

“Hoo-ah,” shouted several marines in the audience as Mr. Webb started speaking, using the military cheer to show their support.

Mr. Webb, occasionally glancing at a three-by-five card of notes, said Mr. Allen and Senator John W. Warner, a Republican and Virginia’s senior senator, had called to congratulate him, but he then spoke bitterly of the campaign, calling on Mr. Bush to denounce slice-and-dice political tactics.

“This was a brutal campaign and in many ways an unnecessarily brutal campaign,” Mr. Webb said, “and I think it’s hurting the country.”

Mr. Webb also said that when he took his seat in the Senate he would continue to agitate for a rapid end to American military involvement in Iraq, even if it put him at odds with fellow Democrats seeking a more gradual withdrawal.

“I am walking into the Senate with the independence to represent the people who have no voice in the corridors of power and I intend to do that,” he said.

Senate Democrats celebrated their triumph at a rally on Capitol Hill on Thursday afternoon.

Senator Reid and his two top lieutenants, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, who ran the Senate campaign committee, appeared with flag-waving staff members.

While Mr. Reid called for bipartisanship and more openness in government, the war in Iraq was the central issue on his mind.

“We believe this country has spoken loudly and clearly,” Mr. Reid said.

When Mr. Schumer spoke, his words were punctuated by shouts of “Chuck, Chuck, Chuck.”

Also on Thursday, Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, conceded to Jon Tester, the Democratic State Senate president and an organic farmer, formally bringing to a close a race that members of both parties had declared over a day earlier.

Mr. Burns’s phone call caught Mr. Tester on his way to the barbershop to have his distinctive flattop haircut trimmed, according to The Associated Press.

The call was “very cordial, very professional,” Mr. Tester said.

Mr. Burns, a three-term senator, said in a news release, “We fought the good fight and we came up just a bit short. We’ve had a good 18 years, and I am proud of my record.”

The new Senate will have 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Sanders will caucus with the Democrats, giving the party effective control, with the right to name committee chairmen and dictate parliamentary rules.

Mr. Bush, who has practiced a muscular brand of partisan combat in the past six years, adopted a more conciliatory tone after his meeting with Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic House whip, Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

“The elections are now behind us, and the congresswoman’s party won,” Mr. Bush said as he and Vice President Dick Cheney met with the two Democrats. “But the challenges still remain and therefore, we’re going to work together to address those challenges in a constructive way.”

Ms. Pelosi said, “We’ve made history. Now we have to make progress.”

The president met with his cabinet in the morning and said he had instructed them to provide briefings for Democratic leaders in Congress and new members.

Mr. Bush, knowing that he has only a few weeks left with Republicans in control on Capitol Hill, urged quick action on budget bills, energy legislation and a bill to admit Vietnam to the World Trade Organization. He is to visit Vietnam this month.

But he will face considerable difficulty with other priorities he expressed on Thursday. Mr. Bush said he wanted the Senate to act before the end of the year on his nomination of Robert M. Gates to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and of Mr. Bolton, who is serving under a recess appointment, as the permanent representative to the United Nations.

Democrats have balked at the Bolton nomination and are not expected to change their views, although it was not clear that they would have the votes to derail his confirmation while Republicans hold the Senate.

One Republican who was defeated this week, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, said Thursday he would vote against confirming Mr. Bolton.

Republican recrimination over the Tuesday election wipeout continued another day, with conservatives criticizing Mr. Bush for dumping Mr. Rumsfeld the day after the election and not before, when it might have won some independent votes.

“I was very disappointed,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House.

“If the president had replaced Rumsfeld two weeks ago, the Republicans would still control the Senate and they would probably have 10 more House members. For the president to have suggested for the last two weeks that there would be no change and then change the day after the election is very disheartening.”

Wayne Semprini, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, where two Republican members of Congress lost seats to antiwar Democrats, also said he was unhappy.

“I would have rather seen it announced a month or two months ago,” Mr. Semprini said. “It might have made a difference.”

Holli Chmela, David D. Kirkpatrick and Rachel L. Swarns contributed reporting.

    Democrats Gain Senate and New Influence, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10elect.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=7ce14964a7f9fbf3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Liberals Find Rays of Hope on Ballot Measures        NYT        9.11.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09ballots.html

Liberals Find Rays of Hope on Ballot Measures

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By MONICA DAVEY

Liberal supporters of social issues said yesterday that they were heartened by the outcome of several ballot initiatives around the nation: the first rejection of an amendment restricting marriage to a man and a woman, the success of a much-debated measure to allow stem cell research and the firm defeat of what would have been the nation’s strictest abortion ban.

In Arizona, voters turned down an amendment defining marriage in the state Constitution as between a man and woman, the first rejection in 28 statewide votes on similar measures since 1998.

“We’ve been waiting for a breakthrough state, and this is it,” said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “It shows the country is moving.”

Opponents of the measure in Arizona had focused attention on what they said would be its effects on all unmarried couples, not just same-sex ones. They warned that unmarried couples might lose health care coverage or hospital visitation privileges.

But voters in seven other states approved measures barring same-sex marriage, and Chris Stovall, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has supported such amendments, said Arizona’s was a unique case, not a trend.

“To count this as a sea change or the beginning of the end is really to twist the facts,” Mr. Stovall said, adding that he believed the opponents in Arizona had deliberately changed their tactics following the string of earlier losses, focusing on peripheral and sometimes misleading issues instead of the central matter of marriage. “Marriage is now 27 and 1.”

Opponents, though, said the margins by which some of the seven amendments had passed — in places like South Dakota, for instance — were narrower than they were in 2004, when voters approved 11 such amendments, in some cases by gaping margins.

As in six of the other seven states that voted on Tuesday on constitutional amendments on same-sex marriage, Arizona already bars such unions by statute, so the vote there will not allow gay marriage.

In a blow to social conservatives, Missouri voters narrowly approved a measure guaranteeing that the state will allow any stem cell research that is legal under federal law. Although polls had suggested that a majority of voters supported such research, the ballot question became entangled in the state’s contentious United States Senate race.

Abortion rights advocates in South Dakota enjoyed a far wider margin of victory when voters there defeated a ban on nearly all abortions. The split of 55.6 percent to 44.4 percent was a greater-than-expected rejection of the ban — whose only exceptions were cases in which a mother was likely to die — which had been approved by the State Legislature and signed by Gov. Mike Rounds.

Opponents of the ban said they viewed the decision as an end to a fight that had threatened South Dakota with costly litigation and national embarrassment. But its supporters said they would press on with related work. “We’re not going to quit,” said Leslee Unruh, who led supporters in Sioux Falls.

In ballot measures elsewhere, voters in Arizona, Nevada and Ohio approved tough restrictions on smoking, while simultaneously rejecting weaker versions that the tobacco industry had in some cases supported.

Michael Hackett, who led efforts for the successful measure in Nevada, called the state, with its relatively high smoking rates and Las Vegas’s partying image, a crucial test ground for possible future efforts. “I think it shows that if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere,” Mr. Hackett said.

Voters in six states approved raising the minimum wage above the current federal rate of $5.15 an hour.

In nine states, voters approved restrictions on the government’s eminent domain powers, and three states in the West rejected other property rights provisions.

In other, more unusual measures, voters in Arizona rejected the idea of giving some lucky, randomly chosen voter there a chance to win $1 million, but approved making English the state’s official language.

Wisconsin voters approved a proposal to bring back the death penalty, although the resolution is only advisory and does not change state law.

Voters in Rhode Island narrowly passed a measure giving voting rights to former prisoners who are on probation or parole.

Libby Sander contributed reporting.

    Liberals Find Rays of Hope on Ballot Measures, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09ballots.html

In Statehouses, Too, Democrats Post Sizable Gains

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON

CHICAGO, Nov. 8 — Democratic gains in Congress and governorships were matched on Tuesday by a surge involving state legislatures, where more than 275 seats and nine chambers switched from Republican to Democratic hands.

The victories, combined with the six new Democratic governors, have given the Democrats one-party government in 15 states, including New Hampshire for the first time since 1874, and Colorado for the first time since 1960.

No party has totally controlled as many as 15 states since the Republicans achieved that level after the 1994 election.

What is equally remarkable, said Tim Storey, a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures, is that the gains occurred across the country, even in the South, where Democrats had lost ground in every statehouse election since 1982.

The Southern gains were tiny, about 21 legislative seats across 14 states, but the direction, Mr. Storey said, was the important factor.

“I think it’s very significant; they’d been losing ground and they turned it around,” he said.

Republicans now control the executive and legislative branches in 10 states, down from 12 before the election. They did gain control of the Montana House by one vote and fought to a tie in the Montana and Oklahoma Senates, which had both been under Democratic control.

Twenty-four states are now split, and one, Nebraska, has a nonpartisan legislature.

Control of state capitols has effects far beyond local laws. The parties running the statehouses will control redistricting for the 2010 Census and can groom rising politicians for national office.

Political analysts said an equally important nuance was how the shift played out state by state for the Democrats. The party added five governors — in Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio — from seats held by Republicans who had chosen not to run or were barred by term limits.

Democrats picked up a sixth seat in Maryland, where Mayor Martin O’Malley of Baltimore edged out Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

That shifted the advantage in governors to Democrats for the first time since 1994. The Democrats now control 28 governors’ seats to the Republicans’ 22. Before Election Day, those numbers were reversed.

The legislative gains, by contrast, were concentrated in the Midwest, where Democrats picked up about 104 seats, along with control of both chambers in Iowa, the Indiana House, the Michigan House and the Wisconsin Senate, and in the Northeast, where their net exceeded 140 lawmakers.

About 67 Democratic seats were added in the West.

In Arkansas, the Democrats gained control of the governor’s office with the election of Attorney General Mike Beebe and kept control of the Legislature. That gave the party unified control for the first time since 1994. Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, was barred from running by term limits.

In Iowa, Chet Culver will replace a fellow Democrat, Gov. Tom Vilsack, who chose not to seek a third term. In addition to keeping the governor’s office in Democrats’ hands, the party took control of both chambers of the Legislature.

Democrats had not controlled the legislative and executive branches of government under the Capitol Dome in Des Moines since 1964. And before Tuesday, the State Senate was evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and the House was under Republican rule.

New Hampshire accounted for more than 80 new Democratic lawmakers, bringing the state more firmly into line as a party bastion than any time since just after the 1870’s, when Democrats last ran the House, Senate and governor’s office, according to the New Hampshire Political Library, a nonpartisan education group in Concord.

“The state has been becoming more Democratic over last 20 years,” said Andrew E. Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “But this swing is a real tidal wave.”

Democratic lawmakers in Maine also surged, especially in the House, where they went from a one-vote majority, 74 to 73 with four independents, to a 91-to-51 majority. In Oregon, the shift was smaller, but the effect was huge. A shift of four House seats, with two races undecided on Wednesday, along with the re-election of Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski, gave Democrats control of the Legislature and governor’s office for the first time since 1992.

In Colorado, Bill Ritter, a Democrat and former prosecutor in Denver, will succeed a Republican, Gov. Bill Owens, who could not run because of term limits. Mr. Ritter will be working down the hall in Denver with many more Democrats in the Legislature than Mr. Owens ever did.

Democrats gained narrow control of the Legislature in 2004, and the vote on Tuesday expanded the margins of their power from a one-vote majority in the Senate to perhaps four votes — one seat was undecided — and from a five-vote majority to, perhaps, a 12-seat majority in the House, with one undecided seat there.

A political scholar who has tracked Colorado politics for years said he thought that the gains were less about a new Democratic message and more about reaction against the old Republican one. The expert, Robert D. Loevy, a professor of political science at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, said the election illustrated a core shift on where the parties obtained votes. The well-educated, affluent close-in suburbs of Denver, Professor Loevy said, are shifting to Democratic from Republican.

“This used to be the backbone of the Republican Party in Colorado,” he said. “But the rise of social conservatism in the Republican Party — pro-life, anti-stem cell — has alienated large numbers, and that’s the group that has abandoned the Republicans more than any other.”

    In Statehouses, Too, Democrats Post Sizable Gains, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09statehouse.html

After Years On the Outs, New York Comes Back In

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By PATRICK HEALY

The congratulatory calls kept coming to Senator Charles E. Schumer’s cellphone yesterday — mostly from grateful Democrats, but also a few from Republicans who do not normally pay homage to the giant of Brooklyn.

“The president called and said jokingly, ‘I wish you were on my team,’ ” recalled Mr. Schumer, the head of the campaign committee for Senate Democrats. “So that was nice.”

After years of being on the outs in Washington, Mr. Schumer and New York’s Congressional delegation suddenly find themselves a locus of power on Capitol Hill. And for a state with a long wish list, from money for domestic security to more jobs upstate, the ascendant Democrats in the House and Senate are well positioned to deliver hundreds of millions of new dollars to New York.

The Democratic takeover of the House is expected to elevate Charles B. Rangel to chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee — the first leader of that panel from New York City since Fernando Wood, a former mayor, from 1877 to 1881. Louise M. Slaughter is set to lead the powerful Rules Committee, and Nydia M. Velázquez would run the Small Business Committee.

“I think that’s the most clout we’ve had in the House in my lifetime,” said Jerry Skurnik, a longtime political observer in New York.

If Democrats take over the Senate, meanwhile — and even if they do not — Mr. Schumer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will only add luster to their starriness because of Tuesday’s results. At least eight new and re-elected Democrats owe a great deal to Mr. Schumer’s fund-raising and committee efforts, and Mrs. Clinton campaigned aggressively for candidates and scored her own landslide this week.

Mr. Schumer said yesterday that the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, had already asked him to lead the Democratic campaign committee for another two years. (He said he would decide shortly.) He added that he was not pushing for any new committee assignments (he already has Finance, Banking and Judiciary), but noted that he was a newly empowered member of the party leadership in the Senate.

“Now when I say to one of my colleagues, New York needs something, or I need something, they’ll be more amenable,” Senator Schumer said.

If the Senate turns Democratic, Senator Clinton might become chairwoman of a subcommittee on Armed Services or on Environment and Public Works, though that is also contingent on the complicated musical chairs of seniority and leadership decisions.

House members will enjoy other degrees of stature.

Representative Nita M. Lowey will most likely become a “cardinal,” or head of an Appropriations subcommittee, probably dealing with foreign operations. Representative Jerrold L. Nadler’s reputation as a policy expert will be matched by new clout to win projects for Manhattan. And Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who is on good terms with the likely speaker, Nancy Pelosi, may find reasons to stay in the majority instead of running for mayor of New York City again in 2009.

“It’s not just committees — our influence within the House Democratic caucus will grow enormously,” Mr. Rangel said in an interview.

To that end, he sketched out an expansive federal agenda: Teaming up with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on gun control, passing new tax incentives for urban job programs, and redirecting federal money to New York in return for the outsize tax collections that the federal government makes here.

“Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” Mr. Rangel said.

Mr. Schumer and other members of Congress said they could not recall another time when the New York delegation would have so much pull: Some mentioned Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s brief chairmanship of the Finance Committee, the years of Congressmen Emmanuel Celler and James J. Delaney, and the era of Robert F. Wagner.

New York Republican strategists, some of who were still grappling with Tuesday’s losses, said that Democratic braggadocio might be premature.

“Looking beyond this year’s electoral cycle and to electoral history, the American public doesn’t stomach radical change well,” said Walter Breakell, a Republican political consultant and former aide to Gov. George E. Pataki. “Hubris doesn’t trump accomplishment. If they don’t understand this, our state and our country will remain discontent.”

But in the short term, Mrs. Clinton will probably play a high-profile role as a member of the Armed Services Committee in the coming confirmation hearings for Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s new nominee to be defense secretary.

Mrs. Clinton also wants to press ahead with 9/11 health legislation that would move through another of her Senate committees, an aide to Mrs. Clinton said; the possible Democratic chairman, Edward M. Kennedy, is a strong supporter of her work.

Even the three newly elected House members from New York, who each won a Republican seat, may achieve unusual power for newcomers because House leaders will want to help them win re-election in their Republican-leaning districts.

“Even though they’re freshmen, I think they’ll have a real ability to deliver their districts,” said Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party. “I haven’t seen a state that stands to benefit more from Tuesday’s results than New York.”

Mrs. Lowey estimated that tens of millions more in homeland security dollars could flow to New York if she and her allies succeed in changing a spending formula to favor areas, like the city, where assessments of terrorist threats are strong. While she said that change was by no means a sure thing, she said she felt more confident about success now than at any previous time in her 18 years in Congress.

“It always seemed before like New York was diminishing in power and numbers every term," said Representative Lowey, a Westchester Democrat. "I don’t recall New York ever having this much Democratic power, with two senators and a governor, and also a new House speaker who supports us."

    After Years On the Outs, New York Comes Back In, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/nyregion/09delegation.html

The Man of the Hour and Chairman-to-Be

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC KONIGSBERG

Representative Charles B. Rangel’s Town Car was doing the late-afternoon creep down Fifth Avenue yesterday, ferrying him from a conference call in his Harlem office (87 political reporters on the line at once) to a live television appearance at the Fox News studios in Midtown, when he glanced at his phone list.

These were the calls congratulating him on his impending ascension, with the previous night’s Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, to chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. These were calls he had to return, more than 100 since 9 a.m. But there was one particular well-wisher he was eager to get on the line: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.

“Mr. Secretary, I been using your name all over the press saying I’m looking forward to sitting down with you,” Mr. Rangel said into his cellphone. “Finding out what your priorities are and how we can work together.”

There was a silence while Mr. Paulson got in a few words. Mr. Rangel thanked him and hung up. Then he launched into his best imitation of a buttoned-up treasury secretary by way of Wall Street.

“ ‘We had a bad night last night, but I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather have as chairman of Ways and Means than you,’ ” Mr. Rangel said. Then, in his own voice, he added, “He already told me that before.”

Mr. Rangel, 76, has been waiting for this moment a long time. In 1970, he defeated the long-serving Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and went to Washington to represent Harlem. Four years later, he got a seat on Ways and Means, which writes tax policy and oversees some of the federal government’s largest entitlement programs. It was not an easy appointment to get, he recalled.

“Oh my God, I had the support of Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Lindsay to get on Ways and Means,” he said. “They were telling me I had to get on the committee to help the city. I got on to fill the vacancy left by Hugh Carey when he ran for governor. He told me I didn’t endorse him until he provided me a seat on Ways and Means. I forgot about that: he’s right.”

The chairman-to-be raised his eyebrows in a manner that might be described as impish, if it were possible to imagine an imp with a bushy mustache and that slicked-back silver pompadour. Just days ago, the suggestion that a Bush administration official, much less the treasury secretary, might call to congratulate Mr. Rangel for becoming Ways and Means chairman might have seemed a bad joke. Throughout the final weeks of the campaign, the president, the vice president and legions of less prominent Republicans had warned in dire tones that a Rangel-led committee would lead the country to economic disaster.

“Charlie doesn’t understand how the economy works,” Vice President Dick Cheney said in one such blast, all but promising “a big tax increase” if Mr. Rangel became the committee chairman.

