History > 2007 > USA > Politics (IV)

Court Ruling on Protests

Curbs Malls in California

December 25, 2007
The New York Times
By CAROLYN MARSHALL

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that privately owned shopping malls cannot stop protesters from demonstrating there to urge a boycott of one of the tenants.

In a 4-to-3 decision, the court said a San Diego mall violated California law protecting free speech when its owners barred protesters from distributing leaflets in front of one of the mall’s stores, asking shoppers not to give the store their business.

“A shopping mall is a public forum in which persons may reasonably exercise their right to free speech,” Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote in the majority opinion.

Justice Moreno said shopping malls were entitled to enact and enforce “reasonable regulations of the time, place and manner of such free expression,” to avoid a disruption of business.

“But they may not prohibit certain types of speech based upon its content,” he wrote, like speech urging a boycott of stores.

The case stemmed from an October 1998 protest at the Fashion Valley Mall, an upscale shopping center in San Diego, by members of the Graphic Communications International Union, representing pressroom employees at The San Diego Union-Tribune.

With contract negotiations at a standstill, the union was trying to bring pressure on The Union-Tribune by distributing leaflets urging a boycott of Robinsons-May, a store that advertised in the paper. The mall’s owners barred the protesters from the property, saying they did not have a permit from the mall and were therefore trespassing. The union appealed to the National Labor Relations Board.

After the labor board sided with the union, according to court documents, the mall petitioned for a review by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Last year, that court referred the case back to the state to resolve.

The decision Monday upheld a 1979 ruling by the State Supreme Court that found shopping malls to be public forums where free-speech rights were protected by California law. Writing for the dissenters Monday, Justice Ming W. Chin called the earlier decision “ill conceived.” Justice Chin noted that in most states, there were no free-speech rights on private property.

    Court Ruling on Protests Curbs Malls in California, NYT, 25.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/us/25mall.html

Governor Campaigns Break Records

December 24, 2007
Filed at 3:50 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

The major parties are raising record amounts of cash as they prepare for gubernatorial campaign showdowns in 11 states next year.

Republicans and Democrats both say 2007 was a lucrative start to the four-year fundraising cycle that helps determine which party controls the nation's governors' mansions.

Governors have enormous influence over how Americans live their lives, particularly in areas such as health care and schools. Control of the governors' offices also plays a crucial role in presidential elections. Governors can rally support for a candidate and energize a party's get-out-the-vote machinery.

The Democratic Governors Association raised $5.3 million through June, according to its midyear IRS filing, and is on track to break $9.3 million, the previous record for the first year of the cycle.

The Republican Governors Association raised $12 million through June and expects to easily top its previous record of $15 million. Final tallies won't be available until the end of next month.

Democratic governors have a 28-22 edge nationally, having regained a majority last year after 12 years of GOP dominance. This year, they lost a seat in Louisiana but retook the governor's mansion in Kentucky.

Republican governors still have the financial edge. They are quick to point out that's the opposite of what's happening in Washington.

For example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- whose candidates control the House -- raised $61 million this year. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised $43 million during the same time.

Both governors' associations are pulling in contributions from some of the same deep-pocketed companies, according to a review of IRS reports.

''We're a bipartisan company. We partner with elected officials from both sides of the aisle,'' said David Tovar, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, which gave $100,000 to both groups this year.

Many of the issues important to governors, like the cost of health care, also matter to Wal-Mart, he said.

Health care is also a top issue for the Service Employees International Union, the country's fastest-growing union, which also gave $100,000 to both governors' associations this year.

Earlier this year SEIU and Wal-Mart jointly called for affordable health care for all Americans by 2012. But SEIU has also criticized Wal-Mart for its employee health plans.

''Governors can often have the greatest impact on workers' ability to have a voice on the job,'' said SEIU spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller.

Other companies donating $100,000 to both governors' groups this year include AT&T Inc., Union Pacific, American Electric Power Co. and Archer Daniels Midland Co.

Drug makers are also courting both parties, with companies like Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca PLC contributing $50,000 to each group.

Corporations understand that laws passed in states can have as much effect on a multinational company as those enacted in Washington. And giving to both groups is a way to hedge companies' political bets.

''If the end goal is having some voice in what comes out of the legislative process, certainly you don't want to slam the door shut completely,'' said Rachel Weiss, spokeswoman for the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Both groups have also received large contributions from individual donors. In the RGA's case, that includes Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and James Leininger of San Antonio, an influential conservative known for backing causes such as school vouchers.

Perry financed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and its attacks on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

Individual donors giving to Democrats include Bernard Schwartz, former chairman of satellite communications company Loral Space and Communications and a longtime donor to Democrats, who gave $100,000, and Michigan billionaire Jon Stryker, who also gave $100,000.

Stryker, whose grandfather founded the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based medical products company Stryker Corp., founded the Arcus Foundation, which promotes equal rights for gays.

Republicans had 26 contributions of $100,000 or more through the first half of 2007. Democrats had 12 donations of $100,000 during the same time, IRS records show.

    Governor Campaigns Break Records, NYT, 24.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Governors-Fundraising.html

In Charity and Politics,

Clinton Donors Overlap

December 20, 2007
The New York Times
By DON VAN NATTA Jr., JO BECKER and MIKE McINTIRE

This article is by Don Van Natta Jr., Jo Becker and Mike McIntire.

Over the last decade, former President Bill Clinton has raised more than $500 million for his foundation, allowing him to build a glass-and-steel presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and burnish his image as an impresario of global philanthropy. The foundation has closely guarded the identities of its donors — including one who gave $31.3 million last year.

Now, the secrecy surrounding the William J. Clinton Foundation has become a campaign issue as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination with her husband as a prime source of strategy and star power. Some of her rivals argue that donors could use presidential foundations to circumvent campaign finance laws intended to limit political influence.

Mr. Clinton himself echoed those concerns this fall when he pledged to make public future donors if Mrs. Clinton was elected president. While disclosure is not legally required, failure to do so, Mr. Clinton said, would raise “all these questions about whether people would try to win favor with her by giving money to me.”

Even so, past donors should remain private, he insisted, “unless there is some conflict of which I am aware, and there is not.”

But an examination of the foundation demonstrates how its fund-raising has at times fostered the potential for conflict.

The New York Times has compiled the first comprehensive list of 97 donors who gave or pledged a total of $69 million for the Clinton presidential library in the final years of the Clinton administration. The examination found that while some $1 million contributors were longtime Clinton friends, others were seeking policy changes from the administration. Two pledged $1 million each while they or their companies were under investigation by the Justice Department.

Other donations came from supporters who had been ensnared in campaign finance scandals surrounding Mr. Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.

In raising record sums for her campaign, Mrs. Clinton has tapped many of the foundation’s donors. At least two dozen have become “Hillraisers,” each bundling $100,000 or more for her presidential bid. The early library donors, combined with their families and political action committees, have contributed at least $784,000 to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate and presidential coffers.

The foundation and Mrs. Clinton’s political campaigns have been intertwined in other ways. Terry McAuliffe, who led the foundation’s fund-raising and sits on its board, is now Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman and chief fund-raiser. Cheryl Mills plays a similar dual role, sitting on the foundation board and serving as the general counsel to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. And Jay Carson recently traded a communications position at the foundation for a job as her campaign’s press secretary.

As the scope of the foundation expanded from the Clinton library into issues like treating AIDS in the developing world and addressing global poverty and climate change, and Mrs. Clinton moved closer to announcing her candidacy, the pace of giving quickened. Last year, contributions reached $135 million, a 70 percent increase over the previous year. Two-thirds came from just 11 donors.

The $31.3 million donation, which was previously undisclosed, came from the Radcliffe Foundation run by Frank Giustra, a Canadian who has made millions financing mining deals around the world. Mr. Giustra has become a member of Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, joining him on global trips and lending him the use of his private MD-87 jet.

For weeks, Clinton Foundation officials had suggested that the $31.3 million contribution listed on its tax return did not come from a single donor. They then said it came from a single source, but declined to identify it. Wednesday afternoon, a representative of Mr. Giustra contacted The Times and acknowledged the Radcliffe contribution.