Mr. Rangel, who won re-election on Tuesday with 94 percent of the vote, is quick to emphasize that the years following the Gingrich revolution of 1994 made the House a lot less fun.

“The leadership was not interested in working together,” he said. “They wanted to make political statements. The frustration was so deep. I felt like I was in a house that was on fire. I was on patrol with the fire department and I had a hose, but no water came out of it.”

Even so, Mr. Rangel said yesterday that he had every intention of working with Republicans to return bipartisan civility to the House.

“My biggest job is convincing the Democrats, the young people especially, not to try to get even if we want to get something done,” he said. “Hopefully, we can find some noncontroversial issues to start with. I used to work very well with Republicans, you know. Of course, many of those people are gone now.”

One such Republican, Clay Shaw of Florida, would have been the ranking minority member on Ways and Means, had he not lost on Tuesday in a close race. “Charlie and I have been close friends for years, which is all too rare today,” Mr. Shaw.

Together, Mr. Shaw said, they had been hoping to organize weekend retreats for committee members, get rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax and add investment opportunities to the Social Security program.

Mr. Shaw was asked what he felt Mr. Rangel’s chances were of bringing harmony to the committee. “Well, if the ranking member is for it,” he said. “And of course, that won’t be me.”

In the car, Mr. Rangel said that he was not going to try to increase taxes. “Yeah, right,” he said. “With the presidential veto? Of course I’m not raising taxes.”

He returned another call, this one to Keller George, an Oneida tribal leader. “George is going to get me a DNA test,” Mr. Rangel said. “I need a casino.”

Mr. Rangel and his driver, Al, both laughed, and the moment seemed to shake him loose from the constrictions of his statesman’s mantle. A moment or two later, he was asked what he thought of making President Bush’s tax cuts permanent rather than allowing them to expire in 2010.

He gave a look of mock reproach.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he said. “I’m trying to start out nice here.

“But I’ll tell you, I was just watching the president’s news conference on television. It looks like he’s having a little fit up there. Those exaggerated head movements. I felt so sorry for him. He acted like he didn’t know where he was.”

As for Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rangel said: “I don’t have any problem with him.” In fact, Mr. Rangel was surprised that Mr. Cheney had singled him out in his late-campaign stump speeches. “He doesn’t normally get involved with any of this tax stuff. He’s just war, war, war.”

Mr. Rangel said he was very interested in the future use of a special room, situated on the second floor of the United States Capitol, that Representative Bill Thomas, the current Ways and Means chairman, has allowed Mr. Cheney to use.

“I wonder what’s going to happen to that office,” Mr. Rangel said. “I wonder. It’s going to be my office. That’s right, it is.”

    The Man of the Hour and Chairman-to-Be, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/nyregion/09rangel.html

Clinton’s 2006 Victory Lap Has Futuristic Feel, Like 2008

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

After insisting for months that she was merely focusing on her re-election, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton emerged from her landslide victory yesterday morning with a new excuse for sidestepping questions about the 2008 campaign: She said that she was too exhilarated from the midterms to talk about the future.

“All I’m thinking now is how excited I am that we’ve had a great election for the country and for our state and for our city,” Mrs. Clinton said after trouncing her opponent, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, by capturing 67 percent of the vote.

On a victory tour of the state, Mrs. Clinton attended a breakfast with firefighters in Midtown Manhattan, met with supporters on Long Island, then traveled upstate by plane, with stops in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.

Now that she has secured a second term, Mrs. Clinton is expected to announce a decision about her presidential plans within the next few months. In the meantime, she has kept all of her options open by raising millions of dollars that could be used toward a national campaign and hiring important staff members who could run her race — all without openly discussing her thinking or even acknowledging a White House bid as a next step.

Although she tops some public opinion surveys among potential Democratic nominees, some in the party have expressed doubts that Mrs. Clinton, a polarizing figure in national politics, could win a general election. And even some voters who supported Mrs. Clinton in New York in this election were less than convinced that she should run for national office. About three-quarters of the people who voted for her for Senate said they thought that she would be a good president; about one-quarter did not.

Over all, 57 percent of voters questioned when leaving the polls in New York said that she would make a good president, but 39 percent said she would not. In the 2000 election, Vice President Al Gore won 60 percent of New York’s electorate. In 2004, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won 58 percent in the state.

Asked the same about Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, 46 percent of the people who were questioned after leaving the polls in New York said that he would make a good president. George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, won 35 percent in New York in 2000; the president improved to 40 percent in 2004.

Regarding the 2008 presidential campaign, 55 percent of New Yorkers questioned said that they would vote for Mrs. Clinton if she were the candidate, while 36 percent said they would vote for Mr. Giuliani.

With the balance of power in the Senate still undecided as officials continued to tally the vote in Virginia, Mrs. Clinton declined to address speculation that she might forgo a presidential campaign to become the first female Senate majority leader. Some Democrats have hinted they would prefer to see her in that role rather than risk having her run for higher office.

“I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Clinton said, asked about the possibility of a female Senate majority leader.

But she praised Representative Nancy Pelosi, the woman who is poised to become the first female House speaker when the new Democratic Congress convenes in January after Tuesday’s victory for the party.

“I think it is great — I am so excited,” she said of the California congresswoman. “She is a superstar.”

Mrs. Clinton also welcomed the news yesterday of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s resignation. Earlier in the year, she had called on President Bush to fire Mr. Rumsfeld.

“The president made the right decision today,” Mrs. Clinton said while in visiting Buffalo. “I wish he’d made it earlier, but now we can have a new beginning, a new face at the Pentagon who doesn’t carry the baggage that Secretary Rumsfeld carried.”

David Staba contributed reporting from Buffalo, and Matthew Sweeney from New York.

    Clinton’s 2006 Victory Lap Has Futuristic Feel, Like 2008, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/nyregion/09hillary.html

Woman in the News

Nancy Pelosi Is Ready to Be Voice of the Majority

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — As Representative Nancy Pelosi faced the cameras Wednesday morning, after the Democrats had taken a majority in the House and put her on the brink of becoming the first female speaker, she spoke so softly at first that some reporters insisted they could not hear her.

“I’m not in charge of the technical arrangements,” Ms. Pelosi said quietly, fiddling with the microphone.

Then suddenly, she was commanding: “But I could use my mother-of-five voice!”

It is a line Ms. Pelosi uses often, and a voice she may have to rely on frequently as she tries to ensure that the new Democratic majority lasts more than two years.

As speaker, she would be second in line to the presidency — the closest a woman in elective office has come to the White House. And while she has been a leader in Congress for years, and the target of Republican attacks, many Americans still do not know who she is. Her new job places her on a more visible stage, with much greater stakes.

Ms. Pelosi, 66, who has been a San Francisco congresswoman for 20 years, became minority leader and then guided her caucus to victory by enforcing remarkable party discipline. She curbed the demands of those who share her often-caricatured liberal values, while making a place for the party’s conservatives, for whom San Francisco is sometimes as distant as the moon.

She finds herself now with a more diverse caucus than before, some of its liberal members elected on a pledge to pull out of Iraq immediately, some members so conservative they often sounded like Republicans during their campaigns. She also has to work with Republican House members and a president she blasted — and took a blasting from — during a bitter two-year campaign.

Her friends say her background — as the daughter of a Baltimore mayor and congressman, the youngest and only girl in a family of six children, and the mother of five — has prepared her perfectly.

“I’ll say to her, ‘Nancy, I’d blow up if I had to deal what you deal with,’ and she says, ‘I had five children in six years,’ ” said Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, an old friend of Ms. Pelosi. “If there wasn’t discipline in her house, there would have been chaos. She knows how important that is.”

Ms. Pelosi’s colleagues and friends describe her as a person of singular focus. That was evident as the House worked its final night before breaking to campaign for the midterm elections, significantly distracted by the resignation of Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, after he was revealed to have sent sexually explicit electronic messages to Congressional pages.

Toward midnight, Ms. Pelosi took the floor. “As a mother and grandmother and the leader of the House Democrats,” she began, demanding an investigation into what House leaders knew about the Foley messages. Republicans booed, a rarity even in the raucous House chamber. She pressed on, however, smiling her unbudging smile.

“Mr. Speaker, once again, as a mother and a grandmother,” she continued, demanding that the votes be recorded.

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said, one of the things that motivated her to run for leadership “was that people didn’t want to win.”

“They were all going through the motions, but they weren’t kicking it into gear.” he said. “She looked around and said, ‘What is this? I didn’t come here to hang out.’ ”

After the Democrats lost in 2004, Ms. Pelosi talked to consultants about how the party could win, rather than resigning itself to minority status. Their suggestion, her advisers said, was to “take down” the president; it was not enough to simply kick him in the shins. Then, the consultants advised, she had to differentiate between the two parties, and finally, articulate the positive things that the Democrats would do.

She fought the president first on Social Security, sending Democratic lawmakers to tell the elderly in town-hall-style meetings that the president’s plan for change would reward Wall Street at their expense.

While she had long opposed the war, she also realized that a liberal congresswoman from California would have little impact in speaking out against it. And she pushed back against liberal members of her party who wanted to protest by denying financing for the war. Instead, she worked quietly with Representative John P. Murtha, a conservative Democrat from Pennsylvania and a veteran who had supported the war, to get him to express his growing doubts about it.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: “The most credible person in the Democratic Party would be the face of the party on this issue. She knew that because he had supported it, he had the greatest credibility to critique it.”

Mr. Markey called Ms. Pelosi a liberal pragmatist: “San Francisco on the inside, Baltimore on the outside.”

When Ms. Pelosi and Senate Democratic leaders were drafting their “Six for ‘06” platform going into the campaign, she pushed back on including traditionally liberal ideas like universal health care.

“She realizes that you cannot make everyone happy,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Ms. Pelosi has used a style that one Democratic aide characterized as “chocolate and the gavel” to bring party members along. As she rose through the ranks, she would often deliver chocolate cakes to supporters or helpful staff members, and now her meetings are characterized by bowls of Ghirardelli chocolate. Representative Gene Taylor, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi, was heartened when Ms. Pelosi called to encourage his efforts after Republicans had refused to extend health benefits to reservists in a military appropriations bill. Mr. Taylor had voted against her in the leadership elections, but the gesture was the start of a positive relationship.

“She puts a very big premium on people who have ideas, but not if you think your idea is to the exclusion of everyone else’s input,” Mr. Taylor said.

Where the history is not so clear is whether Ms. Pelosi can find common ground with Republicans, if they let her. Her advisers say she wants to work in a bipartisan manner, but that does not mean agreeing to everything.

The biggest question is how Ms. Pelosi will define her relationship with President Bush. Her staff says the two already have some rapport because of the documentary film that her youngest child, Alexandra, made about the president’s 2000 campaign. But that is different from a working political relationship.

She will have her first chance on Thursday, when she has lunch with Mr. Bush.

In a rare unscripted moment Wednesday, Ms. Pelosi noted that Mr. Bush had telephoned her that morning. “He called to congratulate me, referred to me as Madam Speaker-elect,” she said, smiling. She paused, then — still smiling — added, “I referred to him as Mr. President.”

    Nancy Pelosi Is Ready to Be Voice of the Majority, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09pelosi.html

Man in the News

Robert Gates, a Cautious Player From a Past Bush Team

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — In choosing Robert M. Gates as his next defense secretary, President Bush reached back to an earlier era in Republican foreign policy, one marked more by caution and pragmatism than that of the neoconservatives who have shaped the Bush administration’s war in Iraq and confrontations with Iran and North Korea.

Soft-spoken but tough-minded, Mr. Gates, 63, is in many ways the antithesis of Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brash leader he would replace. He has been privately critical of the administration’s failure to execute its military and political plans for Iraq, and he has spent the last six months quietly debating new approaches to the war, as a member of the Iraq Study Group run by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton.

Mr. Gates last served in Washington 13 years ago, and Mr. Bush made clear on Wednesday that he regarded his nominee as someone who would bring new perspective to the final two years of his tenure.

It was under Mr. Bush’s father that Mr. Gates first rose to influence, as deputy national security adviser and then director of central intelligence. He was not part of the group that advised the current President Bush during his 2000 campaign, and he has publicly questioned the administration’s approach to Iran, saying in a 2004 report for the Council on Foreign Relations that its refusal to talk to the Tehran government was ultimately self-defeating.

“This is a signal that there will be a major effort to avoid confrontation on national security issues,” said Dov Zakheim, a former senior official in Mr. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon who left the administration in 2004. He described Mr. Gates as “a pragmatist and a realist” who would be “no lightning rod.”

A longtime Soviet analyst who spent two decades at the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Gates served as deputy to Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser, during the administration of George H. W. Bush. There, he worked closely with Mr. Baker and Condoleezza Rice. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, now the C.I.A. director, also served on the staff of the National Security Council at the time.

Mr. Gates was confirmed in 1991 as director of central intelligence after a bruising confirmation fight in which subordinates alleged that he had politicized reporting on the Soviet Union. He has spent the last 13 years outside of government, in lucrative business posts and at Texas A&M University, first as dean of the George H. W. Bush School of Government and since 2002 as president.

Only 22 months ago, Mr. Gates turned down President Bush’s invitation to become the first director of national intelligence. After agonizing for more than two weeks, Mr. Gates later recounted, he decided during a tearful, late-night walk that he “could not leave” the university to return to Washington.

But since March, as a member of Mr. Baker’s Iraq Study Group, Mr. Gates has been pondering the central defense policy quandary facing the administration. Summoned to the president’s ranch over the weekend and offered the defense secretary’s job, this time Mr. Gates said yes.

“Because so many of America’s sons and daughters in our armed forces are in harm’s way, I did not hesitate when the president asked me to return to duty,” Mr. Gates said at the White House ceremony on Wednesday.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under President Carter and co-author with Mr. Gates of the report on Iran policy, said he hoped the appointment would mean “a major corrective in American policy toward the Middle East.”

Born and raised in Wichita, Kan., Robert Michael Gates, whose father sold wholesale auto parts, became an Eagle Scout (he is currently president of the National Eagle Scout Association) and studied European history at the College of William and Mary. He was recruited by the intelligence agency while completing a master’s degree at Indiana University and in 1974 finished a doctorate at Georgetown University, writing his dissertation on Soviet views of China.

He first served on the National Security Council staff from 1974 to 1979 under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. After returning to the C.I.A., he was given a series of pivotal jobs by Director William Casey, including deputy director and chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

If Mr. Gates was initially reluctant to return to Washington, it may be because he knows what it means to be at the center of political crossfire. First picked by President Reagan in 1987 to succeed Mr. Casey, Mr. Gates withdrew in the face of senators’ concern that he had not been candid about his knowledge of the Iran-contra affair.

In 1991, re-nominated by the first President Bush, he faced a grueling confirmation involving not only Iran-contra but also some colleagues’ accusation that he had skewed intelligence reporting on the Soviet Union to suit the Reagan White House. Mr. Gates was confirmed, 61 to 31, as the youngest C.I.A. director in history and oversaw the agency’s initial effort to tackle post-cold-war threats.

He later defended his C.I.A. record in a 1996 memoir, “From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War.”

On Wednesday, a C.I.A. subordinate who had clashed with him offered a harsh assessment. “This is not a person with a history of telling truth to power,” said the former subordinate, Melvin A. Goodman, a Soviet analyst from 1966 to 1990. Mr. Goodman called Mr. Gates a micromanager and “not a big-picture person,” though he also called him “a hard-working, disciplined person who’s totally loyal to his bosses.”

David Boren, a former Democratic chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, had warm praise for Mr. Gates’s service. “I found him to be highly intelligent, an excellent manager of the large and complex intelligence community, and totally bipartisan in his approach,” Mr. Boren said in a statement.

Bobby R. Inman, a former C.I.A. deputy director and National Security Agency director and an old friend of Mr. Gates, called him “a good listener” who, “after he makes up his mind, is very decisive.”

“He’s impatient with those whose minds don’t move as fast as his does, but he’s not arrogant,” Mr. Inman said. He compared Mr. Gates’s nomination to President Johnson’s choice of Clark Clifford, another unflappable old Washington hand, to replace the lightning rod Robert S. McNamara as defense secretary in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam war.

A hint of the approach Mr. Gates might bring to the job, drawing on his experience at the end of the cold war, can be found in his remarks in 2004 at the release of the Council on Foreign Relations report, called “Iran: Time for a New Approach.”

“One of our recommendations is that the U.S. government lift its ban in terms of nongovernmental organizations being able to operate in Iran,” Mr. Gates said. “Greater interaction between Iranians and the rest of the world,” he said, “sets the stage for the kind of internal change that we all hope will happen there.”

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

    Robert Gates, a Cautious Player From a Past Bush Team, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/washington/09gates.html

The Strategy

Democrats Turned War Into an Ally

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

This article was reported by Adam Nagourney, Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny and written by Mr. Nagourney.

On a warm night in mid-September, Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat leading his party’s campaign to win back the House, stood in front of I Ricchi, a stylish Italian restaurant in downtown Washington, screaming at an aide who happened to be in his sight.

Why, he demanded, had Iraq fallen off the front pages and the evening news, replaced by President Bush’s weeklong commemoration of the Sept. 11 anniversary? How could Democrats win if this unpopular war was fought uncovered? As he headed in for dinner, he pronounced himself as despondent about his party’s hopes as he had been all year.

Two weeks later, the political world had turned, propelled by new bursts of violence in Iraq, new questions about incompetence in the waging of the war in Iraq, and an intelligence report suggesting that the American invasion had actually worsened the terrorist threat.

As Republicans and Democrats reviewed the outcome of a midterm election yesterday that upended political power in Washington, they pointed to this span of time as the most critical period of the campaign.

Aides on both sides said that, as much as anything this year, the parties’ contrasting reactions to the renewed violence in Iraq accounted for the breadth of a Democratic victory that cost Republicans close to 30 seats in the House and, it appears, control of the Senate.

From October on, in stump speeches and television advertisements, the Democrats moved the war front and center. Republican candidates began to avoid the issue. Yet to the increasing distress of Republican Party strategists, the White House appeared to play into Democratic hands, as Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continued to offer arguments for victory .

“Iraq was the driving factor behind everything,” Mr. Emanuel said, in an assessment that drew little argument from his Republican counterparts yesterday. “And October was a disastrous month.”

Across the country, at the urging of Mr. Emanuel and his Senate counterpart, Charles E. Schumer of New York, Democratic candidates began demanding the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. As they did, Mr. Emanuel would later admit, he gave private thanks that the president had not robbed the Democrats of a potent issue by firing Mr. Rumsfeld before the campaign was engaged.

Images of battlefield violence, blended with pictures of Mr. Bush, were pressed into the service of Democratic television advertisements, many of which Mr. Schumer screened on his home computer, staying up until 1 a.m. The Democratic strategy of running against the war, which would have seemed impossibly risky just three months earlier, when the White House had urged its candidates to embrace the war, was encouraged by poll after poll, not to mention regular reports of American casualties.