This year, Mr. Giustra announced separate plans to give the Clinton Foundation $100 million, plus half of his future earnings from natural resource business ventures, for a joint project to spur economic growth in poor Latin American mining communities. Taken together, the contributions make Mr. Giustra one of the foundation’s largest benefactors, if not the single largest.

The Times’s findings are based on tax documents filed by the Clinton Foundation and by groups that contributed to it, interviews with donors and people with direct knowledge of the foundation’s activities, as well as federal government records and an analysis of campaign finance data.

In a statement, the foundation said, “Donors did not seek, nor did President Clinton give, favors from the federal government,” adding that most of the contributions came after Mr. Clinton left office. “President Clinton is grateful for the support the foundation has received from more than 100,000 donors,” which helped provide AIDS medication for 750,000 people, fight climate change, combat childhood obesity and build heath systems around the world, the statement said.

In a separate written response from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, a spokesman, Phil Singer, said, “Senator Clinton is not involved in the fund-raising or operations of the Clinton Foundation.” Mr. Singer noted that President Clinton’s promise to disclose future donors should his wife become president went beyond what the law required.

To limit the influence of any single donor, federal election law prohibits foreign donations to presidential campaigns and limits Americans to $2,300 per election. But presidential foundations are free to accept unlimited and anonymous contributions, even from foreigners and foreign governments. Indeed, the Saudi royal family, the king of Morocco, a foundation linked to the United Arab Emirates, and the governments of Kuwait and Qatar have made contributions of unknown amounts to the Clinton Foundation.

“The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who introduced a bill to force disclosure of presidential foundation donors. The bill passed the House, 390-34, in March but stalled in the Senate.

Building a Foundation

In June 1999, as the Clinton administration wound down, Mrs. Clinton told friends gathered in the White House solarium that wealthy donors had offered to establish a foundation for her. But she was set on running for the Senate in New York. That same month, Mr. Clinton and his chief fund-raiser met for dinner with 40 executives at La Grenouille, a French restaurant in Manhattan. The president had a vision for a charitable foundation that would tackle problems domestic and foreign, several former aides who helped establish the foundation said.

But first, Mr. Clinton had to raise money for his presidential library, which would ultimately cost $165 million. He found a ready pool of library donors in people and companies with matters before the government, many of them loyal Democratic contributors.

On October 6, 1999, the charitable arm of the Anheuser-Busch Companies gave $200,000, the first of five payments over five years totaling $1 million, according to records filed by the company’s foundation. Less than a month earlier, the company, the country’s leading beer maker, had scored a major victory when the Clinton administration’s Federal Trade Commission dropped a bid to regulate beer, wine and liquor advertising that critics said was aimed at under-age drinkers.

Francine I. Katz, a company spokeswoman, said the donation was unrelated to any government action and that its foundation had contributed more than $360 million to a wide array of organizations, including the Bush, Truman and Johnson presidential libraries.

William A. Brandt Jr., a bankruptcy lawyer in Chicago and prolific Democratic fund-raiser, pledged $1 million in May 1999. At the time, the Justice Department was investigating Mr. Brandt’s testimony to Congress about a $10,000 per couple fund-raiser he had held for the president’s 1996 re-election campaign. At issue was whether he had lied when he denied promoting it as an explicit opportunity to lobby a top bankruptcy official at the event.

In August 1999, the Justice Department determined that “prosecution is not warranted.” Mr. Brandt, who is now a Hillraiser, did not respond to several phone and e-mail messages.

Bernard L. Schwartz, another major Democratic contributor who was then chief executive of Loral Space and Communications, gave $250,000 and pledged $750,000 more in 2000. At the time, investigators were trying to determine if Loral had improperly provided satellite technology to China. Under the Bush administration, Loral agreed to pay a civil fine of $14 million to settle the case. Mr. Schwartz, who is now also a Hillraiser, said that his donations were unconnected to Loral’s troubles and added that he had contributed to other presidential libraries.

Familiar Donors

Toward the end of the Clinton administration, Dr. Richard Machado Gonzalez and his lawyer, Miguel D. Lausell, both major Democratic donors in the 1996 presidential election, were pushing the president to increase Medicare reimbursements to hospitals in Puerto Rico, like the one owned by Dr. Machado. Mr. Lausell pledged $1 million to the library in 1999, eight months before Mr. Clinton proposed increasing Medicare payments to Puerto Rico for the second time in his administration. Dr. Machado gave the foundation $100,000 about six months later.

In the interim, the president appointed Mr. Lausell to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which helps American companies with foreign projects.

Jeffrey Farrow, who coordinated issues involving Puerto Rico for the president, said the administration felt Medicare unfairly penalized Puerto Rico by paying a lower rate there than in the 50 states. Although Congress rejected the proposed increase, Mr. Farrow said “they didn’t have to contribute the way they did in order to get our attention.”

Both men are supporters of Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Lausell serves as a senior adviser on Latino affairs. Dr. Machado did not return calls seeking comment, and efforts to reach Mr. Lausell through the campaign were not successful.

A fledgling telecommunications company, NextWave Wireless, was battling the Federal Communications Commission when library fund-raisers tapped its chief executive and a major investor. NextWave had promised to pay $4.74 billion for cellphone licenses, but when it declared bankruptcy before completing its payments, the F.C.C. threatened to put the licenses up for public auction, which would have ruined NextWave.

Over three consecutive days in December 1999, with a decision imminent, the library logged a $100,000 pledge from NextWave’s chief executive, Allen Salmasi, and a $100,000 contribution plus a $1 million pledge from Bay Harbour Management, a major investor in NextWave.

The agency ultimately repossessed NextWave’s licenses, prompting a court battle that the company won. Bay Harbour’s co-owner, Douglas Teitelbaum, who declined to comment, never fulfilled his promise to contribute the additional $1 million. Mr. Salmasi did not respond to an e-mail message or to calls to a company spokesman.

Mr. Clinton also found support for his library among some people who figured in the Democratic fund-raising controversies dating to the 1996 elections that involved White House sleepovers, coffees for big donors and money funneled from the Chinese government.

Among them was Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation executive whose involvement in the Iran-contra scandal — one of his companies flew military equipment to Iran in the 1980s — prompted the Democratic National Committee to return a $143,000 donation in 1997. The party later accepted the money. Mr. Azima pledged $1 million to the library.

Another $1 million pledge came from Eric and Patricia Hotung. Mr. Hotung is a Hong Kong businessman who in 1997 was granted a meeting with Mr. Clinton’s national security adviser after Mr. Hotung’s wife, Patricia, an American, offered $100,000 to the Democrats.

Nine of the original library donors received presidential appointments to organizations like the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In his final days in office, Mr. Clinton appointed two of the donors, the businessmen Mark S. Weiner and Vinod Gupta, to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A Joint Effort

At a Democratic debate in September, when Mrs. Clinton was asked whether the foundation would disclose its donors, she indicated that the decision was not hers. “Well, you’ll have to ask them,” she replied, referring to the former president and his staff.

But Mrs. Clinton’s effort to distance herself understates the extent to which the foundation was a joint enterprise from the start.

Shortly after the Clintons left the White House, close advisers convened meetings at the couple’s Washington home to map out Mr. Clinton’s future as a philanthropist.

Mrs. Clinton played an important role in shaping both the foundation’s organization and the scope of its work, said Karen A. Tramontano, a senior adviser in the Clinton White House and the foundation’s first chief of staff.

Advisers also were acutely aware that the foundation’s operations — and any perception of a conflict — could harm Mrs. Clinton politically. “She and I would speak frequently,” Ms. Tramontano said. “She had a lot of ideas. All the papers that went to him went to her.”

Early on, donations to the library caused perception problems. The day after he left office, Mr. Clinton was embroiled in a scandal over his 11th-hour pardon of the financier Marc Rich, who fled the United States in 1983 to avoid tax evasion and other charges. A Congressional hearing later revealed that the pardon came after Mr. Rich’s former wife, Denise Rich, contributed $450,000 to Mr. Clinton’s library.

That spring, Mrs. Clinton co-sponsored legislation to publicly identify donors to foundations of future sitting presidents. She referred to that legislation in the debate three months ago, although the bill had died in committee.

Beyond the revelation of the Rich donation, the names of some other donors emerged after the library opened in November 2004, when a New York Sun reporter found a partial contributor list displayed on a public computer there. The list, with neither amounts nor dates, disclosed donations from the Saudi royal family and other foreign sources. After the Sun story, the computer plug was pulled.

As the foundation has evolved into global philanthropy, it has attracted more large donors. Among them are Tom Golisano, an iconoclastic billionaire from upstate New York, who gives the foundation $3 million to $5 million a year, according to Mr. Golisano’s confidants; Stephen Bing, a Hollywood producer and a Hillraiser, who contributed stock worth $10,028,614 in 2005; Sir Tom Hunter, a Scottish businessman who began donating $10 million a year in 2006 for economic development in Africa; and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which said it had given or pledged $23,145,677 since 2005, mostly to support AIDS work and an effort to reduce the costs of malaria drugs.

Throughout, Mrs. Clinton has offered “good, specific ideas” to the foundation when Mr. Clinton asks her to attend planning sessions, said Ira Magaziner, a top foundation executive and longtime Clinton adviser.

As the presidential campaign got under way, foundation officials began working to ensure that none of their enterprises would have political repercussions for Mrs. Clinton. Brian Byrd, who once worked for the Rockefeller Foundation and is now a lobbyist for arts groups, said that this year he interviewed for a job created to help review attendees to Mr. Clinton’s annual conference and make sure charitable pledges were met.

“Part of it was that Hillary was running for president, and they wanted to be sure everything was on the up and up — that was said to me,” said Mr. Byrd, who added that he decided he did not want and was not offered the position. “They wanted to get all their ducks in a row.”

Alain Delaquérière and Aron Pilhofer contributed reporting.

In Charity and Politics, Clinton Donors Overlap, NYT, 20.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20clinton.html

Editorial

The Crisis of Faith

December 7, 2007
The New York Times

Mitt Romney obviously felt he had no choice but to give a speech yesterday on his Mormon faith. Even by the low standards of this campaign, it was a distressing moment and just what the nation’s founders wanted to head off with the immortal words of the First Amendment: A presidential candidate cowed into defending his way of worshiping God by a powerful minority determined to impose its religious tenets as a test for holding public office.

Mr. Romney spoke with an evident passion about the hunger for religious freedom that defined the birth of the nation. He said several times that his faith informs his life, but he would not impose it on the Oval Office.

Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Mr. Romney was not there to defend freedom of religion, or to champion the indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination. No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact.

Mr. Romney tried to cloak himself in the memory of John F. Kennedy, who had to defend his Catholicism in the 1960 campaign. But Mr. Kennedy had the moral courage to do so in front of an audience of Southern Baptist leaders and to declare: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

Mr. Romney did not even come close to that in his speech, at the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, before a carefully selected crowd. And in his speech, he courted the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the heart of the “cultural war,” so eagerly embraced by the extreme right.

Mr. Romney filled his speech with the first myth — that the nation’s founders, rather than seeking to protect all faiths, sought to imbue the United States with Christian orthodoxy. He cited the Declaration of Independence’s reference to “the creator” endowing all men with unalienable rights and the founders’ proclaiming not just their belief in God, but their belief that God’s hand guided the American revolutionaries.

Mr. Romney dragged out the old chestnuts about “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency, and the inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance — conveniently omitting that those weren’t the founders’ handiwork, but were adopted in the 1950s at the height of McCarthyism. He managed to find a few quotes from John Adams to support his argument about America’s Christian foundation, but overlooked George Washington’s letter of reassurance to the Jews in Newport, R.I., that they would be full members of the new nation.

He didn’t mention Thomas Jefferson, who said he wanted to be remembered for writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia and drafting the first American law — a Virginia statute — guaranteeing religious freedom. In his book, “American Gospel,” Jon Meacham quotes James Madison as saying that law was “meant to comprehend, with the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”

The founders were indeed religious men, as Mr. Romney said. But they understood the difference between celebrating religious faith as a virtue, and imposing a particular doctrine, or even religion in general, on everyone. As Mr. Meacham put it, they knew that “many if not most believed, yet none must.”

The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Mr. Romney put it, “the elimination of religion from the public square.” That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.

We believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and state, not that public displays of faith are anathema. We believe, as did the founding fathers, that no specific religion should be elevated above all others by the government.

The authors of the Constitution knew that requiring specific declarations of religious belief (like Mr. Romney saying he believes Jesus was the son of God) is a step toward imposing that belief on all Americans. That is why they wrote in Article VI that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

And yet, religious testing has gained strength in the last few elections. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has made it the cornerstone of his campaign. John McCain, another Republican who struggles to win over the religious right, calls America “a Christian nation.”

CNN, shockingly, required the candidates at the recent Republican debate to answer a videotaped question from a voter holding a Christian edition of the Bible, who said: “How you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?”

The nation’s founders knew the answer to that question says nothing about a candidate’s fitness for office. It’s tragic to see it being asked at a time when Americans need a president who will tell the truth, lead with conviction and restore the nation’s moral standing, not one who happens to attend a particular church.

    The Crisis of Faith, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07fri1.html

The Long Run

Pulpit Was the Springboard

for Huckabee’s Rise

December 6, 2007
The New York Times
By JODI KANTOR and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

In August 1980, as the conservative Christian movement was first transforming American politics, Ronald Reagan stood before a Dallas stadium full of 15,000 foot-stomping, hand-clapping evangelicals and pledged his fealty to the Bible. “All the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book,” said Mr. Reagan, the Republican presidential nominee.

Assisting with logistics for the event was a young seminary dropout named Mike Huckabee. “It was the genesis for the whole movement,” Mr. Huckabee recalled of those early days.

Now Mr. Huckabee is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, his campaign shaped by his two decades as an evangelical pastor and broadcaster. While he says he is running based on his career in the Arkansas governor’s mansion, not the pulpit, he has grounded his views on issues like abortion and immigration in Scripture, rallied members of the clergy for support, benefited from the anti-Mormon sentiment dogging a political rival and relied on the down-to-earth style he honed in the pulpit to help catapult him in the polls.

Mr. Huckabee risks scorn from secular voters for defending the biblical creation story against Darwin, but faces accusations from some fellow Christians that he is soft on a range of issues, including liberal thinking in his own denomination. His candidacy has renewed the debate over the place of religion in public life, an issue Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is also a Republican presidential contender, will take on in a speech on Thursday about his Mormonism.

As a preacher and a politician, Mr. Huckabee said in an interview, he has pursued the same goal: improving lives. “For me it was never an either or,” he said of his dual careers. “The realm you do it in is less important than that you do it.”

And winning souls trained him to win votes.

“There are four basic things to succeed in either politics or the pastorate,” Mr. Huckabee said. “You have to have a message. Secondly, you have to motivate volunteers. You have to be able to understand and work with all types of medium to get your message out,” he continued, “and you’ve got to raise money.”

Mr. Huckabee was born in Hope, Ark., and from the start, he was hungry to try more than one career: politics (he participated in the same teenage civic program that had stoked the ambition of another native son, Bill Clinton, 10 years earlier), radio (he did his first broadcast at 11), and religion (he delivered his first sermon at 15 and pastored a church three years later).

After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., he enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas but dropped out after a year to work for James Robison, a fiery television evangelist. To make himself sound more knowledgeable, Mr. Huckabee later told his secretary, he crammed on issues of Reader’s Digest.

Mr. Huckabee served as Mr. Robison’s announcer, advance man and public relations representative, drumming up attendance and coverage for his prayer meetings and appearing on broadcasts. (The organization was based near Dallas, which is how Mr. Huckabee came to work on the 1980 Reagan rally). Mr. Robison could be harsh — he yelled in the pulpit and referred to gay people as perverts — but Mr. Huckabee was a genial ambassador; behind the scenes, he was known for his dead-on impersonations of Christian celebrities like Billy Graham.