Republicans, normally sure-footed this decade, reacted with a tentativeness that they called evidence of a divergence between a White House that viewed a victory in Iraq as central to Mr. Bush’s image and Republican candidates who saw the war as poisoning an already difficult re-election environment.

Senior Republican strategists said they told candidates to avoid talking about the war, and even to distance themselves from it, and urged the White House to change its approach, at least through November. But that strategy was undercut by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who kept making the case for victory in forum after forum, ensuring that the issue remained in public view.

On the Friday before Election Day, Mr. Cheney told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that the White House would push “full speed ahead” with its Iraq policy, no matter the outcome of the election. In the process, Mr. Cheney obscured a last minute flurry in which the president had attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for a remark about American troops in Iraq.

“Thank you, Lord,” Howard Wolfson, a Democratic Congressional campaign consultant, said upon hearing of Mr. Cheney’s remarks as he sat in an editing booth in New York, where he was putting together a final batch of advertisements for two upstate Democratic Congressional challengers who would win their races on Tuesday.

Some Republicans said they went into the final weekend of the campaign with dread. “You had a foreign policy that wasn’t popular,” Representative Jim Leach of Iowa said as he recounted the lay of the political land that weekend. “You had a Congress that appeared to be increasingly arrogant as well as conflicted. And you had a setting in of a six-year itch.”

Mr. Leach was defeated Tuesday after 15 terms in office.

For the Democrats, this was a campaign built on the lessons of their triumphant campaign of 1992: a carefully managed welter of rapid responses and negative attacks, of prodigious fund-raising and a step to the center and as much as practicable, an effort to impose discipline on candidates eager to win and aware of how well the Republicans could exploit their mistakes.

For Republicans, it was a campaign that was supposed to be built on the national successes of Karl Rove: a muscular get-out-the-vote operation aimed at Republican base voters, a barrage of attacks intended to discredit Democrats as culturally out of step with the country, an appeal on national security constructed once again around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

That the Republican campaign largely failed this time was to a certain extent because of forces beyond either party’s control: public dissatisfaction with the war and the unpopularity of Mr. Bush. And the Democratic campaign, under the direction of two of the most politically aggressive urban warriors in the nation — Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Schumer — put the party on par with Republicans on almost every political field.

The Republicans’ failure, however, was also the result of a series of political miscalculations. Beyond the party’s internal quarreling over the war, many Republican incumbents failed to appreciate how vulnerable they were, and there was a continued struggle between the White House and campaigns over how best to use — or more precisely, not to use — an unpopular president as a campaign prop, according to interviews with candidates, party leaders and strategists.

A difficult situation was made worse as a succession of Republicans were implicated in financial and personal scandals, culminating with the resignation of Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, after admitting he sent sexually improper messages to teenage Congressional pages. Republicans said yesterday that they easily lost eight seats directly because of the scandals.

“The scandal seats hurt and cost us resources we couldn’t afford to spend,” said Carl Forti, a senior strategist with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Officials in both parties said yesterday that the best thing the Democrats had going for them was the bad political environment and the White House’s mistakes. But they said the party might still have fallen short were it not for the rise of Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Schumer. Both men brought an unusual mix of fund-raising skills and understanding of political tactics, filling a void created when the party’s national chairman, Howard Dean, focused instead on building up the resources of the state parties in 50 states, rather than on the midterm elections..

Mr. Emanuel’s emergence came after Democrats were recovering from the defeat of 2004 and the House minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, reached beyond her circle of advisers to tap him. Their relationship was competitive and clearly pragmatic, but Democrats said it helped them across the finish line on Tuesday. Ms. Pelosi raised $57 million for the campaign effort this year

Mr. Emanuel modeled his strategy on the 1992 Clinton campaign. He created a presidential-campaign-level research department to dig up information on potential opponents and to be prepared to respond to every attack.

One notable achievement this year, Republicans said, was the speed with which Mr. Schumer and Mr. Emanuel responded to every negative advertisement they put up, and the way Democrats frequently appropriated Republican lines of attack — like assailing Republicans for raising taxes on a l0cal level.

On the Senate side, Mr. Schumer established what he called a 24-hour rule: If Republicans ran an advertisement attacking a Democratic candidate, a response had to be on the air within 24 hours.

Mr. Schumer also helped clear the way for Democratic incumbents in usually Republican states, working behind the scenes to try to make it difficult for Republicans to field strong candidates in states like North Dakota and West Virginia.

At the same time, he singled out Democrats with the knowing eye of a headhunter. Over a family dinner in London, he persuaded Claire A. McCaskill of Missouri to enter the race for Senate, and he tracked down Representative Sherrod Brown of Ohio in the House gymnasium.

Both Ms. McCaskill and Mr. Brown will be in the Senate’s freshman class in January.

Mr. Emanuel said that in the end he had no doubt of the power of the war as an issue, but he said that was not always the case: When Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, called for withdrawal of troops, gaining wide publicity and highlighting divisions among Democrats over the war, Mr. Emanuel was filled with gloom.

“I was wrong, no doubt about it,” he said.

Senior Republican officials said they were frequently frustrated by candidates who had been lulled into complacency by the party’s decade of success and ignored their warnings — typically delivered by Mr. Rove or Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman — to move early to attack opponents.

The Republican National Committee had sought before Election Day to send a mailing into Mr. Leach’s Iowa district to attack his opponent’s position on same-sex marriage.

Mr. Leach recoiled at the mailing and called Mr. Mehlman, saying he would caucus with the Democrats if Mr. Mehlman did not withdraw it.

“I would rather lose running an uplifting race than prevail by finger-pointing,” Mr. Leach said.

Republicans had other frustrations as well. The foundation of the party’s advances had been a highly sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation that ideally took a year to set up. But the party was suddenly confronted with new districts coming into play — particularly across the Northeast, where Republicans were surprised by a storm of suddenly competitive races — and did not have the time to set up the turn-out-program that had worked so well before. Many of those candidates lost narrowly.

Finally, negative advertisements that had proved so successful in the past fell short in many districts.

“You could say the guy is going to raise taxes, increase spending, he hasn’t done a particularly good job,” said Russ Schriefer, a Republican strategist whose campaigns included that of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland, who was defeated Tuesday. “They would just say, uh huh, we know that but this year I’m going to vote Democrat.’”

Mr. Mehlman said that was a lesson of this campaign. “Every election cycle, advertising works a little less well than it did the previous cycle,” he said.

It was a much different world for the White House this time than in the two previous national elections. Candidates often rejected the advice of party strategists in Washington — including Mr. Rove — and avoided appearances with Mr. Bush.

One strategist who worked in one of the most contested campaigns — and would only discuss his dealings with the White House in exchange for anonymity — said his campaign came to dread a call from the White House offering a presidential visit. It would scour through precinct data looking for a place where Mr. Bush could appear without causing harm to the candidate.

Many candidates were not helped by Mr. Bush’s appearances. Even in the solidly Republican state of Montana, polls for Senator Conrad Burns showed he received a four-point bump from a Bush visit that disappeared almost as fast as it arrived. Mr. Burns was defeated Tuesday.

The White House political strategy to embrace Iraq was set early last year. To make the case of the war’s political power, Mr. Rove would typically draw a pie chart — often on a napkin — that showed that while the country was polarized on the issue of the war, there was a sliver of independents who had once supported it, and later soured on it, but who could be brought back into the Republican camp.

The extent of that miscalculation became clear in New Jersey earlier this campaign season as Republicans conducted a poll to use against Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, who was battered by accusations of corruption and who was running against Thomas Kean Jr., an initial supporter of the war. Respondents were given a choice between a candidate with a history of corruption, facing possible indictment, versus a candidate who supported the war. Each received 40 percent, a sobering finding for Republicans.

Until the end, keeping in character and hewing to longstanding political strategy, Mr. Rove presented an optimistic front, telling anyone who would listen that the party would hold control of the House and the Senate. Now, his aides say they knew a month ago how much trouble they were in, at least in the House. Three weeks before the election, various efforts to crunch polling data and find a path toward success kept coming to the same best case result: the Democrats would take 17 seats.

Sara Taylor, the White House political director, said that she had still seen a way to win before Election Day but that it would have required holding an “inside straight.”

Gathered in the Oval Office with aides at dawn yesterday, Mr. Bush decided to add a name to his call list. “I’m going to call Rahm, the guy did a good job,” Mr. Bush said, according to an aide.

John M. Broder contributed reporting.

    Democrats Turned War Into an Ally, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09recon.html?hp&ex=1163134800&en=b142cee102a8507d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

New Democrats Pose Challenge

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — Carol Shea-Porter is a New Hampshire social worker who campaigned on the cheap and ran hard against the war in Iraq. Heath Shuler is a North Carolina football star who is pro-gun and anti-abortion. Jerry McNerney is a California alternative-energy entrepreneur with a doctorate in mathematics.

Together they are part of the new mosaic of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives — incoming lawmakers who will make a diverse group of political officeholders even more eclectic. While much of the focus in the campaign was on the more moderate tendencies of Democratic contenders, the scope of Tuesday’s Democratic surge makes for a more complex picture and a broader mix of ideologies.

“Every type of Democrat won last night, Northeastern, Midwestern, Southern, Texan, Western, liberal, moderate, conservative and many whose ideology defies easy description and should be best described just as a Democrat,” said Simon Rosenberg, head of the New Democrat Network, an advocacy group.

The results of some close races remained in question Wednesday but Democratic officials said they thought they would be seating at least 28 new members, bringing the party’s totals to at least 230 in the 435-member House. They are still trying to get a handle on exactly who some of these people are, but it is clear they present a different tableau from the liberal lions who will be taking and retaking the chairmanships of some important House committees.

The diverse viewpoints and backgrounds they are bringing to Washington could pose problems for Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the newly empowered Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, as they quickly move to line up lawmakers behind the party’s stances on national security, economic and social issues. The rank and file was eager to be unified when it meant a chance to overturn Republican rule; now Democrats must set the agenda and deliver.

“How are Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi going to forge consensus on Iraq and on a budget?” Mr. Rosenberg asked. “Where are we going to end up on these two vital things, given the extraordinary diversity of this new Democratic majority?”

Mr. McNerney is a giant killer who, with help from the party and environmental groups, knocked off Representative Richard Pombo, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. Mr. Shuler, one of the most conservative incoming Democrats, defeated Representative Charles H. Taylor, an eight-term Republican who had served on the Appropriations Committee since 1993. Ms. Shea-Porter, with no help from the party, pulled off one of the upsets of the night in defeating Jeb Bradley.

Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a state lawmaker and the first Muslim elected to the House, sees himself as a champion of economic justice. John Hall of New York, a rock musician and writer of pop hits like “Still the One,” is a longtime critic of the nation’s energy policy. Harry Mitchell, the former mayor of Tucson, is a veteran politician with a keen interest in immigration policy who is already the subject of a statue in his hometown.

“We are the most diversified caucus in the world and we think that is the great strength of the Democratic Party,” said Representative John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the Democratic caucus.

As they strode triumphantly through the Capitol on Wednesday, celebrating Democrats said that they were not worried about the party — which benefited from the support of independent voters who want to see legislative gains instead of gridlock — finding common ground.

“We have to get things done for the American people,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who oversaw the Democratic campaign effort for the Senate. “The greatness of this country is being stalled as we are unable to move forward on education and on energy and on Iraq and so many other issues.”

The stands some new Democratic senators take could pose difficulties for their own party. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who beat Senator Rick Santorum, is an ardent opponent of abortion; Jon Tester, the Montana farmer with a trademark flattop who claimed victory over Senator Conrad Burns, could also emerge as a maverick.

Mr. Reid played down possible divisions, saying that Senate Democrats have shown they can overcome ideological differences. “We have widely varying political philosophies within this team,” he said. “And what we’ve done is we’ve used these team members with their strengths, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

In the House, Democratic unity could also be tested in relations between the new committee chairmen — many of whom are liberal veterans who wielded power years ago, when the party last controlled the House — and new lawmakers who have no recollection of the days when chairmen ran the show and the rank and file followed along.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that while there were ideological distinctions among the new Democrats entering Congress, most could fit in the centrist part of the spectrum. And all, he said, have an overriding political bond.

“They are reformers in spirit and temperament,” Mr. Emanuel said.

About half the incoming Democratic freshmen are already planning on joining the New Democrat Coalition — a generally centrist group that emphasizes economic competitiveness and national security issues. They include Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, a former state senator who had a legislative reputation for working with Republicans; Michael A. Arcuri of upstate New York, a seasoned district attorney; and Tim Mahoney, the Florida businessman who won the seat that the Republican representative Mark Foley resigned because of the Congressional page scandal.

Other Democrats in the group intend to enlist with the Blue Dog Coalition, a more conservative group viewed as having a more rural outlook and a focus on balancing the budget.

But both groups emphasize trying to find legislative consensus.

“The message from the American people is clear,” said Representative Ellen Tauscher, a moderate from California who is chairwoman of the New Democrat Coalition. “They want leaders who will fight for pragmatic policies that improve their lives, whether the issue is Iraq, health care or anything in between.”

Ms. Shea-Porter, relishing her victory Wednesday, said she shared that view and was coming to the House eager to try to fix problems despite differences in outlook she might have with her colleagues or the opposition.

“People are so tired of the factions of party and they have been begging us to get together and work things out,” she said. “I have the soul of a Democrat, but I also come from a Republican family, and I know we have to reach out.”

    New Democrats Pose Challenge, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09cong.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Editorial

Rumsfeld’s Departure

November 9, 2006
The New York Times

On Tuesday, the voters told President Bush that they wanted him to come up with an exit strategy in Iraq. Yesterday, Mr. Bush accepted the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Announcing his decision, the president sounded cranky, and his insistence that Mr. Rumsfeld had done a great job was ridiculous. But everyone would like this to be the beginning of a new era, and it seems best to simply applaud the decision. Whether Mr. Bush understands what a failure Mr. Rumsfeld has been is far less important than whether he is really prepared to rethink the Iraq strategy now.

What was far more worrisome was Mr. Bush’s repeated insistence that neither he nor the American people would countenance withdrawal without “victory.” If the president still imagines that the American occupation will end in some kind of foreign policy triumph for the United States, neither the election nor Mr. Rumsfeld’s abrupt ouster have had any real impact at all. We’re still waiting for a sign that Mr. Bush has grasped the steady unraveling of his Iraq strategy as anything beyond a political problem.

The challenge for Mr. Rumsfeld’s chosen successor, Robert Gates, who was a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Bush’s father and then served as director of central intelligence, will be to bring home to the president how desperate the situation has become in Iraq and to see that the war’s conduct from here on is dictated by reality, not ideology.

That would be a truly revolutionary departure from the current era, when a succession of dubious Rumsfeld doctrines failed the reality test yet remained official policy.

Mr. Rumsfeld, you remember, was absolutely certain that Iraq could be transformed with less than half the troops that a generation of senior generals had thought necessary. He was wrong, but it was the Army’s top general who lost his job. Similar travesties played out over postwar planning and over reconstruction contracts. At some point, people must have stopped telling Mr. Rumsfeld what was really going on, fearing his wrath or retaliation.

Mr. Gates’s most urgent task, assuming he is confirmed, must be to reopen those necessary channels of communication with military, intelligence and foreign service professionals on the ground. After hearing what they have to say, he needs to recommend a realistic new strategy to Mr. Bush in place of the one that is now demonstrably failing.

That is not all he needs to do. He will have to rebuild a badly overstretched Army, refocus military transformation by trading in unneeded cold war weapons for new technologies more relevant to current needs, and nurture a more constructive relationship with Congressional oversight committees.

But Iraq must come first. Mr. Rumsfeld’s departure has to be followed by a major change in policy if American troops can be brought home without leaving a disaster behind.

    Rumsfeld’s Departure, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/opinion/09thu1.html

Rumsfeld Resigns; Bush Vows to ‘Find Common Ground’; Focus Is on Virginia

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — Faced with the collapse of his Republican majority in Congress, President Bush responded swiftly on Wednesday by announcing the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and vowing to work with Democrats “to find common ground” on the war in Iraq and domestic issues.

With Democrats having recaptured the House and control of the Senate depending on the outcome of a single unsettled contest in Virginia, Mr. Bush, sounding alternately testy and conciliatory at a White House news conference, said he was “obviously disappointed.” He portrayed the results as a cumulative “thumping” of Republicans and conceded that as head of the party, he bore some responsibility.

In Virginia, though Senator George Allen had not conceded Wednesday night, the Democrat, Jim Webb, was confident enough of victory to begin talking about transition. Mr. Allen’s defeat would mean that the Democrats would control the Senate for the first time since 2002 and would control both houses of Congress.

Just days after telling reporters that he would keep Mr. Rumsfeld on for the rest of his term, Mr. Bush said that the two had agreed “after a series of thoughtful conversations” that it was time for Mr. Rumsfeld, a magnet for criticism about management of the war, to go.

The president asked Robert M. Gates, who was director of central intelligence under Mr. Bush’s father, to take over at the Pentagon at a time when the administration is under intense pressure to develop a new approach in Iraq.

Senior White House officials said the Rumsfeld resignation had been discussed for weeks, coming as the violence intensified in Iraq and a growing number of critics — including Republicans — called for the secretary’s firing.

Several weeks ago, with the White House’s own internal polls showing Democrats making gains on antiwar sentiment, Mr. Bush and a few top aides began a series of secret meetings to discuss what he knew would be an explosive announcement.

Meanwhile, the president was holding heart-to-heart talks with Mr. Rumsfeld. As the longest-serving member of Mr. Bush’s cabinet — and a member of Mr. Bush’s father’s cabinet as well — the defense secretary had always enjoyed Mr. Bush’s unconditional public support.

The impending resignation was so closely held that the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, did not learn of it until Mr. Rumsfeld called him 45 minutes before it was announced. The White House was also wary about how the news might affect the election.

“It’s like when you get asked about the dollar,” one senior White House official said in describing why Mr. Bush gave no hint of the resignation when asked directly about it last week. “If you don’t give the same answer every time, the markets move.”

The timing of the announcement left no doubt that Mr. Bush wanted to make a dramatic demonstration of flexibility in dealing with a war that has come to define his presidency.

The White House said it had not yet determined whether to ask the departing Republican-controlled Senate to take up the Gates nomination or to wait for the new Senate, potentially in the hands of Democrats, to take it up next year. But Mr. Warner said he would like to see Mr. Gates confirmed by the end of the year, if possible.

Tuesday’s vote ripped apart the political landscape in Washington just two years after Mr. Bush won re-election and declared that he intended to expend his political capital on behalf of an ambitious agenda.

While members of both parties said the election was about the war as much as anything, Republicans opened a debate about whether they had also been undone by failing to stick closely enough to conservative principles. Republicans in the House moved toward overhauling their leadership, and presidential contenders in both parties began preparing for an almost immediate start to the 2008 campaign.

Democrats picked up at least 28 seats in the House, putting them in control of that chamber for the first time in 12 years.

By midday Wednesday, Democrats had won one of the two Senate races that had been left undecided overnight, claiming a seat in Montana from the incumbent Republican, Conrad Burns.