Assembling a Flock

Mr. Huckabee wanted to return to his home state, and he wanted his own church. He had been filling in as pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, a dwindling congregation in a small city stuffed with churches. When he signed on full time, members figured Immanuel would be able to hang on for another 5 or 10 years before disbanding.

“Everyone thought I was crazy” to take the job, Mr. Huckabee said.

He told the congregation that he planned to put the church — and himself — on television. Then he persuaded his incredulous flock to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate the dingy, barnlike auditorium, putting in pews with comfortable padding and more leg room, a stained-glass window he designed himself and a sound system from the engineers who had wired the Houston Astrodome.

Drawn by the new space, a 26-year-old pastor who loved rock ’n’ roll and the advertisements he had placed on bus shelters, young families began to arrive. But Mr. Huckabee wanted a wider audience. Soon he had a low-power television station on the air, which made him the proprietor and star of not just the only Christian broadcast in town, but the only local broadcast, period. It made him pastor “for all of Pine Bluff,” said Garey Scott, then the youth minister.

In addition to worship services, the station offered community programs — Mr. Huckabee gave the local editorial page editor his own slot — and the show that would become Mr. Huckabee’s signature.

Sunday evenings were a depressing time for people, Mr. Huckabee had noticed. And Pine Bluff usually made the Little Rock news only for car accidents or crime. His antidote was “Positive Alternatives,” a Sunday-night talk show full of can-do community uplift. Mr. Huckabee interviewed local heroes, fellow pastors, leaders of charities, even accountants who offered advice on filling out tax forms.

After six years, he moved to Beech Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana, another city without its own television affiliate. He refurbished an old Winnebago with broadcast equipment and became the town’s all-purpose newscaster, covering local election returns, weather and high school football games, where he would intersperse his commentary with a word or two of Scripture. He also trademarked the name “Positive Alternatives” and took the show with him.

Mr. Huckabee fulfilled standard pastoral duties — preaching, visiting the sick, taking members to build restrooms for a church that still had outhouses. But as his status as a religious and civic celebrity grew, he conducted revivals all over the state and worked as a motivational speaker for businesses.

“He was speaking 23 nights a month,” recalled Bruce Rodntick, former music minister of Immanuel.

The First Election

The first statewide job Mr. Huckabee ran for was a church office. In 1989, while at the Beech Street Church, he was nominated for the presidency of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

The election quickly became a battleground in a larger political and theological civil war over the future of the denomination. Southern Baptists had historically leaned Democratic in politics and celebrated local autonomy in theology. But in the 1980s, conservatives concerned that liberal ideas about the Bible and the family were creeping into the denomination’s institutions fought state-by-state to purge any unorthodox theology or liberal politics, ultimately transforming the Southern Baptist Convention into a mainstay of the Republican Party.

The race was “far more political than anything else I’ve ever been involved in,” Mr. Huckabee recalled. The leaders of the conservative takeover tapped the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, a stalwart of their movement, as their candidate.

“They were not sure Mike was committed enough,” Mr. Floyd said.

Mr. Huckabee, who won by a 2-to-1 ratio, carried the flag for the so-called moderates, arguing that the Arkansas Baptists were amply orthodox. Although Mr. Floyd and Mr. Huckabee both now say they shared the same conservative theological convictions, Mr. Huckabee’s emphasis on tolerance and inclusiveness rallied opponents of the turn to the right.

“Huckabee was on the wrong side,” said Paul M. Weyrich, a founding organizer of the conservative movement. “That has caused more people to get off of Huckabee than you can imagine. With me, it’s a deal breaker.” (Mr. Weyrich recently endorsed Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee’s leading rival in the Iowa Republican caucuses.)

The president’s post was largely ceremonial. But it gave Mr. Huckabee considerable exposure — a fifth of Arkansans are Baptists — and experience as a peacemaker in his denomination’s internal battles.

Mr. Huckabee was “true to his deeply felt principles without being abrasive or strident or confrontational,” said Hal Bass, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University, and a self-described moderate. “It’s not like he pulled his punches, but he didn’t pick fights either,” Mr. Bass said.

In the sermon he delivered as outgoing president, Mr. Huckabee showed some impatience with the smallness of church life, a yearning for a larger platform. “It’s an unhealthy sign when church people are more interested in how we spend $25 of church money than in where an 11-year-old spends eternity,” he said, deploring “ministerial minutia.” He also cautioned against evangelical isolationism: “We cannot change the world if we refuse to participate in the institutions of society that dictate its direction.”

But when he announced he was giving up his ministry for a 1992 Senate run, many of his confidants, as well as Baptists across the state, were shocked. He had not hinted about his ambitions. And while the Rev. Pat Robertson had run for president four years before, a local pastor running for Senate was something else entirely.

“Politics were worldly as opposed to Christian pursuits,” said Charles Barnette, a member of the Texarkana congregation, explaining the discomfort.

Some followers were surprised that he was running as a Republican. Mr. Huckabee told them the Republican Party was “just one vehicle to the goal of getting into office,” Mr. Barnette said.

In his recent book “From Hope to Higher Ground” (Center Street), Mr. Huckabee recounted the decision. Running for office was a childhood dream he had abandoned when he became a pastor, but he later felt pulled into political life, he said. “The purpose for being on earth is not our personal comfort but to strive to make the world better for our children,” he wrote.

At the same time, the Arkansas Republican Party, perpetually weak, “was very open and looking for nontraditional candidates,” said Jay Barth, a political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. A pastor with a statewide network and polished communication skills was a perfect conscript.

Mr. Huckabee ran largely on social issues like abortion, portraying his opponent, Senator Dale Bumpers, a Democrat who was virtually an Arkansas institution, as a pornographer because he supported the National Endowment for the Arts. But attacking the popular veteran backfired; Mr. Huckabee was badly beaten. By the next year, when Mr. Huckabee ran for lieutenant governor in a special election, he sounded more like the conservative populist he is today, talking about caring for the elderly and other ways government could improve people’s lives.

Into Politics

In 1996, Mr. Huckabee inherited the governorship from Jim Guy Tucker, who resigned after a financial scandal. Mr. Huckabee said then, as he does now, that his ministry prepared him for office by showing him firsthand the toughest issues that citizens face, as varied as bankruptcy and teenage pregnancy.

As governor, he seemed like “a charitable Christian,” said Janine Parry, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas — not an antigovernment conservative, but one who felt that institutions could improve the lives of the underprivileged, especially when it came to immigration and health care.

Mr. Huckabee never abandoned his stances on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, but his efforts on these issues seemed more show than substance, some observers say.

“Typically in a legislative session he would put forward a primarily symbolic social issue for the session: a “choose life” license plate, for instance, Mr. Barth said. The bill would pass, social conservatives would be satisfied, and the governor would be free to do the health care and education work he was becoming increasingly passionate about.

Today, in the closing weeks before the Iowa caucus, Mr. Huckabee is energetically selling his religious credentials, saying voters should pick a candidate who speaks “the language of Zion” as a “mother tongue,” and running television commercials flashing the words “Christian Leader.” He talks eagerly about theology issues in political debates (displaying his TV-trained ability to speak in exact 45-second segments) and cites Scripture on the trail.

In Iowa, where he and Mr. Romney are locked in a tight race, Mr. Huckabee has capitalized on conservative Christian animosity toward Mormons, pointedly refusing to dispute the common evangelical characterization of Mormonism as a cult.

Some moderates balk at Mr. Huckabee’s repeated defense of creationism and suggestion that it should be taught along with evolution in public schools. “Huckabee will have to address his commitment to real science,” said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Some other Christian conservatives have accused Mr. Huckabee of encouraging lawbreaking by supporting government social services for illegal immigrants. Mr. Huckabee defends himself on religious terms. He talks of a Bible-based injunction to care for illegal immigrants, just as he points to biblical admonitions to minister to the sick and protect the environment.

He says his agenda reflects his own growth and that of fellow evangelicals since the era of the Dallas rally.

“There is a maturing of Christian involvement in politics in this generation,” he said. “Christians have been historically known as being associated with two issues: sanctity of life and traditional marriage,” he said, but are increasingly concerned with poverty, the environment and health.