In Virginia, the Democrat, Mr. Webb, held a lead of less than 0.5 percent of the 2.3 million votes cast, aides to Mr. Allen suggested on Wednesday evening that he could acknowledge defeat as early as Thursday afternoon.

After spending weeks questioning Democratic approaches to the economy and national security as dangerous for the nation, Mr. Bush said he recognized “that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress” in Iraq. He said he intended to “work with the new Congress in a bipartisan way” and invited leading Democrats to meet with him at the White House beginning on Thursday.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who is now expected to become the first female speaker of the House, said Mr. Bush had invited her to lunch, calling her “Madam Speaker-elect.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who spearheaded his party’s campaign to take back the Senate, said he had received calls from Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, as well as the president himself. Mr. Schumer said he thought it meant the White House was serious about reaching out.

“He was gracious,” the senator said of Mr. Bush. “He said, ‘You did an amazing job, congratulations.’ He said, ‘I wish you were on my team.’ And I said, ‘No you don’t, Mr. President.’ ”

In the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi vowed to use the first 100 hours of the new Congress to push through what Democrats dubbed their “Six for ’06” agenda.

That program includes calls to raise the minimum wage, repeal subsidies for oil companies and incentives for companies to send jobs overseas, cut interest rates on student loans, give the government the authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, and expand opportunities for embryonic stem cell research. On one of those issues, the minimum wage, Mr. Bush signaled there was room for a deal, as he also did on immigration.

But Democrats made it clear that their first order of business, even before taking over in January, would be pressing the Bush White House to change course in Iraq.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, called for Mr. Bush to convene a bipartisan summit meeting on Iraq. Ms. Pelosi, apparently unaware that Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation was about to be announced, called pointedly on Mr. Bush to get rid of the secretary of defense, saying it would “signal an openness to new, fresh ideas.”

As Democrats turned their attention to governing, Republicans — including Mr. Bush — grappled with their losses. Although Mr. Bush had been insisting in public that he was confident Republicans would retain control of both houses of Congress, his aides said privately on Wednesday that the president knew as early as several weeks ago that Democrats were likely to capture the House, even as he hoped for an upset.

“If you look at it race by race, it was close,” the president told reporters in the East Room of the White House. “The cumulative effect, however, was not close. It was a thumping.”

Washington has been a one-party Republican town for almost the entire six years Mr. Bush has been president. Tuesday’s election ended any talk about Republicans establishing a permanent majority in the capital and upset a power structure that extended from Congress and the White House through the network of lobbyists, interest groups and donors who have supported Republicans and their agenda for years.

“We’re going to take a two-year hiatus,” Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters at a morning news briefing. Of Ms. Pelosi, he said: “My goal and job will be to make sure she never sets the record that Denny Hastert set.”

Mr. Reynolds was referring to the current speaker, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who has held the job longer than any other Republican in the nation’s history. Mr. Hastert issued a statement on Tuesday saying he would not seek the role of minority leader in the new Democratic-controlled House.

In addition to upending the balance of power between the parties in Washington, Tuesday’s election also set up a leadership scramble within the parties themselves. Two Democrats, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland and Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania have both said they will seek the position of majority leader, to replace Ms. Pelosi if, as expected, she moves up to speaker.

And there has been speculation that Representative Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who is widely viewed as an architect of Tuesday’s House victory, would seek the position of Democratic whip. Mr. Emanuel said Wednesday that he had not made any decision about the whip’s race but would do so “in short order.”

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Bush gathered his senior aides — Mr. Rove; Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; and Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president — in the Oval Office before 7 a.m. Wednesday to assess the new power structure on Capitol Hill.

Although the White House had been insisting for weeks that it was not planning for a Democratic takeover, those in the room were part of a small cadre of presidential advisers, also including the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and the domestic policy adviser, Joel D. Kaplan, who had already been doing just that.

“We got thumped, it’s time, let’s go,” Mr. Bush said, according to one person who was present at the early morning meeting. “Let’s get them on the phone. Is it too early?”

Aides to Mr. Bush said they wanted to make some fast moves to show they were nimble in the face of the new challenge and to seize at least some of the stage on a day that belonged to Democrats. At the same time, they said, they wanted to show they had heard the voters’ message that it was time for a new direction in Iraq.

And they said Mr. Gates was someone the president was comfortable with; Mr. Bush considered him for the position of director of intelligence, now held by John D. Negroponte.

Mr. Gates and the president met secretly on Sunday at Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Tex.; to avoid the prying eyes of reporters and low-level White House officials who were camped out in nearby Waco, Mr. Gates met senior aides to Mr. Bush in the little town of McGregor and was then spirited into the ranch, aides said.

Mr. Gates, the president of Texas A&M University, had a difficult confirmation as director of central intelligence 15 years ago because of accusations that he had slanted intelligence. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, pledged to give Mr. Gates “a fair and fresh look,” despite voting against his confirmation in 1991.

Despite the pronouncements of bipartisanship on both sides, there were questions about how Mr. Bush would work with a party whose Senate leader, Mr. Reid, has called him “a liar,” and whose House leader, Ms. Pelosi, has called him “incompetent.”

Asked in an interview on ABC News about her comments that Mr. Bush was incompetent, Ms. Pelosi replied, “Incompetence in the implementation of a war is dangerous,” but she quickly added that it was time to move past old conflicts.

Mr. Bush, meanwhile, was asked at his news conference how he could have been so hopeful of Republican victory in the face of polls predicting such serious losses.

“I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security,” the president said. “But the people have spoken, and now it’s time for us to move on.”

    Rumsfeld Resigns; Bush Vows to ‘Find Common Ground’; Focus Is on Virginia, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09elect.html?hp&ex=1163134800&en=eca88a31da08f650&ei=5094&partner=homepage

NYT        November 8, 2006

 With Control of the Senate in the Balance, All Eyes Turn to Virginia        NYT        9.11.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09virginia.html?hp&ex=
1163134800&en=509e5262cf2dcc30&ei=5094&partner=homepage

NYT        November 9, 2006

With Control of the Senate in the Balance, All Eyes Turn to Virginia        NYT        9.11.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09virginia.html

NYT        November 8, 2006

With Control of the Senate in the Balance, All Eyes Turn to Virginia        NYT        9.11.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09virginia.html

With Control of the Senate in the Balance,

All Eyes Turn to Virginia

November 9, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER and IAN URBINA

RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 8 — Never mind that Senator George Allen of Virginia had not conceded. Jim Webb, his Democratic opponent, claimed victory Wednesday on the strength of a roughly 7,000-vote margin.

And The Associated Press, a widely accepted authority for calling elections, agreed with Mr. Webb, declaring Mr. Allen, a Republican, the loser.

For the first full day after the balloting, Virginia remained the focal point of American politics, with a race whose outcome will determine which party controls the United States Senate. Mr. Allen’s advisers said Wednesday night that he would do nothing until a canvass of ballots was completed. But Democrats — ecstatic at the prospect that they might have swept both houses of Congress — were not waiting.

“It is virtually 100 percent that Webb is going to win the race,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who is leading the Democratic effort to take back the Senate. “I think you can say without any hesitancy or doubt that Democrats are going to be the majority party in the Senate.”

Mr. Webb began planning his transition, and aides to Mr. Allen suggested that he could acknowledge defeat as early as Thursday afternoon.

If they hold up, the victories of Mr. Webb and Jon Tester, the Democratic Senate challenger in Montana, would give the Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since 2002 and control of the entire Congress for the first time in a dozen years.

Mr. Webb, taking a page from the Republican playbook in the contested presidential vote count in Florida in 2000, tried to cast his victory as inevitable. But Mr. Allen’s advisers on Wednesday still held out the possibility of a recount.

Aides to Mr. Webb began referring to him as Virginia’s senator-elect, and this afternoon he issued a news release naming three members of his transition team.

Democratic Party officials and some news organizations, including MSNBC and The A.P., declared Mr. Webb the winner of the election with a margin of less than one-half of 1 percent out of more than 2.3 million ballots cast. A candidate can request a recount in Virginia if the vote difference is less than one percentage point.

State officials were conducting a rapid canvass of the vote as part of a formal certification of the result. They could be done by Thursday afternoon, officials said.

Members of the Allen camp said earlier in the day that they expected the review would cut into Mr. Webb’s lead, but stopped short of predicting that it would reverse the outcome.

Mr. Allen will speak as soon as the canvass is done, said a senior Allen adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The adviser made it clear that if the margin did not narrow significantly, Mr. Allen would not challenge the result.

“He has no intention of dragging this out,” the adviser said.

Democratic leaders expressed certainty that their margins in Virginia and Montana would hold, giving them unquestioned control of the Senate, to accompany the grasp of the House, which they won convincingly on Tuesday.

A concession by Mr. Allen would end a rough campaign marked by accusations of racism against him and sexism against Mr. Webb in a contest that alienated many voters, particularly women, and has apparently left the senator’s once-promising political career in tatters.

Mr. Webb, a former Republican who was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, ran a fairly listless campaign until the final weeks, when he adopted the persona of the warrior he was in the Marine Corps.

A spokeswoman for him, Kristian Denny Todd, said Wednesday that Virginia’s vote-counting procedure was methodical and accurate, and expressed confidence that Mr. Webb’s margin would hold .

“The bottom line,” Ms. Denny Todd said, “is the votes have been counted and Jim Webb has won. It could have gone the other way, but it didn’t. We’re on top, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

Virginia election results “rarely, rarely, rarely” change after certification, Ms. Denny Todd said, citing a recount in a race for attorney general last year in which the margin was fewer than 400 votes both before and after a recount.

At least one other race faced the possibility of a recount. In Florida, Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, the Democrat opposing him in the race for the Congressional seat being vacated by Representative Katherine Harris, appear headed for a recount with Mr. Buchanan ahead by 368 votes.

Abby Goodnough contributed reporting from Sarasota, Fla., and Jeff Zeleny from New York.

    With Control of the Senate in the Balance, All Eyes Turn to Virginia, NYT, 9.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09virginia.html?hp&ex=1163134800&en=509e5262cf2dcc30&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Democrats win majority of governorships

Wed Nov 8, 2006 7:38 AM ET
Reuters
By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Democrats won a majority of U.S. governors' offices for the first time since 1994, taking seats from Republicans in six states and scoring a potential advantage in 2008 presidential battlegrounds.

New York, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, Colorado and Arkansas switched to Democratic governors, but in California, celebrity Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger crushed his opponent.

"That could bear more on the presidential election than the House going Democratic or the Senate being dead even," said Stuart Spencer, a Republican strategist who worked on the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

"Democratic governors who have only been there two years, haven't got into too much trouble, they could have a big impact on the outcome of that state in terms of the presidential election."

Democrats also won control of the U.S. House of Representatives and picked up Senate seats amid growing discontent over Republican President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

"If you're a candidate for governor it's always good to be sailing with the wind at your back, and clearly the Democratic candidates were benefiting from a national mood to change direction," former California Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, told Reuters.

In California, former action film star Schwarzenegger won re-election in a landslide. "I love doing sequels," he told supporters.

Republicans also held Texas and Florida to retain power in three of the four most populous states key to presidential contests. Republicans had held a majority of the 50 governorships since their party's 1994 congressional landslide, and went into the election holding 28 states.

Of the 36 seats up on Tuesday, Democrats defended 14 they held and took six more for a total of 20 on top of eight Democratic seats that were not involved in the election.

New York elected Democratic Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to replace departing Republican Gov. George Pataki, restoring the governor's seat to Democratic hands for the first time in a decade.

In Ohio, which was decisive in the 2004 White House race, Ted Strickland, six-term congressman and Methodist minister, became the first Democrat in 16 years to be elected governor.

Maryland voters ousted Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich in favor of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. In Arkansas Democrat Mike Beebe, the state's attorney general, defeated former Homeland Security chief Asa Hutchinson for an open seat that had been in Republican hands.

In Colorado former Denver prosecutor Bill Ritter defeated Republican congressman Bob Beauprez for an open Republican-held seat. Massachusetts returned its governor's job to Democrats for the first time in 16 years by electing Deval Patrick as its first black governor and only the second black governor ever from any state.

He succeeds Mitt Romney, who did not seek a second term and is expected to make a presidential run in 2008.

Among the 36 states electing governors, Democrats were headed to re-election wins in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas, Wisconsin, Maine, Arizona, Oregon, and Tennessee and held onto to an open Democratic seat in Iowa.

Republican incumbents were returned to office in Georgia, Nebraska, Connecticut, Vermont, South Dakota, South Carolina, Hawaii and Alabama. They were also leading in partial returns from Alaska, Idaho, Nevada and less than two points with nearly 97 percent of the precincts reporting in Minnesota.

(Additional reporting by Michael Conlon in Chicago)

    Democrats win majority of governorships, R, 8.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-08T123754Z_01_N06302578_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-GOVERNORS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Analyst: Democrats Win Turnout Battle

November 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:48 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A preliminary analysis shows voter turnout on Tuesday was about the same as in the last midterm election, around 40 percent, says Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

Gans said turnout was up in some states, and down in others. It was ''spectacularly up'' in Virginia -- the second-largest turnout ever for a midterm election -- but down in Florida.

It also was a big turnout success for Democrats. Gans said Democrats drew more voters than Republicans for the first time in a midterm election since 1990. It was the first time that has happened in any national election since 1992, he said.

    Analyst: Democrats Win Turnout Battle, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ELN-Turnout.html

Election Results From the West

November 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:36 a.m. ET
The New York Times

A glance at election results in the West:

ALASKA:

The governor's race was a three-for-all -- but Republican Sarah Palin ultimately beat out former Gov. Tony Knowles and independent Andrew Halcro. Don Young, winning his 18th term as the state's congressman, had barely acknowledged his opponent, Democrat Diane Benson.

ARIZONA:

No high-profile Republican candidate for governor, so incumbent Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano won her bid for a second term easily.

Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl beat back stiff opposition from Democratic millionaire mall-builder Jim Pederson to win a third term.

Voters also approved four ballot measures on immigration, including expanding the list of government benefits denied to illegal immigrants, denying them bail when charged with a serious crimes and establishing English as the state's official language.

CALIFORNIA:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won his first full term in office by siphoning support from Democrat Phil Angelides with deals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, raise the minimum wage and reduce prescription drug costs. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein also coasted to another term, her third.

There were propositions -- Robert Redford criticized a property-rights initiative while Julia Roberts promoted a tax on oil companies to fund alternative fuel research -- and there was the latest leg of Jerry Brown's magical mystery trip through California politics, from secretary of state to governor to Oakland mayor, and now, with his win Tuesday, to state attorney general.

COLORADO:

Former Denver district attorney Bill Ritter pulled away to win the governor's race over GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez, who had accused Ritter of being soft on illegal immigration. But Beauprez' information allegedly came from a restricted federal database; the FBI came calling, and Ritter, an anti-abortion Democrat, surged in the polls.

Voters decisively approved a ban on same-sex marriages; another measure that would award legal benefits to gay partnerships was expected to fail.

HAWAII:

Linda Lingle, the first Republican governor since statehood, rode a nearly 20-to-one funding advantage to re-election.

Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, 82, defeated Republican state Rep. Cynthia Thielen to win his fourth term. His first opponent withdrew because of illness, and Theilen wasn't picked as the replacement until late September.

IDAHO:

State lawmaker Bill Sali described his race with Democratic tech exec Larry Grant for Idaho's open 1st District congressional seat as conservative versus liberal, ''and we know how that goes in Idaho.'' But maybe not so much anymore -- the race was too close to call.

Republican Rep. C.L. ''Butch'' Otter turned back Democrat Jerry Brady, a newspaper owner, in the governor's race.

MONTANA:

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, prone to cringe-worthy gaffes (he cussed out weary firefighters at a Billings airport) and dogged by ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, struggled with Democrat Jon Tester, a state senator and farmer who proudly sports an old-fashioned flattop haircut.

NEVADA:

Conservative Republican Jim Gibbons beat liberal Democrat Dina Titus in the governor's race despite a surprise speed bump in his campaign -- 32-year-old cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo accusation that he assaulted her in a parking garage.

Incumbent Republican Sen. John Ensign held off a long-shot challenge by Jack Carter, son of former President Jimmy Carter.

NEW MEXICO:

Republican challenger John Dendahl was not even a speed bump for Gov. Bill Richardson, whose eyes are focused on a run for president down the road.

A notably nasty campaign found GOP Rep. Heather Wilson desperately trying to secure a fifth term against Patricia Madrid, the state's attorney general.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman secured another term in a race nearly as quiet as the bookish Bingaman himself.

OREGON:

Low-key Democrat Gov. Ted Kulongoski turned back a well-financed challenge from Republican Ron Saxton, a lawyer who called Kulongoski a ''no-show'' governor. Kulongoski, for his part, touted Oregon's economic recovery.

UTAH:

Utah's songwriting senator, 72-year-old Republican Orrin Hatch, became the longest-serving senator in state history by winning a sixth term. He waltzed over lightly funded Democrat Pete Ashdown, an Internet entrepreneur making his first run at public office.

WASHINGTON:

It was easier this time for Democrat Maria Cantwell, who didn't know until nearly Thanksgiving in 2000 that she had won the nation's closest Senate race by less than 2,300 votes. Republican opponent Mike McGavick, a former Senate aide and wealthy CEO, had plunged himself into hot water by confessing to a 1993 DUI arrest.

Democrat Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft program manager, hoped to oust first-term Rep. Dave Reichert, the made-for-TV incumbent best known as the sheriff who nabbed the Green River Killer.

WYOMING:

Could two Democrats win statewide elections in Wyoming, perhaps the nation's most Republican state? One down: Gov. Dave Freudenthal had already been a heavy favorite to win a second term.

And Rep. Barbara Cubin was in danger of losing the seat she has held for 12 years to Gary Trauner, a well-funded Democrat. Cubin drew attention when a Libertarian candidate in a wheelchair charged she approached him after a debate and said, ''If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.''

Wyoming was assured of at least one Republican office-holder, with the victory of Sen. Craig Thomas over Democrat Dale Groutage.

    Election Results From the West, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ELN-West-Glance.html

Election Results From the Northeast

November 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:35 a.m. ET
The New York Times

A glance at election results in the Northeast:

CONNECTICUT:

Joe Lieberman lost his primary because many Democrats thought he was a tool of the White House, then came back to win reelection as an independent over anti-war Democrat Ned Lamont.

Republican Rep. Christopher Shays was elected to an 11th term after a fierce challenge from Democrat Diane Farrell, while Rep. Nancy Johnson lost her longtime seat to anti-war Democrat Chris Murphy.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell barely broke a sweat in winning a full term. (She took over in 2004 from scandal-soaked John Rowland, whose next address was prison.)

DELAWARE:

Republican Rep. Michael Castle and Democratic U.S. Sen. Thomas Carper will return to Washington after re-election victories. And Democrat Beau Biden, son of Delaware's senior U.S. senator, narrowly defeated a career prosecutor in the race for attorney general.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:

Democratic mayoral hopeful Adrian Fenty, an energetic young lawyer and city council member, cruised to victory in a city where 74 percent of voters are registered Democrats. Ditto for Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was unopposed for a ninth term as the District of Columbia's nonvoting representative in Congress.

MAINE:

She's a Republican in a traditionally blue state, but Sen. Olympia Snowe easily won a third term over a Democrat and an independent who never gained traction against the well-financed, moderate incumbent. Democratic Gov. John Baldacci survived challenges from the right and left in winning a five-way race.

MARYLAND:

Lt. Gov. Michael Steele -- Maryland's first black elected statewide official -- won't be its first black senator. The Republican lost to Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin in the race for an open seat.

Robert Ehrlich, Maryland's first Republican governor since the 1960s, lost to Democratic Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. Ehrlich's misfortune? Anti-Bush sentiment and struggles with the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

MASSACHUSETTS:

Democrat Deval Patrick became the first black elected governor of Massachusetts, defeating GOP Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey -- who had hoped to be the first woman elected to the office. Patrick led the Justice Department's civil rights division under President Clinton.

Ted Kennedy easily won an eighth term that will extend his Senate career to an even 50 years in 2012.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Democrat Paul Hodes ousted six-term incumbent Rep. Charles Bass in a rematch of the 2002 race. Bass tried to distance himself from the Bush administration's Iraq and energy policies. Both parties dumped money into last-minute attack ads.

NEW JERSEY:

A steel-cage, attack-ad death match ended with Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez victorious over Republican Tom Kean Jr. Kean had accused Menendez of corruption, and Menendez had reminded voters at every turn that Kean, son of a popular former governor, supported President Bush's war in Iraq.

NEW YORK:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton routed her conservative Republican challenger for a second, six-year term, a cakewalk that had some supporters chanting: ''Two more years!'' A mere tuneup for a 2008 run for the White House?

Democrat Eliot Spitzer, the ''Sheriff of Wall Street'' who won fame as New York's crimebusting attorney general, became the state's first new governor in 12 years.

Democrat Andrew Cuomo, elder son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, won Spitzer's old job and resurrected his political career. Comptroller Alan Hevesi survived a political scandal over his use of a state-paid chauffeur for his ailing wife.

PENNSYLVANIA:

State Treasurer Bob Casey, a Democrat opposed to abortion and gun control, shook the landscape by beating Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell scored in his re-election bid over Republican Lynn Swann, the Steelers Hall of Fame receiver whose campaign never quite caught on.

RHODE ISLAND:

Incumbent Lincoln Chafee didn't even vote for President Bush, but Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse defeated the patrician Republican by lashing him to the administration. Chafee held his seat for seven years, and his father held it for 23 years before that.

Republican Gov. Don Carcieri beat Democrat Lt. Gov. Charlie Fogarty after boasting that his administration exposed corruption in a notoriously corrupt state.

VERMONT:

In the Senate, Vermont traded independents -- self-described socialist Rep. Bernie Sanders defeated Republican opponent Richard Tarrant to take the seat held by retiring Sen. James Jefford. He'll caucus with the Democrats.

Republican Gov. Jim Douglas won a third, two-year term, beating feisty challenger Democrat Scudder Parker.

    Election Results From the Northeast, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ELN-Northeast-Glance.html

Election Results From the Midwest

November 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

A glance at election results in the Midwest:

ILLINOIS:

Overcoming the stain of scandal, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich muscled past Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka to win a second term.

Democratic newcomer Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost both of her legs in combat, lost her bid to win the House seat being vacated by Rep. Henry Hyde, a 32-year House veteran.

INDIANA:

Radically conservative Rep. John Hostettler -- who once linked abortion to breast cancer -- lost his re-election bid to Democrat Brad Ellsworth, a popular sheriff. In the Senate race, there were no surprises: Incumbent Republican Richard Lugar had no Democratic opponent.

IOWA:

Democratic Secretary of State Chet Culver won the governorship over Rep. Jim Nussle, after a late poll found both candidates viewed favorably by half or more of voters. Maybe it was the homespun touches, like an ad in which Culver's wife asked Iowans to support ''the big lug.''

KANSAS:

Nasty campaign tactics did not avail incumbent Attorney General Phill Kline -- a Republican who made national news by seeking abortion patients' medical records. He lost after running an ad resurrecting unproven, 15-year-old sexual harassment allegations against opponent Paul Morrison, a county DA.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat in a GOP-leaning state, easily won a second term, something her father, former Ohio Gov. John J. Gilligan, couldn't do. Republican Rep. Jim Ryun -- the track great who once held the world record in the mile -- lost at the tape to Democrat Nancy Boyda, whom he beat handily just two years ago.

MICHIGAN:

Democrat Jennifer Granholm, who has overseen one of the nation's worst economies, staved off Amway heir Dick DeVos, who spent at least $35 million of his own cash. Granholm fought back with savvy debate appearances and tough ads.

Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow easily defeated Detroit-area Sheriff Michael Bouchard despite a $1 million injection of cash from the National Republican Senatorial Committee .

On the big ballot question, a white woman denied admission to the University of Michigan as a high school honors student in 1995 led a successful effort to ban race and gender preferences in university admissions and government hiring..

MINNESOTA:

The Democrat for governor allegedly called a reporter ''a Republican whore.'' His running mate revealed she didn't have clue as to what E-85 was (it's a fuel blend made largely from corn). And suddenly, late in his campaign against incumbent Republican Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Mike Hatch was on the defensive.

Democratic prosecutor Amy Klobuchar, daughter of a newspaper columnist, wrote a happy ending to her quest to defeat Rep. Mark Kennedy, keeping the state's open Senate seat in Democratic hands.

Democrat Keith Ellison became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

MISSOURI:

Democrat Claire McCaskill narrowly defeated incumbent Jim Talent for Senate, in a race that paralleled a ballot measure to protect stem cell research in the state. McCaskill backed the measure, Talent opposed it, and the vote on the amendment was too close to call.

NEBRASKA:

Republican Pete Ricketts burned some $12 million of his Ameritrade fortune in a failed battle against Sen. Ben Nelson -- one of President Bush's favorite Democrats. Yale-educated ranch hand Scott Kleeb gave Democrats a shot -- for the first time since 1959 -- at taking the seat vacated by Rep. Tom Osborne.

NORTH DAKOTA:

Bush won here with 63 percent of the vote, but Democrats Sen. Kent Conrad and Rep. Earl Pomeroy have Washington clout and big campaign war chests. Each trounced the farmer Republicans had put up against him.

OHIO:

Rare coins. Free trips. Free golf. Scandals gave Democrats amazing fodder against ruling Republicans.

Democrat Ted Strickland took the governor's office despite a nasty campaign of character-bashing by Republican Ken Blackwell, backed by a national network of Christian conservatives. Republican Sen. Mike DeWine tried unsuccessfully to pry himself from President Bush, but went down to defeat to Democrat Sherrod Brown.

OKLAHOMA:

Crafty centrist Brad Henry, an incumbent Democratic governor with tax-cutting credentials, knocked off conservative Republican Rep. Ernest Istook. Three-term GOP Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin, running for Istook's seat, became the first Oklahoma woman elected to Congress since 1920.

SOUTH DAKOTA:

Republican Gov. Mike Rounds handily won a second four-year term, beating a retired orthopedic surgeon. Democrat Stephanie Herseth kept her House seat.

Voters also rejected a ballot measure that would have banned nearly all abortions in the state. Critics said the proposed law was too extreme because it didn't include exceptions for rape, incest or the health of a pregnant woman.

WISCONSIN:

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle pitched support for stem cell research early and often in his successful bid for a second term against Republican Rep. Mark Green, a self-described ''bleeding heart conservative.'' The millionaire owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl, cruised to a fourth term over Republican and Green Party opponents.

On the ballot: A constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was approved. Leaders of a broad coalition of unions, church leaders, students and others had thought Wisconsin had a chance to be the first state to reject such a measure.

    Election Results From the Midwest, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ELN-Midwest-Glance.html

Gay marriage loses at polls, stem cell may win

Wed Nov 8, 2006 7:41 AM ET
Reuters
By Mary Milliken

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Voters in seven U.S. states rejected gay wedlock by limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman in one of the few bright spots for conservative Republicans in otherwise disappointing elections on Tuesday.

But Democrats and liberals were claiming victory on stem cell research and abortion, two major social issues that have polarized U.S. voters in recent years.

A lone stem cell initiative in Missouri was poised to win by a narrow margin, mirroring the nailbiting Senate victory of its main proponent, Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Missouri took center stage in the final weeks of the electoral battle after jarring ads by actor and Parkinson's patient Michael J. Fox to support stem cell research. Opponents worry it would lead to human cloning.

In South Dakota, voters favored repealing an abortion law considered the most restrictive in the nation after pro-choice groups campaigned heavily in that state.

As Democrats swept the Republicans out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and threatened to do the same in the Senate, conservative voters appeared to have turned out to oppose same-sex marriage and possibly help some Republican races.

Republicans had hoped for a repeat of 2004 when conservative voters flocked to the polls to vote against gay marriage and helped secure U.S. President George W. Bush's second term.

"You definitely see a lot of turnout and support for these social issues, like limiting marriage," said University of Southern California law and politics professor Kareem Crayton.

But he said analysts would need some days to determine if ballot initiatives had motivated people to vote and decided close congressional races.

Of the eight states where marriage amendments were on the ballot, seven -- Virginia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Dakota, Colorado and Idaho -- were headed toward opposing gay marriage. But supporters of gay marriage said they were seeing greater numbers voting in favor of their movement.

GAY GROUPS SEE GAINS

"Two years ago we had 11 of these on the ballot, and in only two of them did we do better than 40 percent," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

"This year there were eight and in at least five of them we did better than 40 percent."

Only Arizona voted against its marriage amendment, but analysts said that does not mean voters favor gay marriage.

"They were voting against a measure in the amendment that would have denied benefits to domestic partners," said Arizona State University analyst Bruce Merrill.

Conservatives will have to rethink their strategy on abortion after the loss in South Dakota where they viewed the strict law as their best chance to challenge a 33-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

"This means that there has been a rebellion against social, right-wing wedge politics that have been dominating this country," said Sarah Stoesz, CEO of South Dakota's Planned Parenthood, key backers of the campaign to kill the measure.

Tobacco and smoking taxes, property rights and minimum wage levels were also big issues among the 205 ballot propositions in 37 states, according to the University of Southern California.

Democrats were declaring victory on minimum wage increases in six states -- their counter-strategy to the conservatives marriage amendment proposals aimed at getting Democratic voters to the polls.

In California, the green power of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Hollywood icons Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt were no match for big oil companies, which managed to convince voters to quash a tax on oil that would have gone to funding alternative energy. Both sides spent a total of $150 million in the battle.

And in the debate over drugs, two states, Nevada and Colorado, were set to reject proposals to legalize possession of one ounce of marijuana.

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Dallas, Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Ann Grauvogl in Sioux Falls, SD)

    Gay marriage loses at polls, stem cell may win, R, 8.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-08T124106Z_01_N0829679_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-INITIATIVES.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

South Dakotans Reject Abortion Measure

November 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:30 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota voters on Tuesday rejected the toughest abortion law in the land -- a measure that would have outlawed the procedure under almost any circumstances.

The Legislature passed the law last winter in an attempt to prompt a challenge aimed at getting the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Instead of filing a lawsuit, opponents gathered petition signatures to put the measure on the general election ballot for a statewide vote.

The measure drew money, volunteers and attention from national groups; combined spending by the two campaigns exceeded $4 million in a state with only about 750,000 people. Finance reports filed in the campaign's final week revealed that an unidentified donor had given at least $750,000 to help the ban's supporters.

The campaign turned quickly from the overall issue of abortion rights when opponents attacked the law as extreme, arguing that it goes too far because it would not allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the life of a pregnant woman.

Supporters countered that the law would allow doctors to protect the lives of pregnant women with medical problems. They also argued that rape and incest victims would be protected by a provision that says nothing in the abortion ban would prevent women from getting emergency contraceptives up to the point a pregnancy could be determined.

The measure gave new hope to those who believe passionately that abortion must be stopped, said Leslee Unruh, leader of the campaign organization supporting the ban.

''They are energetic. They've waited a long time for a day like this to come, where they all come together and work to do something,'' Unruh said late in the campaign.

Jan Nicolay, a former state lawmaker who led the group opposing the measure, said she was surprised at the fervor the ban roused in those who believe in abortion rights.

''I think we probably lit a match and we got a spark going that I don't think people anticipated would happen,'' Nicolay said when her group succeeded in getting the law referred to a statewide vote.

The debate split not only the general public, but also the medical community. Ads run by both sides featured doctors giving their interpretations of the law.

Regardless of the election outcome, the battle is expected to continue. If voters approve the ban, the measure likely will be challenged in court. If the ban is rejected, lawmakers opposed to abortion could pass a less restrictive measure next year.

    South Dakotans Reject Abortion Measure, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ELN-South-Dakota-Abortion.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

News Analysis

A Loud Message for Bush

November 8, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBIN TONER

Everything is different now for President Bush. The era of one-party Republican rule in Washington ended with a crash in yesterday’s midterm elections, putting a proudly unyielding president on notice that the voters want change, especially on the war in Iraq.

Mr. Bush now confronts the first Democratic majority in the House in 12 years and a significantly bigger Democratic caucus in the Senate that were largely elected on the promise to act as a strong check on his administration. Almost any major initiative in his final two years in office will now, like it or not, have to be bipartisan to some degree.

For six years, Mr. Bush has often governed, and almost always campaigned, with his attention focused on his conservative base. But yesterday’s voting showed the limits of those politics, as practiced — and many thought perfected — by Mr. Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove.

In the bellwether states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, two Republican senators, both members of the legendary freshman class of 1994, were defeated by large margins. Across the Northeast, Republican moderates were barely surviving or, like Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, falling to Democrats who had argued that they were simply too close to a conservative president.

Most critically, perhaps, Republicans lost the political center on the Iraq war, according to national exit polls. Voters who identified themselves as independents broke strongly for the Democrats, the exit polls showed, as did those who described themselves as moderates.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who was re-elected yesterday, said that with the election’s results, the administration’s Iraq policy “has to change.”

“It absolutely has to change,” Ms. Snowe said. “And that message should have been conveyed by the administration much sooner.”

Mr. Bush’s allies could argue that history was working against Republicans, that in a president’s sixth year in office, his party was ripe for big losses. They could also argue that Congressional Republicans brought their own vulnerabilities and scandals to the table. But this was a nationalized election, and Mr. Bush and Iraq were at the center of it.

Nearly 4 in 10 voters said they saw their ballot as a vote against Mr. Bush, about twice as many as those who said they had cast their ballots for him. It was a remarkable turnaround for a president who just two years ago emerged triumphant from his re-election campaign, declaring that he had earned political capital and intended to spend it.

That capital slowly drained away with an ill-fated fight on Social Security, a furor over the government’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, an aggressive intervention for conservative causes like the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo, and, more than anything, pollsters said, the war in Iraq. In the final days of the campaign, Mr. Bush’s travels to some of the most Republican and least competitive regions in the country were a portrait of his political isolation.

Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster, said, “An important feature of this election, with implications for 2008, is that the center of the electorate clearly doesn’t like to be ignored in an era of base politics. The Republicans played to the base at their great peril among the middle.”

After a campaign that only escalated the tension between Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats, the president will now face overwhelming pressure to take a more conciliatory approach. For example, he will be under increasing pressure to re-evaluate his support for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, which he so publicly restated in the closing days of the campaign.

Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, said Mr. Bush certainly had the capability to practice more bipartisan politics; he governed that way often in Texas, and also occasionally in Washington, on legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act.

Other analysts pointed out that on issues like energy and immigration, Mr. Bush can find common ground with many Democrats. Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman and lobbyist who is close to the administration, said, “They’ll be able to pivot quite easily on this and adapt to political reality.”

But much of Mr. Bush’s domestic agenda, which was not exactly gliding through the current Congress, will face even tougher prospects now. That includes any effort to overhaul entitlement programs like Social Security, already heavily shadowed by his failed effort to push through private investment accounts for Social Security in 2005, as well as any effort to extend all of his tax cuts, which Democrats say were heavily skewed to the most affluent.

Moreover, with a greater Democratic presence in the Senate, Mr. Bush will have far less latitude in his judicial nominees.

Even if Mr. Bush makes the grand gestures, Democrats heading into the 2008 presidential campaign may not be in the mood to reciprocate. Still, on Iraq, some change is almost inevitable, analysts say.

There is already a vehicle for a new bipartisanship, experts noted. A commission headed by James A. Baker III, former secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, former Democratic representative from Indiana, is exploring policy alternatives for Iraq and is expected to make recommendations this winter.

House Democratic leaders have already indicated that they will not cut off financing for the war; in many ways, their greatest power will be their ability to investigate, hold hearings and provide the oversight that they asserted was so lacking in recent years.

Experts point out that Mr. Bush is hardly the first president to confront a House controlled by the opposition; since World War II, some form of divided government has been the norm. President Bill Clinton, through a combination of negotiation, brinksmanship and bluffs, produced major legislation with the Republican Congress after 1994, including an overhaul of the welfare system and a huge balanced budget law.

Mr. Bush could try to do the same. But first he would have to abandon the political worldview that he drew, by many accounts, from his father’s defeat — to never cross his base. President George H. W. Bush lost conservatives when he broke his “no new taxes pledge.”

The younger Bush has rarely made that mistake. His circle had clearly hoped that the conservative base would come through in the end, saving the Republican majority even in the face of an unpopular war. But this time, it was not enough.

    A Loud Message for Bush, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/us/politics/08assess.html?hp&ex=1163048400&en=654cbccf9b779806&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Democrats Seize Control of House; Senate Hangs on Virginia and Montana

November 8, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Democrats seized control of the House of Representatives and defeated at least four Republican senators yesterday, riding a wave of voter discontent with President Bush and the war in Iraq.

But the fate of the Senate remained in doubt this morning, as races for Republican-held seats in Montana and Virginia remained too close to call as Election Day turned into the day after. Democrats would need both seats to win control of the Senate as well.

In Montana, Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican, was trailing Jon Tester, a Democrat, by a narrow margin. The race in Virginia — between another Republican incumbent, Senator George Allen, and Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger — was so close that some officials said it would have to be resolved by a recount.

That prospect could mean prolonged uncertainty over control of the Senate, since a recount can be requested only after the results are officially certified on Nov. 27th, according to the state board of elections. Last year a recount in the race for Attorney General was not resolved until Dec. 21.

But the Democrats’ victory in the House — overcoming a legendarily efficient White House political machine — represented a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the party and signaled a sea change in the political dynamics in Washington after a dozen years in which Republicans controlled Congress for all but a brief period.

No less significant for the long-term political fortunes of their party, Democrats were winning governors’ seats across the country — notably in Ohio, a state that has been at the center of the past two presidential elections.

By early this morning, Democrats had picked up 24 seats in the House, knocking off Republican incumbents from New Hampshire to Florida, officials in both parties said. Although results from the West Coast had not yet come in, neither party anticipated that the basic outcome would change once all votes were counted.