The real difference between religious and political leadership, Mr. Huckabee said in the interview, is in the way others treat him. Both kinds of leaders must live on pedestals, he said. But “in a pastoral situation, they have you there and they want to keep you there. They don’t want you to fall because then you fall with them.”

In politics, he said, “They’re trying to knock you off every single day.”
 

Michael Luo contributed reporting and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

    Pulpit Was the Springboard for Huckabee’s Rise, NYT, 6.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/politics/06huckabee.html?hp

Business Lobby Presses Agenda Before ’08 Vote

December 2, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year’s elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

“There’s a growing sense, a growing probability, that the next administration could be Democratic,” said Craig L. Fuller, executive vice president of Apco Worldwide, a lobbying and public relations firm, who was a White House official in the Reagan administration. “Corporate executives, trade associations and lobbying firms have begun to recalibrate their strategies.”

The Federal Register typically grows fat with regulations churned out in the final weeks of any administration. But the push for such rules has become unusually intense because of the possibility that Democrats in 2009 may consolidate control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years.

Even as they try to shape pending regulations, business lobbies are also looking beyond President Bush. Corporations and trade associations are recruiting Democratic lobbyists. And lobbyists, expecting battles over taxes and health care in 2009, are pouring money into the campaigns of Democratic candidates for Congress and the White House.

Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, “I am beefing up my staff, putting more money aside for economic analysis of regulations that I foresee coming out of a possible new Democratic administration.”

At the Transportation Department, trucking companies are trying to get final approval for a rule increasing the maximum number of hours commercial truck drivers can work. And automakers are trying to persuade officials to set new standards for the strength of car roofs — standards far less stringent than what consumer advocates say is needed to protect riders in a rollover.

Business groups generally argue that federal regulations are onerous and needlessly add costs that are passed on to consumers, while their opponents accuse them of trying to whittle down regulations that are vital to safety and quality of life. Documents on file at several agencies show that business groups have stepped up lobbying in recent months, as they try to help the Bush administration finish work on rules that have been hotly debated and, in some cases, litigated for years.

At the Interior Department, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. It would be prohibitively expensive to haul away the material, they say, and there are no waste sites in the area. Luke Popovich, a vice president of the National Mining Association, said that a Democratic president was more likely to side with “the greens.”

A coalition of environmental groups has condemned the proposed rule, saying it would accelerate “the destruction of mountains, forests and streams throughout Appalachia.”

A priority for many employers in 2008 is to secure changes in the rules for family and medical leave. Under a 1993 law, people who work for a company with 50 or more employees are generally entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborn children or sick relatives or to tend to medical problems of their own. The Labor Department has signaled its interest in changes by soliciting public comments.

The National Association of Manufacturers said the law had been widely abused and had caused “a staggering loss of work hours” as employees took unscheduled, intermittent time off for health conditions that could not be verified. The use of such leave time tends to rise sharply before holiday weekends, on the day after Super Bowl Sunday and on the first day of the local hunting season, employers said.

Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group, said she was “very concerned that the Bush administration will issue new rules that cut back on family and medical leave for those who need it.”

That could be done, for example, by narrowing the definition of a “serious health condition” or by establishing stricter requirements for taking intermittent leave for chronic conditions that flare up unexpectedly.

The Chamber of Commerce is seeking such changes. “We want to get this done before the election,” Mr. Johnson said. “The next White House may be less hospitable to our position.”

Indeed, most of the Democratic candidates for president have offered proposals to expand the 1993 law, to provide paid leave and to cover millions of additional workers. Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut was a principal author of the law. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York says it has been “enormously successful.” And Senator Barack Obama of Illinois says that more generous family leave is an essential part of his plan to “reclaim the American dream.”

Susan E. Dudley, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said, “Research suggests that regulatory activity increases in the final year of an administration, regardless of party.”

Whoever becomes the next president, Democrat or Republican, will find that it is not so easy to make immediate and sweeping changes. The Supreme Court has held that a new president cannot arbitrarily revoke final regulations that already have the force of law. To undo such rules, a new administration must provide a compelling justification and go through a formal rule-making process, which can take months or years.

Within hours of taking office in 2001, Mr. Bush slammed the brakes on scores of regulations issued just before he took office, so his administration could review them. A study in the Wake Forest Law Review found that one-fifth of those “midnight regulations” were amended or repealed by the Bush administration, while four-fifths survived.

Some of the biggest battles now involve rules affecting the quality of air, water and soil.

The National Chicken Council and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association have petitioned for an exemption from laws and rules that require them to report emissions of ammonia exceeding 100 pounds a day. They argue that “emissions from poultry houses pose little or no risk to public health” because the ammonia disperses quickly in the air.

Perdue Farms, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, said that it was “essentially impossible to provide an accurate estimate of any ammonia releases,” and that a reporting requirement would place “an undue and useless burden” on farmers.

But environmental groups told the Bush administration that “ammonia emissions from poultry operations pose great risk to public health.” And, they noted, a federal judge in Kentucky has found that farmers discharge ammonia from their barns, into the environment, so it will not sicken or kill the chickens.

On another issue, the Environmental Protection Agency is drafting final rules that would allow utility companies to modify coal-fired power plants and increase their emissions without installing new pollution-control equipment.

The Edison Electric Institute, the lobby for power companies, said the companies needed regulatory relief to meet the growing demand for “safe, reliable and affordable electricity.”

But John D. Walke, director of the clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the rules would be “the Bush administration’s parting gift to the utility industry.”

If Democrats gain seats in Congress or win the White House, that could pose problems for all-Republican lobbying firms like Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, whose founders include Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Loren Monroe, chief operating officer of the Barbour firm, said: “If the right person came along, we might hire a Democrat. And it’s quite possible we could team up in an alliance with a Democratic firm.”

Two executive recruiters, Ivan H. Adler of the McCormick Group and Nels B. Olson of Korn/Ferry International, said they had seen a growing demand for Democratic lobbyists. “It’s a bull market for Democrats, especially those who have worked for the Congressional leadership” or a powerful committee, Mr. Adler said.

Few industries have more cause for concern than drug companies, which have been a favorite target of Democrats. Republicans run the Washington offices of most major drug companies, and a former Republican House member, Billy Tauzin, is president of their trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

The association has hired three Democrats this year, so its lobbying team is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research organization, said: “Defense contractors have not only begun to prepare for the next administration. They have begun to shape it. They’ve met with Hillary Clinton and other candidates.”

    Business Lobby Presses Agenda Before ’08 Vote, NYT, 2.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/washington/02lobby.html?hp

Today on the Presidential Campaign Trail

November 29, 2007
Filed at 11:40 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

IN THE HEADLINES

Republicans hold fight night at debate ... Clinton picks up endorsements from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a transit workers union ... Biden: Oil prices cost of Bush failures ... American Conservative Union chairman David Keene endorses Romney.

------

Republicans tear down one another as they search for supremacy in wide-open race

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- With the final round of a yearlong campaign approaching, the Republican presidential race grew remarkably bitter as the top contenders jockeyed for the upper hand -- and sought it by tearing down one another.

The most fierce exchanges in Wednesday's debate came from the candidates with the most at stake five weeks before the first voting begins; the frequent pot shots from Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson in particular underscored the extraordinary volatile state of the race in which any candidate seemingly has a chance to win. A first, Mike Huckabee, an underdog who has gained considerable ground in leadoff caucus state of Iowa, faced heavy criticism.

Romney continued Thursday to hammer at Huckabee's record on immigration and taxes, and likened his history of ethics controversies to another former Arkansas governor -- Bill Clinton.

''I know there were a number of ethical charges and actual fines and violations,'' Romney told MSNBC. ''That's a little reminiscent of the Clinton years.''

------

Clinton picks up endorsement from environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed for president Thursday by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental activist and scion of one of the nation's most prominent political families.

''Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to bring the war in Iraq to an end and reverse the potentially devastating effects of global warming,'' Kennedy said in a statement released by Clinton's campaign. ''I watched proudly as Hillary won over New Yorkers across the state in her race for the Senate seat my father once held. Since then, she's been re-elected in a landslide victory and proven that she is ready to lead this nation from her first day in office. Hillary will inspire the real change America needs.''