Among the faces that will be absent from the halls of Congress next year are some high-profile and long-serving members of the Republican Party, including Representatives Charles Bass of New Hampshire. E. Clay Shaw Jr. of Florida, J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, Jim Ryun of Kansas and Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut.

Karl Rove, the president’s top political strategist, alerted the president that the House was lost at around 11 p.m., the White House said.

"His reaction was, he was disappointed in the results in the House,” Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. "But he’s eager to work with both parties on his priorities over the next two years. He’s got an agenda of important issues he wants to work on, and he’s going to work with both parties."

Mr. Bush called a press conference for this afternoon at the White House. Mr. Fratto said that Mr. Bush would call the new Democratic Congressional leaders today, including Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, likely to be the next House speaker. Mr. Fratto said the president was still hopeful late last night that the Senate would remain under Republican control.

The parade of departing Republican senators included Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Jim Talent of Missouri, who conceded his race to Claire McCaskill well after midnight.

Democrats celebrated the results in a raucous rally at a victory party in Washington.

“The American people have sent a resounding and unmistakable message of change and a new direction for America,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat who led his party’s campaign this fall in the House, his voice hoarse from exhaustion.

By any measure, the result was a sobering defeat for a White House and a political party that had just two years ago, with Mr. Bush’s re-election, claimed a mandate to shape both foreign and domestic policy and set out to establish long-term dominance for the Republican Party.

To the end, Mr. Rove had expressed public confidence that the electoral tools he had used to great effect in his long association with Mr. Bush — a sophisticated get-out-the-vote effort, an aggressive effort to define Democratic candidates in unflattering ways, a calculated and intense campaign to fuel the enthusiasm of conservative voters — would save the Republicans from defeat.

In light of the defeat, Mr. Bush’s aides were striking a more conciliatory tone as they faced the prospect of two years of divided government and a clearly enlivened Democratic Party.

“We always recognized this was going to be a very challenging year,” Ken Mehlman, the Republican Party chairman, said on CNN. “We have to continue to work and try to work on a bipartisan basis to accomplish things.”

In the Senate, one of the Republicans’ top targets — Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey — survived a nearly $5 million onslaught by the Republican Party to defeat Thomas H. Kean Jr.

In New York, Eliot Spitzer breezed to victory, becoming the first Democrat in 12 years to move into the governor’s mansion in Albany, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won easy re-election. In Connecticut, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, running as in independent, defeated the man who beat him in the Democratic primary, Ned Lamont.

The election to a large extent became a national referendum on Mr. Bush and the war in Iraq, according to exit polls.

Sixty percent of voters leaving the polls yesterday said they opposed the war in Iraq, and 40 percent said their vote was a vote against Mr. Bush. In addition, a significant number of voters said corruption was a crucial issue in their decision, in a year in which Republicans have struggled with scandal in their ranks. Independent voters, a closely watched group in a polarized country, broke heavily for Democrats over Republicans, the exit polls showed.

Ms. Pelosi took note of the importance of the war in the outcome in her own victory speech early this morning.

“Nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in Iraq,” she said, speaking to cheers. “We can not continue down this catastrophic path. So we say to the president, ‘Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq. Let us work together to find a solution to the war in Iraq.’ ”

In a sign of the political mindsets of both parties going into last night, Democrats had arranged an elaborate rally to gather the election results in Washington; Republicans had not.

Beyond the change in party power, the result signaled that the House was in for something of an ideological scramble. While the result was marked by the defeat of a procession of Republican moderates — from New Hampshire, Connecticut and Florida — the new class of Democrats include congressmen-elect who are considerably more moderate than many of their new brethren. In Indiana, Representative John Hostettler, a Republican, was defeated by Brad Ellsworth, a Democrat and sheriff who opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

Democrats picked up six governors’ seats currently held by Republicans, most significantly in Ohio, where Representative Ted Strickland won. Mr. Strickland’s victory, along with the defeat of Mr. DeWine by Sherrod Brown, signaled that Ohio was no longer the Republican bulwark that it has long been.

At stake was Republican control of both the House and the Senate in the most competitive midterm election since Republicans seized control in 1994. That was the last time one party took control of both houses away from the other. This year, Democrats were looking to win 15 seats to capture the House and 6 to win the Senate.

The day included concerns about electronic voting machines being used for the first time in many parts of the country, as well as about often strict new voter registration laws. Problems were reported in a dozen states, including Indiana and Ohio. In parts of eight states, polling hours were extended.

President Bush cast his vote in Crawford, Tex., then returned to Washington to watch the returns at the White House with a group that included Mr. Mehlman and Mr. Rove.

Throughout the day, Republican Party officials said they were encouraged by reports of what they said was high turnout in typically Republican parts of the country, as well as counts of early votes and absentee ballots. They disputed early exit poll findings that suggested that Republican candidates might be in trouble, though they acknowledged the problems the party’s candidates faced this year.

The voting finished an often bitter campaign that pitted a Democratic Party frustrated by years of losses against a White House and a Republican Party acutely aware that losing control of the House or the Senate would fundamentally alter the remainder of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

The Republicans went into the campaign with institutional advantages.

Because of redistricting, few incumbents appeared vulnerable initially. Republicans also had what both parties viewed as the considerable advantage of a powerful and sophisticated get-out-the-vote machine the Republican Party began putting together as soon as Mr. Bush took office in 2001.

Once again, Republicans had a financial advantage, even though vigorous fund-raising efforts by Democrats narrowed the historic gap. Over all, Republicans spent $559 million, compared with $456 million by Democrats, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission. And Mr. Rove made clear that he believed Republicans could again roll to victory by emphasizing terrorism and national security issues, as they have in both national elections since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But by the middle of October, Republicans found they were struggling with what several described as the worst political environment in a generation, making it easier, according to exit polls yesterday, for Democrats to achieve their central strategic objective: Turning this election into a national referendum on Mr. Bush’s leadership and, more generally, on Republican stewardship.

The war in Iraq deteriorated throughout the fall, the American death toll spiked in October, and public opinion turned more firmly against the conflict. Eight in 10 voters who said they approved of the war in Iraq voted Republican, and 8 in 10 voters who said they disapproved voted Democratic, the exit polls said.

In contrast to 2004 and 2002, when the president was sought after by Republican candidates throughout the country, Mr. Bush was extremely unpopular in many parts of the country this year, limiting the places where he was welcome to campaign. He was shunned by his party’s candidate for governor in Florida on Monday, and Democrats ran hundreds of advertisements featuring their Republican opponents standing or sitting next to Mr. Bush. Nearly 4 in 10 voters leaving the polls said their vote yesterday was cast against Mr. Bush.

The Republicans also struggled with corruption scandals, including the resignation in September of Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, after he admitted sending sexually inappropriate messages to teenage pages.

By the end of the campaign, Republicans said they had been forced to spend money in races that should never have been in play, including the one to replace Mr. Foley and another for the seat once held by Tom DeLay of Texas, the former Republican majority leader who resigned from Congress after being indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas election laws.

    Democrats Seize Control of House; Senate Hangs on Virginia and Montana, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/us/politics/08elect.html?hp&ex=1163048400&en=9b09bde103e26bde&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Clinton and Democrats Sweep Races in New York

November 8, 2006
The New York Times
By PATRICK HEALY

Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general who crusaded against Wall Street corruption, was elected governor of New York yesterday in a historic Democratic sweep of statewide offices, which included a huge victory by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that positions her for a possible presidential bid in 2008.

Rounding out the party’s triumph were Andrew M. Cuomo, who mounted a political comeback to succeed Mr. Spitzer and restore his family name as a force in New York politics, and State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, who won re-election despite his potentially illegal use of state workers to chauffeur his ailing wife at taxpayer expense.

Mr. Spitzer scored a record percentage for a governor’s race, beating Gov. Mario M. Cuomo’s 64.6 percent in 1986. Senator Clinton won a fifth of the vote of Republicans and a quarter of conservatives, according to exit polls — a show of strength that makes a White House bid more possible, said some of her advisers, who expect deliberations about 2008 to turn serious soon.

The Democratic landslide turned Republicans out of the governor’s office after 12 years under George E. Pataki. It also left Republicans in control of only the State Senate, and the Spitzer camp confident that it had a mandate to reform a chronically dysfunctional state government.

Republican leaders, taken aback by the breadth of their defeat, were already talking about party rebuilding yesterday, perhaps centered on a brewing revolt in the suburbs over high property taxes.

With more than 90 percent of the ballots counted, Mr. Spitzer had 70 percent of the vote over the Republican candidate, former Assemblyman John Faso, who had 29. Senator Clinton led her opponent, John Spencer, by 67 to 31 percent. Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Hevesi were leading by narrower but comfortable margins.

Mr. Spitzer, in his prepared victory speech, embraced an old remark made by former Governor Cuomo about New Yorkers being a “family” that must look out for one another.

“We will operate on the view that we succeed not when we point fingers or bicker or refuse to budge,” Governor-elect Spitzer said, “but when we compromise enough to find consensus, and when we listen enough to find solutions.”

New York was one of several states where Democrats were elected governor in place of sitting Republicans who either chose not to run or who were barred from seeking re-election by term limits. Democrats replaced Republican governors in Arkansas, Massachusetts and Ohio.

Perhaps the clearest sign of the Republicans’ sagging fortunes in New York was Mr. Hevesi’s victory despite an ethics cloud that could result in his removal from office: Even a scandal-marred Democrat managed to ride the wave of a surging party that also helped candidates for Congress.

Both Democrats and Republicans yesterday credited Mr. Spitzer, Senator Clinton and the party with running well-financed, disciplined campaigns that, for both state and federal offices, stressed the theme of changing course.

“New Yorkers clearly seemed ready for a new spirit of reform, change and even populism after 12 years of Pataki, and the Democratic Party captured that spirit the best,” said Jimmy Siegel, who produced memorable television commercials for Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Cuomo and other Democratic candidates this year.

Mr. Siegel added, “Eliot became the symbol for reform, and he made people feel that Democrats could change things.”

With his slogan of “On Day 1 Everything Changes,” Mr. Spitzer, 47, has set high expectations for his administration. He has pledged to change a chronically gridlocked state government, cut property taxes for middle-class homeowners and spend billions more on public schools, not to mention create more jobs upstate, raise student text scores and legalize marriage for gay couples.

It was the first time since 1949 that one party in New York had taken control of the major elected statewide offices and both United States Senate seats; in that previous instance, Republicans were dominant.

Republicans and conservatives say their main hope for a political comeback resides in the possibility of missteps by Mr. Spitzer and Albany Democrats who control the Assembly.

Mr. Spitzer can display a hot, sometimes bullying temperament that riles adversaries and even allies at times. He and his advisers plan their moves with chesslike strategy, and they have run a mostly well-disciplined campaign.

“If Eliot Spitzer cuts taxes, cuts spending and removed regulations and makes New York more business-friendly, I suspect he’ll be governor for quite some time,” said Michael Long, the longtime chairman of the state’s Conservative Party. “But in politics, you never know.”

Mr. Faso, in his concession speech before supporters in Albany, also warned Mr. Spitzer not to use future state budget surpluses to increase spending or avoid cutting taxes.

“We’re going to hold them to their promises,” Mr. Faso said.

Like Mr. Spitzer’s victory, Senator Clinton’s re-election was never in serious doubt this fall, but her advisers drew deep satisfaction from the results just the same. They had always viewed this race as a measure of her appeal in suburban and rural areas where many voters are suspicious of her and among voter blocs such as independents, white men and mothers.

According to exit polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool, Senator Clinton’s record in her first term impressed New Yorkers across the board. She appeared on track to perform impressively in onetime Republican strongholds that she lost in her 2000 race, such as Long Island and some upstate counties.

Mrs. Clinton beat Representative Rick Lazio in 2000 with 55 percent of the vote, and this time around she faced less formidable opposition from Mr. Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Some advisers and supporters said that her commanding victory could be projected nationally as a landslide that only improved her luster as a White House hopeful.

Joined onstage by her husband at the Democrats’ party last night, Senator Clinton quickly pivoted from state politics to the national landscape, taking aim at the last two years of the Bush administration.

“Last week the vice president said, regardless of the outcome, the administration would go full speed ahead in the same direction,” Senator Clinton said. “Well, I think the American people have said, ‘Not so fast.’ ”

Yet some Republicans, while conceding Mrs. Clinton’s popularity in their circles, said it was wrong to draw too many favorable conclusions about her from this race.

“She may carry our county this time around, but it’s not because she’s suddenly so appealing to independents and Republicans — it’s because John Spencer was so underfunded,” said Anthony Capozzi, the Republican chairman of Broome County, in southwestern New York State, which Mrs. Clinton lost to Mr. Lazio by 900 votes in 2000.

The survey of voters yesterday indicated that Senator Clinton received support from two-thirds of independent voters.

She also won two-thirds of the male voters and three-quarters of female voters.

While Mr. Spitzer’s running mate, David Paterson, also won handily, it was the two other statewide races — for attorney general and state comptroller — that were the most combative and competitive this fall.

Andrew Cuomo’s candidacy, after a hard-fought primary, represented a political resurrection for a storied New York family: His father was turned out of office in 1994 by Mr. Pataki, and Mr. Cuomo faltered badly when he ran for the party’s nomination for governor in four years ago. After that race, Mr. Cuomo rehabilitated his image within the party.

Mr. Cuomo defeated Jeanine F. Pirro, the former three-term district attorney of Westchester County. Ms. Pirro initially ran against Mrs. Clinton for the Senate, but dropped out after a series of gaffes.

Ms. Pirro was more successful in the first eight months of 2006, raising money and winning party endorsements at a steady clip. But political disaster struck in September when federal and local investigators confirmed that they were looking into plans by Ms. Pirro to secretly tape her husband aboard the family boat, to determine if he was having an affair.

Mr. Hevesi, meanwhile, overcame a late burst of campaign moxie from his Republican challenger, J. Christopher Callaghan, a former treasurer from Saratoga County.

Between today and the first weeks of the Spitzer administration, both parties face some tumult.

In particular, the Republicans, lacking an indisputable leader expect for the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, may endure a power struggle over their next party chairman.

Several party officials say the Nassau County party leader, Joseph N. Mondello, is the favorite for the job. Yet other Republicans are aghast at the idea, saying that Mr. Mondello has allowed the party to wither in Nassau, a onetime stronghold. Mr. Mondello did not respond to phone messages seeking comment yesterday.

    Clinton and Democrats Sweep Races in New York, NYT, 8.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/nyregion/08york-paper.html?hp&ex=1163048400&en=d1d61deab7f3a6b1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

As Vote Nears, Parties Prepare for Legal Fights

November 4, 2006
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — A team of lawyers for the Democratic Party has been arguing with postal officials in Columbus, Ohio, trying to persuade them to process thousands of absentee ballots that have arrived with insufficient postage.

In Pennsylvania, the Republican Party has opened a “recount account” and set aside $500,000 to pay lawyers who will answer telephones on Election Day and monitor polls to see whether officials demand proper voters’ identification. In Maryland, lawyers representing candidates for senator and governor from both parties met recently and swapped cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses to smooth out the logistics of potential litigation.

Several days from what Republican and Democratic campaign strategists expect to be a close election, the legal machinery of a messy fight is shifting into high gear.

Democrats say they are most concerned that voters will be prevented from voting by long lines or poll workers’ demanding unnecessary forms of identification.

Republicans say they are guarding against ineligible people trying to vote.

The parties are sending their largest concentrations of lawyers to states with the tightest races like Maryland, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. Most of them are unpaid volunteers, though many from large firms are working pro bono to meet their firms’ expectation for hours of public service.

On Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of the 7,000 lawyers who are working on the election for the Democratic National Committee will board planes for Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio and 13 other states.

Their task is to reinforce local teams where party officials say they there is the greatest potential for long lines, voter intimidation or confusion at the polls and where they may need to file court petitions to keep polls open late.

“We’re not going to make the mistake we did last time, which was to wait until after the election for litigation,” said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

That party has spent $250,000 in legal fees on suits over new electronic voting machines and a voter identification law. The Republican National Committee is shipping out 150 lawyers on Monday to help hundreds of local lawyers in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee and other states answering phones and working at polling stations policing against voter fraud.

“What is unfortunate is that it appears Democrats are following their playbook from 2004 and alleging voter suppression where it does not exist, in an effort to launch a pre-emptive strike,” said Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

It is not just parties gearing up.

In its largest mobilization ever for a non-presidential election, the Justice Department will dispatch about 800 lawyers to potentially troubled polling locations in 65 cities in 20 states to ensure voting rights laws are obeyed.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the N.A.A.C.P. and the People for the American Way Foundation will jointly have 2,000 lawyers fanning out across 20 states.

Though unwilling to provide numbers, the executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Michael B. Thielen, said his organization had received many requests for extra lawyers to be sent to Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Aside from new voter identification laws, new voter registration databases and so many close races, the rollout of electronic voting equipment provides an unusually high potential for suits during and after the election.

Lawyers have complained about electronic machines in Texas and Virginia that are cutting off some candidates’ last names on a summary page.

Florida, South Carolina and Texas, have had reports of electronic machines showing the wrong name when a voter presses a button for a candidate.

In Colorado, a federal judge deemed the new touch-screen machines insecure and unreliable and ruled that they not be used again, raising the likelihood that lawyers will contest the legitimacy of the results on Tuesday.

“Both sides are lawyering up,” said Doug Chapin, director of the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project. “Election night is not necessarily the finish line anymore.”

Election litigation has grown since 2000, reaching 361 suits in 2004, up from 108 in 1996, according to Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

The Hotline, a political newsletter, noted the trend, commenting, “We’re waiting for the day that pols can cut out the middleman and settle all elections in court.”

Nathaniel Persily, a professor of election law at the University of Pennsylvania, said Democrats were responding to the election problems of 2000, when they felt outmatched by Republican lawyers in Florida.

Lawyers and voting experts say they are especially watching the states with new voter identification laws, where they expect the laws to cause confusion and possible contention. Some of the new laws, in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Missouri, are being litigated. Voting rights groups in those states say they intend to interview people turned away because of a lack of proper identification.

In St. Louis, a lawyer directing the Democrats’ legal efforts, Shonagh Clements, said she was prodding officials to obtain credentials for 300 lawyers, many of whom she plans to train on Sunday to work as poll challengers.

“We’re doing a lot of sprinting just to get through the weekend,” Ms. Clements said.

In Maryland, the pace is similarly frenetic. This week, Democratic lawyers have been combing through a Republican manual for poll workers acquired by a Democratic operative that gives instructions on aggressively challenging voters’ credentials. Aside from looking for illegalities in the document, Democrats have been writing a manual to counter the Republican booklet, instructing their poll workers how to watch for overzealous Republican poll watchers.

Officials from both parties say Maryland is ripe for litigation and voting problems because the governor has voiced skepticism about the dependability of electronic voting machines.

As a result, a record number of voters have filed absentee ballots.

Experts say those are more susceptible to fraud and demands for recounts.

“Unfortunately, the Maryland Democratic Party wants to have this election decided in the courts, with their 400 roving attorneys,” said Audra Miller, spokeswoman for the Republican Party.

Ms. Miller, without providing numbers, said her party planned to mobilize its largest fleet of election lawyers.

Many states with the new voter identification laws encourage poll workers to have voters without proper identification use provisional ballots.

More than 30 states do not count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct.

Demos, a nonpartisan organization that studies election issues, calls ballots that election officials allow to be cast but have no intention of counting placebo ballots. The group predicts that in close elections the rules for counting provisional ballots could lead to legal cases.

A elections expert with the Century Foundation, Tova Wang, said lawyers of all stripes were trying to figure out how to handle the high- and low-tech problems that are difficult to document like lost computer data or backups at polling stations.

“How do you litigate a long line?” Ms. Wang asked. “For people who can’t afford to wait for hours, long lines essentially take away their right to vote. But litigating it is nearly impossible.”

Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a lawyer in Detroit for the Michigan Democratic Party, which is dispatching 800 lawyers statewide, said she hoped to catch the problem in advance.

“Many more votes are lost from incompetent election administration than voter suppression,” Ms. Gurewitz said. “So we’re going to minority neighborhoods in Detroit, Lansing and Flint, because that’s where we know the Republican challengers will try to contest voters’ qualifications.”

Her lawyers, Ms. Gurewitz added, will be trained to encourage poll workers to set up the polling places to reduce problems like lines for voters that are divided by precinct rather than all voters gathering in a single long line.

Lawyers for the Michigan Republican Party have been photocopying fill-in-the-blank boilerplate forms if they have to go to court on Tuesday to challenge interpretations of election laws.

Fifty of the party’s 200 volunteer lawyers will staff a phone bank at party headquarters in Lansing to take complaints before calling the teams of 10 to 15 lawyers to respond from one of 10 regional centers.

Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting from Pittsburgh.

    As Vote Nears, Parties Prepare for Legal Fights, NYT, 4.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/us/politics/04lawyers.html?hp&ex=1162702800&en=9bfed82a7a3ad0dd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

G.O.P. Turns to the Economy as Campaign Issue

November 4, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — Republicans seized on a drop in the unemployment rate to assert on Friday that tax cuts were invigorating the economy, highlighting just four days before the election an issue that party strategists are counting on to offset bad news about the war.

The Labor Department announced Friday morning that the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.4 percent in October — down from 4.6 percent in September and the lowest rate since May 2001, when it was 4.3 percent.

Within hours, President Bush mocked Democrats for predicting that the administration’s tax and spending policies would wreck the economy.

“If the Democrats’ election predictions are as good as their economic predictions, we’re going to have a good day on November the seventh,” Mr. Bush said, drawing a long cheer from a crowd in Joplin, Mo., where he was campaigning for Senator Jim Talent, who is in a close race.

“The facts are in,” Mr. Bush said at another campaign stop on Friday. “The tax cuts have led to a strong and growing economy, and this morning, we got more proof of that.”

As Mr. Bush was attempting to shift the election debate to the positive domestic news, however, Vice President Dick Cheney was addressing head-on what polls showed was the Republicans’ greatest political liability: the administration’s determination to follow through on the war regardless of public opinion or election outcomes.

“Full speed ahead,” Mr. Cheney said in an interview with ABC News that was taped for broadcast Sunday, two days before the election.

“It may not be popular with the public,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re not running for office.”

Although battle plans always change in times of war, the vice president said, “I think, again, we’ve got the basic strategy right.”

Later, at a campaign stop in Iowa, Mr. Bush addressed the subject of the war, calling the cause “noble and necessary” and accusing the Democrats of “second-guessing” without offering an alternative.

“I’m going to tell you something point-blank,” Mr. Bush said. “If I didn’t think we could win, I’d get our troops out.”

Separately, two former Pentagon advisers who were closely identified with the argument for invasion, Richard N. Perle and Ken Adelman, told Vanity Fair magazine that they would not have supported the invasion if they had known how “incompetently” the administration would manage it. Both have previously criticized the administration’s conduct of the war.

In the ABC News interview, Mr. Cheney declined comment, saying that he had not read the article.

And most Republicans on the campaign trail did their best to focus on the day’s economic news.

The figures showed that the pace of job creation for the month was somewhat lower than anticipated. But the government substantially increased its job growth estimates for the previous two months. Stock prices fell, in part because investors concluded that the Federal Reserve would judge the economy to be so strong that it could not consider reducing interest rates.

Congressional Republicans fanned out to reinforce Mr. Bush’s message, saying that if Democrats won control of Congress they would raise taxes and jeopardize prosperity.

“This is what we have been campaigning on,” said Peter J. Roskam, a Republican state senator in a close race for a Republican-held House seat in the Chicago suburbs.

“Democrats want to nationalize elections and make it all about international affairs and whatnot,” he added. “But when it comes down to making the tax cuts permanent, this is a district that gets it.”

All year, Republicans have been frustrated by their inability to get more credit for what the statistics suggest is a healthier economy, especially when gasoline prices have come down from their peaks.

“The media seems focused on Iraq, Iraq, Iraq,” said Mr. Roskam’s spokesman, Jason Roe.

Mr. Roskam is running against Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat who lost both legs as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq. On Friday, the National Republican Congressional Committee placed $1.1 million in television advertisements against Ms. Duckworth, beginning a weekend barrage. The advertising purchase was the largest that the House campaign committee made Friday, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Republicans said they relished the chance to get back to debating tax cuts and the economy. Brian Nick, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said, “For us to be successful on Tuesday, there obviously needs to be other issues than Democrats hitting us with ‘staying the course.’ ”

Democrats have countered by saying that although unemployment has declined, it remains slightly higher than it was when Mr. Bush took office. They say many families are working harder to keep up their quality of life, even as the wealthy benefit from the administration’s policies.

In Midwestern and industrial states hard hit by foreign competition and job losses, Republicans remain on the defensive. In Ohio, where four House seats and one Senate seat are in play, reminding voters of the economy’s strength has become risky for some Republicans. Representative Deborah Pryce, a powerful Republican in a toss-up race, is under fire from Democrats for calling the economy “storybook.”

While Mr. Bush was talking up the economy in Missouri, the Republican Senate candidate in Michigan was portraying the same glass as half empty. “More bad news for Michigan,” the candidate, Mike Bouchard, said in a news release, arguing that his state had failed to keep pace with the broader recovery. Mr. Bouchard sought to blame the Democratic incumbent, Senator Debbie Stabenow, noting that unemployment in the state had risen sharply since she took office.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee responded to Mr. Bush’s campaign stop for Mr. Talent with a television commercial attacking him. “Talent voted for tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas,” the advertisement says. “We have lost over 60,000 manufacturing jobs, and Talent is helping to ship jobs out of the country.”

Mr. Bush’s campaigning has been unusually light for a sitting president, and he heads to his Texas ranch on Saturday night to celebrate the 60th birthday of his wife, Laura Bush. They will return to Washington to watch the election results.

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

    G.O.P. Turns to the Economy as Campaign Issue, NYT, 4.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/us/politics/04elect.html?hp&ex=1162702800&en=1387a9f3ebb1b305&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Power to the people

While we focus on the electoral battle for the Presidency and Houses of Congress,
the issues that really matter are being fought down on the ground by ordinary Americans.
Paul Harris explains what we could learn from America's democratic system

Thursday November 2, 2006
Observer.co.uk

As voting day approaches in America's midterm elections everyone tends to look up the food chain. This is especially true of observers from overseas. Foreign coverage has focused on the impact of the polls on President George W Bush, despite the fact that the man who lives in the White House faced his last election in 2004. His name will not be on next week's ballot.

Below the President comes the understandable focus on the intense battles for the Houses of Congress. But again these are national figures - senators and congressmen - many of them known abroad. Then below them are the races for state governor, which again represents a powerful position, easily understandable and definable in broad national terms. Has a Democrat won in a red state? Or a Republican in a blue state?

But every so often (and definitely not often enough) it actually pays to look down the food chain right to the bottom. And down there lies a facet of American democracy that is little understood by many people outside the country and yet perhaps can represent the best example of American democracy in action.

This is the world of the special ballot initiative. Basically, and rules vary from state to state, if enough citizens can collect the right amount of signatures and fulfil some other basic conditions, a referendum can be held on pretty much any issue that might impact on their lives. This year, as voters cast their ballots for sheriffs, governors, congressmen and senators, they will also have more than 200 such referendums to choose from in 37 states. They cover a range of issues from smoking, to alternative energy, to gay marriage, to the minimum wage.

It is hard to argue that this is not a healthy thing for democracy. There is little doubt that watching most American politics, the issues are the last thing that ever get discussed. It is all about personality or the familiar litany of simple-sounding hot button issues - abortion, Iraq, terrorism, tax cuts - that result in slanging matches instead of reasoned debate. A referendum has a tendency to cut through the politics. It removes the middle man (the politician) and takes the issue straight to the public. In an era of low turnouts and widespread disillusionment with politics, special ballot initiatives almost always have the effect of getting more people to the polls. People actually feel like they are voting for something, rather than someone (who will then sell them out anyway).

Britain has much to learn from this little reported side of American political life. Others do too. In Britain a group of people, headed by former Apprentice star Saira Khan, have formed Our Say. The organisation wants to set up a similar system in Britain for local and national elections. If 2.5 per cent of a given electorate (one million people nationally or perhaps just 4,000 locally) signed a petition on a specific issue then a special referendum could be held. Signatures would have to be verified and collected according to rules laid down by the Electoral Commission and the result of the poll binding on parliament or the local authority in which the vote took place. It is a compelling idea and would give real power back to local people.

Of course, there is also a bad side to this initiative. Party politics on the whole is a good thing. No one wants every single issue being decided locally (which is why the bar to trigger a vote should be high). There is also the fact that powerful lobbies can exploit the system. Interest groups like big business have the money and organisation to collect signatures professionally and get issues that they want voted on onto the ballot. In America that can lead to some special ballots which are clear attempts by certain industries to get friendly legislation. Or it can be exploited by political parties. The farcial California governor election that ended up kicking out a sitting Democrat and replacing him with Arnold Schwarzenegger began with a special ballot. It can also be a tool for prejudice. Republicans in America have put special ballots outlawing gay marriage on the voting papers of many states in a bid to boost their turnout among their evengelical Christian base.

But I think the positive outweighs the negative. Interest groups may get their issues on the paper but they still have to persuade people to vote for them. And prejudice flourishes in secret. Putting it on a ballot gets an issue out in the open and allows its opponents to fight it. In the end the greatest good comes from simple involvement. In America and Britain the shocking decline of voter turnout is the greatest threat to democracy there is. Democracy will not die from revolution or external threat. It will die from apathy. In 1950 in Britain 83 per cent of people voted. In the last two elections 60 per cent turned out. In America that latter figure would be a good year.

Though the decline in the US has been less dramatic than that, it is going down and - just as worryingly - has barely been above 60 per cent for decades and is often lower. The brutal fact is: the winner of most modern American elections does so with not much more than a quarter or a third of voters' support. At the same time many volunteering organisations - such as Greenpeace or other groups - have memberships in the millions. The problem thus does not appear to be a lack of interest in the issues. It is a belief that politics and politicians have no relevence for people. That is a shocking reality. Putting power directly into the hands of people would start to address it.

So, when voting results start coming in on November 7, don't just look at the headline figures of Republican V Democrat. Look down the feeding chain. The really important stuff is going on down there, impacting on people's lives and inspiring people in ways politicians can only envy.

    Power to the people, O, 2.11.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1937555,00.html

With Iraq Driving Election, Voters Want New Approach        NYT        2.11.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/us/politics/02poll.html

With Iraq Driving Election, Voters Want New Approach

November 2, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress next Tuesday and say Republicans will maintain or increase troop levels to try to win the war if they hold on to power on Capitol Hill, according to the final New York Times/CBS News poll before the midterm election.

The poll showed that 29 percent of Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing the war, matching the lowest mark of his presidency. Nearly 70 percent said Mr. Bush did not have a plan to end the war, and 80 percent said Mr. Bush’s latest effort to rally public support for the conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy.

The poll underlined the extent to which the war has framed the midterm elections. Americans cited Iraq as the most important issue affecting their vote, and majorities of Republicans and Democrats said they wanted a change in approach. Twenty percent said they thought the United States was winning in Iraq, down from a high this year of 36 percent in January.

Even beyond the war, the Times/CBS News poll, like most other polls this fall, contained worrisome indicators for Republicans as they go into the final days of a campaign in which many are bracing for a loss of seats in both the House and the Senate.

In a year when there are many close races, Democrats were more enthusiastic than Republicans about voting and more likely to say they would support their party’s candidates, although Republicans were slightly more likely to say they would actually vote.

Fifty percent of independent voters, a closely watched segment of the electorate in such polarized times, said they intended to vote for the Democratic candidate, versus 23 who said they would vote for a Republican.

Among registered voters, 33 percent said they planned to support Republicans, and 52 percent said they would vote for Democrats.

As a rule, generic questions like those, while providing broad insights into the national mood, are often imprecise as a predictor of the outcome of hundreds of Congressional races, where local issues and personalities can shape the result.

Voters said neither Democrats nor Republicans had offered a plan for governing should they win on Tuesday, the poll found.

Yet Americans have some clear notions of how government may change if Democrats win control of Congress.

Beyond a quicker exit from Iraq, respondents said they thought a Democratic-led Congress would be more likely to increase the minimum wage, hold down rapidly rising health and prescription drug costs, improve the economy and — as Republicans have said frequently in these closing days of the campaign — raise taxes.

By a slight margin, more respondents said the threat of terrorism would increase under Republicans than said it would increase under Democrats.

Notwithstanding the clear expectation among members of both parties that a Democratic-led Congress would produce a change in Iraq policy, it was not clear how much influence that might have on Mr. Bush, who as commander in chief would retain the final say.

In addition, while Democrats have coalesced around a general position of finding a way to reduce or end American involvement in Iraq, there is substantial disagreement among Democratic Congressional leaders and candidates about exactly how to accomplish that.

Nearly 75 percent of respondents, including 67 percent of Republicans and 92 percent of Democrats, said they expected that Americans troops would be taken out of Iraq more swiftly under a Democratic-led Congress.

Forty-one percent of respondents said they expected that troop levels would decrease if Democrats won control, while 40 percent said the party would seek to remove all troops. Forty-one percent said they expected troop levels to remain the same if Republicans won, while 29 percent said they thought the United States would send more troops if the Republicans continued to control Congress.

Those findings cut across party lines, but the poll found that Democrats were more likely to say Republicans would increase American troop strength while Republicans were more likely to say Democrats would remove all troops.

Follow-up interviews found clear expectations about the policies each party would pursue in Iraq, even if there was disagreement about which course was correct.

“If the Republicans continue in power, they would probably just want to keep doing what we’re doing and doing it longer and harder because the president is Republican and he’s the one who sent the troops there in the first place,” said Ashley Robertson, 20, a Democrat from Minnesota. “But right now I think it’s a bad thing to bring them all home because it’s like we went in there to try to help and we’re leaving them high and dry and saying clean up our mess.”

Pat Atley, 73, a Republican from Florida, said she expected Republicans to press for more troops in Iraq if they stayed in power, although she said she hoped they would not.

“I’ve always felt we were never going to do any good over there,” Ms. Atley said, adding, “I don’t think we should increase our troops because increased troops aren’t going to do anything except put more of our men and women in jeopardy.”

Mr. Bush’s overall approval rating was 34 percent, unchanged from a poll three weeks ago, an anemic rating that explains why many Democrats are featuring him in their final advertisements, as well as why some Republican incumbents do not want him at their side.

That approval rating is 9 points below where former President Bill Clinton’s was in October 1994 — the election in which Republicans surprised Democrats by taking control of the House — and 28 points below where Mr. Bush’s approval rating was on the eve of the 2002 midterms.

In this latest poll, 56 percent of respondents said Mr. Bush’s campaigning on behalf of candidates had generally hurt them, as compared with 26 percent who said a campaign visit by Mr. Bush helped.

There was a slight increase, to 38 percent from 34 percent three weeks ago, in respondents who said they approved of how Mr. Bush was managing the economy. Similarly, there was a slight increase, to 44 percent from 40 percent in July, in respondents who said they approved of how Mr. Bush had managed the situation with North Korea.

In a year marked by corruption scandals, 58 percent of voters said corruption was widespread in Washington; 35 percent said the Republican Party had the most corrupt politicians, compared with 15 percent who said the Democratic Party did.

The poll found that the intensity of Democratic support for Democratic candidates was slightly greater than Republican support for Republican candidates, which could give some solace to Democrats who have been concerned that the Republican Party’s formidable get-out-the-vote operation would help them eke out victories in close Congressional races. Ninety percent of Democratic voters are planning to vote Democratic, while 83 percent of Republicans said they would support Republican candidates.

In addition, 50 percent of Democrats said they felt more enthusiastic about voting in this election than in previous ones, compared with 39 percent of Republicans.

But 93 percent of Republicans said they were definitely or probably going to vote next Tuesday, compared with 89 percent of Democrats.

Marjorie Connelly and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

    With Iraq Driving Election, Voters Want New Approach, NYT, 2.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/us/politics/02poll.html?hp&ex=1162530000&en=144fdd2a12e6ecc7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Works to Solidify Base With a Defense of Rumsfeld

November 2, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — With less than a week before the election, President Bush sought to rally Republican voters on Wednesday with a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq and a vow to keep Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in office until the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

Mr. Bush appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, whose audience is a reservoir of conservative voters, to criticize Democrats as lacking a plan for victory in Iraq.

Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also spent another day going after Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee two years ago, for remarks that Republicans say insulted the intelligence of American troops in Iraq.

“Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words,” Mr. Bush said, “and our troops deserve the full support of people in government.”

Mr. Kerry said in a statement issued on Wednesday by his office that his “poorly stated joke at a rally was not about and never intended to refer to any troop.”

As Mr. Bush worked to solidify his base, Democratic and Republican Party committees were making some of their final moves on the electoral chessboard. The Republican Senate committee reported spending nearly $1 million on television advertisements in Maryland and more than $800,000 in Michigan. The Senate seats in those states are held by Democrats and have generally been considered safe, but the investments by Republicans suggested a hope of making them competitive.

Democrats sought to expand the contest for the Senate as well by buying air time in Arizona to rattle, if not defeat, Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican thought to be headed for relatively easy re-election. Democratic officials would not disclose how much they were spending.

Mr. Bush, in an interview with wire service reporters on Wednesday, said he intended to keep Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and Mr. Cheney in the vice presidency until he leaves office in 2009. Both are controversial figures, even among some Republicans, but they are also popular with conservatives who form the foundation of Mr. Bush’s political and electoral strategy.

With polls showing a majority of Americans unhappy with the course of the war and many Republican candidates distancing themselves from Mr. Bush on it, the White House was taking a gamble on making Iraq the central subject of discussion in the final week of the campaign. His embrace of Mr. Rumsfeld carried particular risk, since some Republican candidates have joined nearly all Democrats in seeking his dismissal.