Kennedy's father, Robert F. Kennedy, was a New York senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated in 1968.

------

Biden: High oil prices a result of failures in the Bush administration's policy

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Joe Biden on Thursday planned to tell New Hampshire voters their high oil costs are to be blamed on the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East.

Biden's comments come as the Delaware Democrat escalates his criticism of the temporary increase of troops in Iraq. In recent days, Biden has called the so-called escalation a ''fantasy'' and said there is no evidence it is working.

''Remember, the stated purpose of the surge was to allow Iraqis to come together politically. There is no evidence -- none -- that that has happened. And there is no evidence -- none -- that it will happen so long as the Bush administration and its supporters stick to the failed strategy of trying to build a strong central government in Iraq that wins the trust of its people,'' Biden said in remarks prepared for delivery and provided to The Associated Press.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, planned to tell voters in Portsmouth that high energy and gasoline prices are pegged to unease over the situation in the Middle East.

------

Clinton endorsed by 180,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton collected the endorsement of the 180,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union on Thursday, giving her more workers to help her campaign in the early primary states.

''Hillary's strong record of supporting working families and her detailed plans to promote economic fairness and rebuild the nation's infrastructure, including our mass transit systems, make her the clear choice for ATU members,'' union president Warren S. George said.

Clinton now has picked up early endorsements from nine national unions with a little over a month before the first presidential caucus in Iowa. The New York senator said in a statement her election would mean ''America's working families will again have an advocate in the White House.''

Union endorsements are prized because of the manpower organized labor can throw behind a candidate in the form of motivated workers to man phone banks, hand out leaflets and promote for politicians. George said he promised Clinton his members and their families would turn out to help her nomination in the early states.

Founded in 1892, the Amalgamated Transit Union is made up of bus drivers, light rail operators and other transit and municipal employees, making it the largest organization representing transit workers.

------

Romney endorsed by prominent conservative activist David Keene

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was endorsed Thursday by David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a long time Republican strategist.

Unlike the last two presidential elections when conservatives united early behind George W. Bush, the support of the GOP's conservative base has been divided among the party's top tier candidates.

In a statement released by Romney's campaign, Keene said that ''while I certainly can't pretend to speak for all or even most conservatives, the road that led me here today is one that many conservatives find themselves on and it is my hope that they will end up where I am today, convinced that Mitt Romney represents our best hope for 2008.''

Keene said that he had initially intended to remain neutral in the race, but in recent weeks Romney has emerged ''as the single candidate most worthy of conservative support.''

''I am proud that David Keene has decided to join our campaign for conservative change that strengthens our military, economy and families,'' Romney said in a statement. ''As chairman of the American Conservative Union, he has greatly advanced the conservative movement.''

------

THE DEMOCRATS

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton attends the Global Summit on AIDS and the Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois hosts a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater in New York.

Former Sen. John Edwards speaks to the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council in Iowa.

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware makes several campaign stops in New Hampshire.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson campaigns in New York.

------

THE REPUBLICANS

Fred Thompson holds a lunch fundraiser in Phoenix.

------

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

''Right now, you're paying on average $3 a gallon for gas. And heating oil costs about $3.23 a gallon, a full dollar more than it did this time last year. What does that have to do with our Iran policy? Everything. Just connect the dots.'' -- Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., in prepared remarks for a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H.

------

STAT OF THE DAY:

Seventy-four percent of women and 71 percent of men were registered to vote in the 2004 presidential election, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

------

Compiled by Ann Sanner.

    Today on the Presidential Campaign Trail, NYT, 29.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-2008-Race-Rundown.html

Former Rep. Henry Hyde Is Dead at 83

November 29, 2007
Filed at 10:54 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Rep. Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican who steered the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton and championed government restrictions on the funding of abortions, died Thursday. He was 83.

The death of the Illinois Republican was announced by House Minority Leader John Boehner's office on Capitol Hill.

Mary Ann Schultz, a spokeswoman for Rush University Medical Center, said Hyde died Thursday at 3 a.m. CST at that hospital. There was no immediate word on the cause of his death, although Hyde underwent open-heart surgery in July.

Hyde retired from Congress at the end of the last session. Earlier this month, President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House praised Hyde, a leading foe of abortion, as a ''powerful defender of life'' and an advocate for a strong national defense.

''He was a gallant champion of the weak and forgotten, and a fearless defender of life in all its seasons,'' Bush said of Hyde that day.

Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement: ''What often struck me most about Henry was his keen sense of our nation's history and of the gifts bestowed on our Republic by the Founding Fathers, whose actions and deeds were never far from his mind. In his respect for the institutional integrity of the House of Representatives, Henry took second place to no one. He was a forceful advocate for maintaining the dignity of the House and for recognizing the sacrifices and struggles members make while in its service. Indeed, when Henry spoke in Committee or on the House floor, Members on both sides of aisle listened intently and they learned.''

Said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who heads the conservative Republican Study Committee: ''Chairman Hyde was a pioneer in the effort to protect human life, and because of his tireless efforts, there are thousands of people living around the world today who remember his service to mankind.''

The white-maned, physically imposing Hyde was a throwback to a different era, a man who was genuinely liked by his opponents for his wit, charm and fairness. But he could also infuriate them with his positions on some of the more controversial issues of the day.

He made a name for himself in 1976, just two years after his first election from the district that includes O'Hare Airport, by attaching an amendment to a spending bill banning the use of federal funds to carry out abortions.

What came to be known as the ''Hyde Amendment'' has since become a fixture in the annual debate over federal spending, and has served as an important marker for abortion foes seeking to discourage women from terminating pregnancies.

Hyde was also a leader in passing the ban on so-called partial birth abortions, the first federal restriction on a specific abortion procedure. ''The people we pretend to defend, the powerless, those who cannot escape, who cannot rise up in the streets, these are the ones that ought to be protected by the law,'' he said during the 2003 debate. ''The law exists to protect the weak from the strong.''

Abortion was an issue that the Irish-Catholic Hyde pursued as a matter of conscience. Clinton's impeachment, by contrast, was a matter thrust upon him.

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in 1998 he led House efforts to impeach Clinton for allegedly lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and then in 1999 was the chief House manager in the unsuccessful bid to win a Senate conviction.

A reluctant warrior, Hyde saw his own reputation tarnished during the process when an online magazine revealed that he'd had his own affair with a married woman some 30 years before. Hyde, in his early 40s at the time of the affair, brushed it off as a ''youthful indiscretion.''

Hyde also had a potentially more serious brush with scandal. He was among 12 former directors and officers of the Clyde Federal Savings and Loan who were sued for gross negligence by federal regulators after the 1990 failure of the North Riverside, Ill.-based institution. That failure cost taxpayers an estimated $68 million.

Hyde, who left the S&L in 1984, insisted he engaged in no wrongdoing and was the only director who refused to contribute to an $850,000 settlement that led to the lawsuit's dismissal in 1997.

Hyde soldiered on despite the certainty that the Senate would reject the impeachment charges. ''All a congressman ever gets to take with him when he leaves is the esteem of his colleagues and constituents,'' Hyde said in his closing argument. ''And we have risked that for a principle, for our duty as we have seen it.''

Hyde was born in Chicago on April 18, 1924, where he was an all-city basketball center. After serving in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, seeing combat in the Philippines, he graduated from Georgetown University in 1947 and returned to Chicago to earn a law degree from Loyola in 1949.

Raised a Democrat, he switched parties to vote for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. He worked as a Chicago trial lawyer before winning a seat in the Illinois House in 1966 and then in the U.S. House in 1974.

A conservative when the Republican Party was still dominated by moderates, Hyde gained elder statesman status when young conservatives propelled the GOP into control of the House in 1994.

But he has also on occasion parted ways with his conservative colleagues: he strongly opposed a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on members of Congress, and supported the Family and Medical Leave Act. He has also voted to ban certain types of assault weapons.

In the 1990s he joined the Clinton administration in opposing the 1973 War Powers Resolution, an act restricting the president's authority to engage troops overseas that some GOP lawmakers sought to invoke to protest military operations in Haiti, Somalia and Bosnia.