Democrats responded to the Republicans’ efforts with new advertisements accusing Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld of botching the war and making the United States less safe. A television spot from the Democratic Congressional committee said, “The White House is in denial as top generals warn that Iraq may be sliding into full-scale civil war.”

A veterans group released an advertisement on Wednesday in which Iraq war veterans and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who is retired and who was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, criticize the war. “Because of Iraq, there are more terrorists in the world,” one veteran says.

Democrats also criticized Representative John A. Boehner, the No. 2 Republican in the House, as seeming to shift responsibility for problems in Iraq from Secretary Rumsfeld to the uniformed military.

“Let’s not blame what’s happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld,” Mr. Boehner said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday afternoon. “But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president.”

Seeking to a draw a parallel to the flap over Mr. Kerry’s comments, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, demanded that Mr. Boehner apologize to the generals.

“John Boehner ought to be ashamed,” Mr. Reid said in a statement. “He’s blaming our troops for failures in Iraq.”

Republican leaders hoped to buck up morale among conservative Christians, a normally reliable source of Republican votes. A sizeable number of such so-called values voters have told pollsters that they are unhappy with Mr. Bush and the Republican-led Congress and might stay home on Election Day or vote for Democrats.

James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and an influential voice among evangelical Christian voters, said on his radio program this week that Democrats and the news media were trying to suppress the conservative vote by reporting on unhappiness among evangelicals.

Mr. Dobson also warned that a Democratic takeover of Congress would bring “crippling setbacks in the battles against abortion and gay marriage.”

In recent days, Mr. Bush and his surrogates have sought to rally Republicans by raising the specter of what they call unreconstructed liberal Democrats leading powerful committees if the Democrats regain control of Congress. Mr. Cheney took aim at one of them, Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, who is in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax laws.

Mr. Cheney said late last week that Mr. Rangel knew nothing about the American economy and would raise taxes as soon as he took over the committee.

Mr. Rangel responded by using a profanity to question Mr. Cheney’s parentage. He said in an interview Wednesday that he was sorry for his choice of words, but not for the thought. He said he hoped that if the Democrats won control of Congress the nasty language on both sides would cease.

“I can take a political shot,” Mr. Rangel said. “But my family and friends and constituents deserve better from the vice president of the United States.”

    Bush Works to Solidify Base With a Defense of Rumsfeld, NYT, 2.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/us/politics/02elect.html?hp&ex=1162530000&en=997706bd259c0931&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Many eyes will watch the polls

Updated 11/1/2006 12:26 AM ET
USA Today
By Richard Wolf and Kevin Johnson

WASHINGTON — Thousands of lawyers, election monitors and volunteers with video cameras will be mobilized on Election Day in an effort to guard against problems at the polls.

The Justice Department will dispatch more than 800 observers, a record for a non-presidential election year, to look for evidence of discrimination, intimidation and other obstacles to voter accessibility in at least 20 states.

The Democratic Party has a 50-state voter-protection effort and an estimated 7,000 lawyers at the ready. Liberal groups have set up hotlines for voters to call if they are denied the right to vote. And hundreds of people plan to film interviews at polling places where voters are being challenged that day.

Fueling the activity this year: dozens of close elections that could decide control of Congress and the potential for problems caused by electronic voting machines, statewide databases and identification requirements.

"There are going to be problems in every state," says Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. The group is part of a coalition that has a toll-free hotline and lawyers poised in 23 states.

Republican and conservative interest groups are keeping a lower profile. The Republican National Committee is relying on its state parties for poll monitors and lawyers. Groups such as the Republican National Lawyers Association lack the manpower to match the NAACP, Common Cause and People for the American Way.

"Folks can game the system, and that's a concern," says Thor Hearne, general counsel for the American Center for Voting Rights, a conservative group. He calls candidates and local parties "the first line of defense."

Justice Department monitors will be deployed next week, partly based on close races for Congress and where questions have been raised about the integrity of the election process. That could include Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland and other places that encountered problems during primaries this year.

Prosecutors will be on standby in each federal district across the country to pursue possible fraud cases or other election-related criminal activity. "Everyone agrees that we want to make voting easier and fraud harder," says Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim.

The effort by some liberal groups begins today with a series of public-service announcements by actors such as Ben Affleck and Jodie Foster.

•A consortium led by Common Cause plans to track voters' problems on a database and publicize them. In 2004, it received 55,000 complaints.

•The NAACP has hundreds of lawyers ready. "We're focusing more on how to redress problems when they occur," says the group's Dennis Hayes.

•Filmmaker Ian Inaba's volunteers hope to get aggrieved voters on the Internet via YouTube "while the polls are still open and the races are still alive."

    Many eyes will watch the polls, UT, 1.11.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2006-10-31-voting_x.htm

Election tests how much race matters

Updated 11/1/2006 1:21 AM ET
USA Today
By Susan Page

NEWTON, Mass. — When Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deval Patrick addressed members of the local Chamber of Commerce, he talked about stimulating the state's economy, streamlining regulations and improving public education.
And race? The subject didn't come up.

Patrick, who is African-American, and members of the audience, almost all of them white, insist color isn't a factor in this campaign. "I don't even see him as black," says Mike Hurley, 54, owner of the local Minuteman Press franchise. He jokes, "It looks like to me that he has a deep tan."

Colorblind electorate or not, Patrick is likely to make history next week. The political neophyte, who led Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey by 25 percentage points in a Boston Globe poll taken Oct. 22-25, is poised to become the first black governor of Massachusetts and only the second black ever elected governor in any state.

He is one of a new generation of African-American politicians who are changing old assumptions about what offices black candidates can win.

Unlike senior black members of Congress, they are too young to have joined the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. They often haven't gone to historically black colleges or launched careers at black churches. Instead, many graduated from Ivy League colleges and pursued careers at big law firms. They often advocate pragmatism over ideology and aspire — like white politicians — to the most powerful elected offices in the country.

"African-Americans are now able to come through the political pipelines and break through old barriers," says Donna Brazile, a top Democratic strategist. "Whether they make it to the finish line is another thing, but the door has been left ajar."

In congressional elections next Tuesday, Memphis Rep. Harold Ford Jr. would be the first black senator popularly elected from the South if he prevails in a tossup contest for the Tennessee Senate seat. Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is in a competitive contest for the Senate. Keith Ellison, who is black and Muslim, is favored to win a 70% white congressional district in Minneapolis. Angie Paccione, whose mother is black, is in a close contest to represent an 80% white district in Colorado.

A record six African-Americans hold major-party nominations this year for senator and governor — three Republicans, three Democrats — and another 10 are running for such statewide offices as lieutenant governor and secretary of State that often provide steppingstones to higher office.

To win, these candidates have to appeal to white voters, of course — and in a nation where race continues to resonate.

Ads against Patrick and Ford in recent weeks used "subtle and not-so-subtle" racial appeals, says political scientist Kerry Haynie of Duke. Skeptics, among them political scientist Ronald Walters of the University of Maryland, note that 1989 also was proclaimed a breakthrough year, when Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the first black ever elected governor — only to have 17 years pass without a second.

Still, David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies says he's seen a "co-evolution" by black candidates in shaping broad appeals and by white voters in being open to hearing them.

African-American candidates who lose next week will have been undone not by their race but by the same challenges that defeat white contenders, Bositis says.

Republican Ken Blackwell is running for governor in a year the Ohio GOP has been tainted by scandal, for instance, and Lynn Swann faces a formidable opponent in Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

"A lot of young kids are getting beyond race in a lot of ways — I say 'getting,' not 'got,' but 'getting,' " says Bill Perry, a middle-age high school teacher attending a rally for Patrick at the DCU Center Arena in Worcester, Mass. "It's just like my generation got beyond 'Are you Irish?' or 'Are you French?' That was our grandparents."

Thousands of people jam the arena, waiting for the chance to see Patrick and former president Bill Clinton. They wave small American flags and — at the urging of the emcee — use their cellphones to create a sort of instant phone bank, calling friends and urging them to vote.

"You ready to win?" Patrick asks to cheers when he comes on stage with his wife, Diane. Even at a rally, Patrick has a low-key, conversational style. He's given to on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand expositions on policy reminiscent of Clinton, his onetime boss and political patron.

"It's a pretty heady thing for a kid from the South Side of Chicago to have a president stump for you," Patrick tells the audience. While he's become accustomed to meeting with power brokers in the penthouses of skyscrapers, he says, "What's also wonderful is when the cleaning crew stops you in the lobby and says, 'I'm for you.' "

Patrick, 50, has lived in both worlds. He and his sister were raised by a single mother in one of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods, living on welfare for a time. A teacher recommended him for a program called A Better Chance, which awarded him a scholarship to attend Milton Academy, a tony prep school south of Boston.

It was, he recalls, "like coming to a different planet." He thrived at the private boarding school, graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law School, then worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That's when he met Clinton, then governor of Arkansas. Later, as president, Clinton appointed Patrick assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Campaigning at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast, Patrick doesn't mention those jobs or his credentials on civil rights. Instead, he notes that he worked in senior posts at Texaco — chairing a task force appointed after the company lost a major race-discrimination lawsuit — and at Coca-Cola. That gives him the background to effectively manage state government, he tells the audience, many of them small-business owners.

"I bring a range of leadership experience in government, in business, in non-profits, in community groups that's broader than any other candidate in the race," Patrick says in an interview with USA TODAY. His skin color hasn't been an issue "because I'm not offering to be the first black governor of Massachusetts," he says. He's appealing to "all kinds of people from all corners of the commonwealth."

His opponent, Kerry Healey, 46, agrees that race hasn't been a significant factor — perhaps, she says, because her election also would represent a political breakthrough. She would be the first woman elected governor in Massachusetts. "That almost takes that all off the table," she says in an interview.

But Healey injected race with two TV ads in recent weeks, according to David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. One ad took Patrick to task for writing two letters and contributing $5,000 to a campaign to win parole for a rapist, Benjamin LaGuer, a black man who proclaimed his innocence. Even after new DNA testing proved LaGuer's guilt, the ad shows Patrick calling him "thoughtful."

The second ad shows a white woman being stalked as she walks in a parking garage at night. Depicting Patrick as soft on crime, the announcer declares: "He should be ashamed — not governor."

Healey says the ads raise legitimate questions about Patrick's judgment in supporting LaGuer and the veracity of his initial explanations about what he had done.

Patrick sees a racial message. "There were a lot of reasons why people equated those ads with the Willie Horton ad," he says, a reference to a spot aired against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race that showed a glowering black man who committed violent crimes while on parole.

Suffolk University surveys showed Healey's attacks on crime initially narrowed Patrick's lead from 21 percentage points in early October to 13 points in the middle of the month. By the end of the month, however, they had backfired, Paleologos says. Patrick's lead rebounded to 27 points.

Patrick, who has never run for office before, seems poised for a resounding victory in a state where 6.8% of the population is black, half the U.S. average. He crushed two better-known white candidates in September's Democratic primary. Now the Suffolk survey shows him leading among every demographic group except Republicans.

Doug Wilder says Patrick shouldn't put too much stock in the findings. In his Virginia campaign, surveys of voters as they left polling places showed him ahead by a comfortable 10 percentage points.

When the votes were counted, he won by just half a point.

Wilder, now the mayor of Richmond, related that cautionary tale to Patrick strategists at a political fundraiser in Washington last month. He says "there's no empirical data" to prove that white voters today are any less likely to lie to pollsters about their willingness to vote for black candidates.

"There remains a non-trivial faction of white voters who will not vote for a candidate simply because (the candidate is) black," says Vincent Hutchings, a University of Michigan political scientist who is co-authoring a book called Wedge Politics. "We are kidding ourselves if we argue these people have disappeared from the landscape."

This year's contests will test whether African-Americans who advocate broad political agendas to mostly white electorates can win, he says. Haynie says their prospects are boosted by such high-profile black officials as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, the current and former secretary of State, who have "helped pave the way."

To the White House?

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama roiled calculations about the 2008 presidential contest when he suggested last month he might jump in. And Patrick declines to rule out higher ambitions. "I'm not making any plans for national office," he says. But he also notes, "Life is what happens while you're making plans."

    Election tests how much race matters, UT, 1.11.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-31-election-race-matters_x.htm

As Vote Nears, Stances on War Set Off Sparks

November 1, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — For at least a few hours on Tuesday, President Bush had a chance to relive his victorious campaign of 2004, taking a break from a bleak Republican campaign season as he attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war in Iraq.

Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was Mr. Bush’s opponent in 2004, is not running for office this year. But the president seized on what he said were Mr. Kerry’s disparaging remarks about the troops — and what Mr. Kerry insisted was a botched joke aimed at Mr. Bush — as he sought to make Mr. Kerry the face of the Democratic Party this fall.

In the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq, which he defended with vigor while campaigning in Georgia, at the very moment that a number of Republican Congressional candidates, following the advice of party strategists, were stepping up their efforts to distance themselves from the White House on the war as the campaign enters its final days.

“President Bush isn’t getting our frustrations — it’s time to be decisive, beat the terrorists,” Mike McGavick, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington, said in an advertisement that began running this week. “Partition the country if we have to and get our troops home in victory.”

In Rhode Island on Tuesday, Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican struggling against a challenge from Sheldon Whitehouse, an antiwar Democrat, began a new television advertisement reminding Rhode Island voters, “I stood against the Senate and president and voted no” on the war.

In a debate a day earlier, Mr. Chafee indicated he would be willing to call on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to step down; Mr. Whitehouse has been pressing Mr. Chafee to do just that in his television advertisements. In Tennessee, Bob Corker, a Republican candidate for Senate, said it was time for a new plan and a change in leadership at the Pentagon.

In New Jersey, Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Republican challenging Senator Robert Menendez, has started a new advertisement that says he wants to “change the course in Iraq; Replace Rumsfeld.” In Indiana, John Hostettler, a Republican congressman, reminds voters in his latest advertisement that he voted against the invasion of Iraq because “the intelligence did not support the claim that there were weapons of mass destruction there.”

To date, none of the Republicans who have spoken out have called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and some had expressed previous reservations about the war or opposed it initially. But their willingness to break so publicly with the White House in the closing days of the campaign — in some cases, with the active encouragement of the some of the party’s own strategists — is evidence of the extent to which they view the war in Iraq as a lethal issue this fall.

It is especially striking because Mr. Bush has defended the war, and attacked Democrats over it, with increasing force in the last several days.

The mounting death toll in Iraq over the last month and apparent differences between the United States and the Iraqi government over how to proceed have given Democrats new opportunities to criticize Mr. Bush’s handling of the conflict and make the case that electing a Democratic Congress is the first step toward finding a solution.

Across the country, Democrats are broadcasting television advertisements that feature battle scenes and photographs of their Republican opponent with Mr. Bush as they call for sharp changes in the Iraq strategy.

“We have certainly advised candidates to not appear that they are marching in lock step with the administration in terms of how the Iraq war is being conducted,” a senior Republican Party Senate strategist said, insisting on anonymity in exchange for disclosing political advice being given to candidates. “If you aren’t speaking out against the way that this war has been conducted, you are dead in the water.”

“The candidates have been in a tough position for some time,” this party official said. “The way that has been enunciated before — stay the course versus cut and run — any changes to that are certainly welcome.”

In attacking Mr. Kerry and defending the war, the White House clearly made the calculation that achieving what has been its main strategic goal this year — firing up a dispirited conservative base — would outweigh any risk that might come in spotlighting a war that Republican Party officials said had become a huge burden for its candidates. The White House took the unusual step of releasing advance excerpts of Mr. Bush’s attacks.

In his remarks in California on Monday, Mr. Kerry said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Mr. Kerry said that he botched a joke that his aides said had been prepared as follows: “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”

Mr. Bush, speaking to a cheering crowd at a campaign rally late Tuesday afternoon in a half-empty arena at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, said Mr. Kerry had insulted the intelligence of Americans troops.

“The senator’s suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting, and it is shameful,” he said. “The members of the United States military are plenty smart and they are plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology.”

Mention of Senator Kerry’s name drew boos, which were amplified after Mr. Bush quoted his remarks.

Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, called a news conference in which he accused Mr. Bush of twisting his words for political gain. “The White House’s attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe,” he said. “It’s a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything in America to raw politics.”

Some Democrats were quick to distance themselves from the man who had been their standard-bearer just two years ago.

“This is an example of politics at its worst,” said Scott Kleeb, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Nebraska. “Many of us have serious concerns over the current situation in Iraq, but no one should question the intelligence and dedication of our troops. Senator Kerry’s remark was disrespectful and insulting.”

Still, at least some of the students who attended Mr. Kerry’s speech at Pasadena City College said they did not think the senator was belittling troops.

“I don’t think he was saying our soldiers are dummies,” said Natalie Courtney, 21, the student body president, who said she was an independent. “I think he was saying you have to protect yourself. The current government does not have our best interest in mind. Don’t let the government lie to you.”

But Charles Huang, 19, a sophomore who described himself as one of the few conservatives at the college, said he was offended by the comment and thought Mr. Kerry did owe American troops an apology.

“I was kind of offended that someone would say that,” Mr. Huang said. “I think he was trying to crack a joke, but it was inappropriate.”

The contrast of Republican candidates distancing themselves from the White House even as Mr. Bush defended his policy again on Tuesday — “We will fight in Iraq and we will win in Iraq,” he said to cheers in Georgia — reflects what Republican Party officials said was a pragmatic message they were sending to candidates: do whatever it takes to win.

In one sign of the deteriorating situation for Republicans, Mr. Bush is now expected to fly to Kansas this weekend to campaign on behalf of a Republican incumbent, Jim Ryun, who just a month ago was not considered endangered.

“Whatever they feel they’ve got to do to move their numbers, they have got to do,” said one senior Republican Party official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in exchange for talking about party strategy. The official added that the White House believed it was better to have Republican candidates complaining than to have to deal with a Democratic Congress in January.

But asked about the advertisement by Mr. McGavick, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington, a senior White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss political strategy, said, “That’s not the message we’d be running.”

Elliott Bundy, a spokesman for Mr. McGavick, said that the White House had not complained about the advertisement and that Mr. McGavick had to address Iraq head-on, given the public opposition to the war. “Iraq is the No. 1 issue, and you are fooling yourself if you think it isn’t,” Mr. Bundy said. “Even Republicans who think the mission is worthwhile, they’re frustrated and the president doesn’t seem to get it all the time.”

On Tuesday, one week before Election Day, millions of dollars were being injected into the most competitive races in the country. Both sides were carefully tracking the day-by-day spending of their rivals and outside groups.

With a flurry of polls as their guide, Republicans redirected resources on Tuesday, pulling back on races in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania in hopes of shoring up seats elsewhere. The largest infusion of money was reported in Missouri, Montana, Tennessee and Virginia.

John Broder contributed reporting from Perry, Ga., Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco and Jeff Zeleny from Washington.

    As Vote Nears, Stances on War Set Off Sparks, NYT, 1.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/us/politics/01elect.html