In 2001, subject to term limits that House Republicans imposed on their own committee chairmen, Hyde stepped down as chairman of the highly partisan Judiciary Committee he had led since 1995 to take over the far less contentious International Relations Committee.

In addition to helping shape U.S. policy in the war on terrorism, Hyde in 2003 oversaw passage of a $15 billion bill to fight the international AIDS epidemic. ''Left unchecked, this plague will further rip the fabric of developing societies, pushing fragile governments and economies to the point of collapse,'' he said. ''So to those who suggest that the United States has no stake in this pandemic, let me observe that the specter of failed states across the world certainly is our business.''

Hyde is survived by four children and four grandchildren. His wife of 45 years, Jeanne Simpson Hyde, died in 1992. He later remarried Judy Wolverton of Illinois, state Republican officials said.

    Former Rep. Henry Hyde Is Dead at 83, NYT, 29.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Obit-Hyde.html?hp

When Fuel and Politics Mix

November 28, 2007
The New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 — As oil prices flirt with record highs, hovering around $95 a barrel on Tuesday, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are offering few quick fixes but profoundly different long-term approaches to energy policy.

Over the next decade or two, the differences could have a major effect on billions of dollars in government spending, on the relative prices of gasoline versus renewable fuels and on the efficiency of American cars and trucks.

For Democrats, the goal of energy policy is largely about reducing oil consumption and has become inseparable from the goal of reducing the risk of climate change.

For the Republican candidates, energy policy is primarily about producing more energy at home — more oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; more use of American coal to produce liquid fuel; and, as with Democrats, more renewable fuels like ethanol.

By contrast, all of the Democratic candidates would repeal billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil companies, spend billions more each year to develop alternative fuels, and require cars and trucks to be far more fuel-efficient.

Indeed, most of the Democratic rivals are proposing plans that are more aggressive than the bills that Democratic leaders in Congress are hoping to pass before year-end. The disparity raises questions about whether the candidates’ plans are politically realistic. The candidates, however, are quietly acknowledging limits to what they can offer in the way of immediate relief, aside from putting more money into a program that helps low-income people with the cost of heating oil.

“There are no short-term solutions,” said Leo Hindery, the chief economic adviser to John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who has positioned himself to the populist left of his principal Democratic rivals.

The Republican contenders, maintaining the traditional conservative approach of relying on market forces, are much more reluctant to impose change through restrictions on oil and coal or mandates for alternative fuels.

“The truth is that the answer to high prices is high prices,” said R. Glenn Hubbard, a top economic adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts. “This is one area where the public expects more from politicians than politicians can deliver.”

To be sure, the party contrasts are muddled in some areas.

Among the Democrats, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois supports the development of coal-based “clean” liquid fuels — an idea that grates on many environmentalists who see coal as a major contributor to global warming. Senator Obama also is open to government support for nuclear power while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has said she is agnostic on the issue.

Within the G.O.P. group, Senator John McCain of Arizona has broken with the Republican orthodoxy on increasing energy production. Senator McCain repeatedly opposed oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a top goal for both President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress.

Likewise, Senator McCain and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, are the only Republican candidates to support mandatory limits on emissions of greenhouse gases. Mr. Huckabee, who has positioned himself as a standard-bearer for social conservatives and Christian evangelicals, recently called action on climate change a “moral issue.”

Manik Roy, a lobbyist for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said the Republican candidates may be more divided than they appear about controlling greenhouse emissions.

Mr. Romney, for example, said he opposed government restrictions. As governor of Massachusetts, he stayed out of a regional “cap and trade” plan by Northeastern states to impose ceilings on emissions by electric utilities and let companies trade their emission allowances.

But shortly after he made that decision, his state regulators imposed their own restrictions on such emissions.

For consumers, the precise effects are difficult to predict. Democratic mandates to sharply increase the use of renewable fuels could initially lead to higher prices at the gas pump, much as the mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline contributed to higher prices in 2005.

But over time, a large expansion of biofuels could both reduce their own production costs and put downward pressure on oil prices. Much would depend on how fast new technologies, like ellulosic ethanol, become practical on a large scale.

The Republican proposals to expand domestic oil and gas drilling could damp oil prices, though not for at least five years because of the long lead times to discover and develop new reserves. Likewise, Republican support for coal-based liquid diesel fuel could eventually drive down prices for gasoline. But without expensive and still unperfected technology to capture carbon dioxide, such liquids would increase the production of carbon dioxide, which most scientists say would aggravate global warming.

At the same time, Republican proposals to encourage more oil and gas drilling, and the candidates’ reluctance to require lower greenhouse emissions, could boomerang by prolonging what President Bush has called the nation’s addiction to oil.

Though they differ on the details, the Democrats all closely link the goals of “energy independence” and slowing global warming.

Most of them would create a cap-and-trade program, under which the government would set a ceiling on carbon emissions and require companies that burn fossil fuels to bid for carbon permits through an auction. The ceilings would be steadily lowered over the coming decades, with a goal of reducing carbon emissions as much as 80 percent below current volumes.

But for Republicans, energy policy is quite separate from the issue of climate change — and some of the candidates have been skeptical that global warming needs to be addressed.

The Republican candidates have mostly been silent about repealing tax breaks for oil companies. Though all the candidates support investment in biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel (Iowa, after all, dominates the early primary race in both parties), most of the Republicans oppose mandatory restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions that would effectively penalize the use of oil and coal.

In a written response to questions about his energy positions, Mr. Romney said on Friday that “now is not the right time to raise taxes on our oil companies” and expressed doubt about requirements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“While it is likely that human activity is contributing to climate change, I am not sure how much, or what we can do to significantly reduce or reverse this effect,” Mr. Romney wrote. Any new mandates for renewable fuels should be “a collaborative effort between industry, scientists, and the agriculture and energy communities.”

By contrast, the leading Democratic presidential candidates have jumped ahead of their own colleagues in Congress — possibly too far ahead to be politically realistic.

In Congress, for example, Democratic leaders have coalesced behind a cap-and-trade proposal under which the government would initially give away about half the carbon-emission allotments to the factories and electric utilities that would need them, granting them a large subsidy to help pay for future investments. But most of the Democratic candidates insist that companies should bid for all the allotments in an auction and pay for them, which would raise much more money for the government.

The Democratic candidates are also running ahead of their counterparts in Congress on fuel economy. The Senate recently passed a bill that would increase the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2017. The current requirement is 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 21.3 miles per gallon for pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans.

Most of the Democratic candidates would go much further. Senator Clinton says she would require 40 miles per gallon by 2020 and 55 miles per gallon by 2030. Mr. Edwards favors 40 miles per gallon by 2016, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico wants to push to achieve 50 miles per gallon by 2020.

But those requirements could be impossible to pass. In the House, Democrats from Michigan and other car-producing states strenuously oppose even the Senate’s comparatively modest plan. After months of stalemate, House and Senate Democrats are close to agreeing on a compromise before Christmas.

Farhana Hossain contributed reporting.

    When Fuel and Politics Mix, NYT, 28.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28energy.html

Today on the Presidential Campaign Trail

November 26, 2007
Filed at 11:48 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

IN THE HEADLINES

Giuliani wants U.S. to promote benefits abroad ... Oprah Winfrey to stump for Obama ... candidates, retailers vie for TV time ... Clinton says I have best chance to beat GOP

------

GIULIANI-FOREIGN POLICY

Giuliani calls for State Department that sells U.S., benefits abroad

BEDFORD, N.H. (AP) -- Republican Rudy Giuliani said Monday the reputation of the United States has suffered globally not so much because of arrogant actions but for lack of salesmanship about benefits of democracy.

If he is elected president, he said, he would seek ambassadors who would work hard to sell U.S. strengths to foreigners, not just explain those distant nations to Washington.

Giuliani, who is making a late push in the first primary state, also rekindled a dispute with rival Mitt Romney, accusing the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts of presiding over a crime surge while in office.

''I think Mitt kind of runs away from his record as governor,'' Giuliani said, a day after the two candidates clashed over Romney's appointment of a judge who later freed a convicted killer now charged with murdering a young couple.

Romney has called for the judge's resignation, and cited statistics showing a decrease in crime in Massachusetts.

(NHCK106-1126070912, NHCK105-1126070912, NHCK102-1126070851, NHCK101-1126070952)

------

OPRAH-OBAMA

Oprah Winfrey hitting campaign trail in Iowa for Obama

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Oprah Winfrey will join Democrat Barack Obama again on the campaign trail, this time visiting the early contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the candidate's campaign said Monday.

The talk show host and media mogul plans to visit Iowa on Saturday, Dec. 8, with stops in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. The following day, she'll travel to Columbia, S.C. Later that day, Obama's campaign said, she'll go to Manchester, N.H.

In September, she rolled out the red carpet for Obama at a fundraiser in California that brought in about $3 million for his campaign.

(NHRB109-1125071956)

------

POLITICAL ADS-HOLIDAYS

Iowa's early caucus means presidential campaigns must compete with retail holiday ads

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- In Iowa, 'tis the season for TV pitches, political and commercial. By the time Iowans ring in the New Year, they may be sick of both.

An early date for Iowa's caucuses probably means presidential candidates will run more television ads from mid-November through December, the height of the Christmas shopping season when retailers want to promote sales.

Moving the caucuses up 11 days to Jan. 3 also will force candidates to pay top dollar for TV ads over the holidays and perhaps soften their messages to avoid violating the serenity of the season. The same equation applies in New Hampshire, whose first-in-the-nation primary will follow the Iowa caucuses by five days.

''This is just like adding a hailstorm to a hurricane,'' said Evan Tracey, who tracks political advertising as chief operating officer for TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group. ''You've got a 16-deep field of candidates, interest groups and everybody else that's all going to want the same time.''

(WX101-1116070818, WX102-1116071912)

------

CLINTON-REPUBLICANS

Clinton says she has best chance to win against Republican candidate

PERRY, Iowa (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton maintained Sunday that she's the best candidate to win against Republicans because she has more experience battling the GOP than any other candidate in the Democratic field.

''I believe that I have a very good argument that I know more about beating Republicans than anybody else running. They've been after me for 15 years, and much to their dismay, I'm still standing,'' she said in answer to a woman's question about her electability. ''I'm leading in all the polls, I'm beating them in state after state after state.''

Clinton has been widely criticized by her Democratic rivals who claim she's too polarizing, and can't bring the party together to win the White House.

But she says she has support from around the country, including ''more Democratic support from the so-called red states than anybody else running.'' She told the crowd of hundreds at Perry High School that she has more U.S. senators supporting her than her rivals, as well as other lawmakers from states that ''Democrats have a hard time winning.''

(IAKS104-1125071439, IAKS103-1125071408)

------

THE DEMOCRATS

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois meets with undeclared voters in New Hampshire. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York attends a round-table discussion on health care and a potluck dinner in the state. John Edwards talks to New Hampshire teachers in between several stops there. Rep. Dennis Kucinich also has scheduled events.

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut holds a round-table discussion on women's issues in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden also campaign in the state.

------

THE REPUBLICANS

Arizona Sen. John McCain and Texas Rep. Ron Paul make stops in South Carolina.

Rep. Tom Tancredo hosts a town hall meeting in Hillboro, N.H.

Mike Huckabee attends a fundraiser in Austin, Texas.

------

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

''I'm ahead of any Republican candidate for president either 23-0 or 15-0. That's almost a Patriots score.'' -- Rudy Giuliani, alluding to New England's undefeated football team.

------

STAT OF THE DAY:

Voter registration for the 2004 presidential election was 142 million people, an increase of 12.5 million since the 2000 election. (Census Bureau)

------

Compiled by Ann Sanner.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 9th graf to correct unidentified man is charged, not convicted, in murder of young couple)

    Today on the Presidential Campaign Trail, NYT, 26.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-2008-Race-Rundown.html

Catholic Bishops Instruct Voters

November 14, 2007
Filed at 10:54 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Roman Catholics voting in the 2008 elections must heed church teaching when deciding which candidates and policies to support, U.S. bishops said Wednesday.

And while the church recognizes the importance of a wide range of issues -- from war to immigration to poverty -- fighting abortion should be a priority, the bishops said.

''The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many,'' the bishops said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly adopted the statement, ''Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,'' as they ended the public sessions of their fall meeting.

The document does not recommend specific laws or candidates, and it emphasizes that ''principled debate'' is needed to decide which policies best promote the common good.

But ''that does not make (moral issues) optional concerns or permit Catholics to dismiss or ignore church teaching,'' the bishops said.

American bishops have been releasing similar recommendations for Catholics before every presidential election since 1976. However, in recent years, some independent Catholics groups have been distributing their own voter booklets.

Among them are Priests for Life and California-based Catholic Answers, which distributed material on five ''nonnegotiable'' issues: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and same-sex marriage. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which formed last year, issued a guide emphasizing church teachings on war, poverty and social justice.

But the bishops urged Catholics to only use voter resources approved by the church.

The document makes clear the broad concerns in Catholic teaching that make it difficult for parishioners to feel fully comfortable with either the Democrats or Republicans.

The bishops say helping the poor should be a top priority in government, providing health care, taking in refugees and protecting the rights of workers, and the bishops highlight the need for environmental protection.

However, they also oppose same-sex marriage, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, in addition to their staunch anti-abortion position.

The prelates say torture is ''always wrong'' and they express ''serious moral concerns'' about ''preventive use of military force.'' But at the last minute Wednesday, they added a sentence acknowledging ''the continuing threat of fanatical extremism and global terror.''

    Catholic Bishops Instruct Voters, NYT, 14.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Catholic-Bishops.html

If Elected ...

Obama Envisions New Iran Approach

November 2, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and JEFF ZELENY

CHICAGO, Oct. 31 — Senator Barack Obama says he would “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran if elected president and would offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek “regime change” if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues.

In an hourlong interview on Wednesday, Mr. Obama made clear that forging a new relationship with Iran would be a major element of a broad effort to stabilize Iraq as he executed a speedy timetable for the withdrawal of American combat troops.

Mr. Obama said that Iran had been “acting irresponsibly” by supporting Shiite militant groups in Iraq. He also emphasized that Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and its support for “terrorist activities” were serious concerns.

But he asserted that Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.

Making clear that he planned to talk to Iran without preconditions, Mr. Obama emphasized further that “changes in behavior” by Iran could possibly be rewarded with membership in the World Trade Organization, other economic benefits and security guarantees.

“We are willing to talk about certain assurances in the context of them showing some good faith,” he said in the interview at his campaign headquarters here. “I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hellbent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior. And there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior.”

In his Democratic presidential bid, Mr. Obama has vigorously sought to distinguish himself on foreign policy from his rivals, particularly Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, by asserting that he would sit down for diplomatic meetings with countries like Iran, North Korea and Syria with no preconditions.

The suggestion, which emerged as a flash point in the campaign, has prompted Mrs. Clinton to question whether such an approach would amount to little more than a propaganda victory for the United States’ adversaries and to question the experience of Mr. Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois. Other Democrats, in turn, have criticized Mrs. Clinton for an approach to Iran they call too hawkish, including a vote for a nonbinding resolution describing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran as a terrorist organization.

Mr. Obama’s willingness to conduct talks at the highest level with Iran also differs significantly from the Bush administration’s approach.

The administration has authorized Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to discuss Iraq with Iranian officials. But the White House has also said it will not engage in high-level talks on other issues unless Iran first suspends its program to enrich uranium. Nor has the Bush administration advertised in detail the possible rewards for a change of Iranian behavior.

Through most of the interview, Mr. Obama spoke without referring to notes. At one point near the end of the session, he leaned forward in his chair and looked at a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, which listed points where he believed he and Mrs. Clinton differ on how to go forward in Iraq.

“You don’t want to look backwards, but obviously our general view about this mission as a whole has been very different,” Mr. Obama said. “She missed the strategic interests that should have dictated whether we went to Iraq in the first place or not.”

Mrs. Clinton has said that after carrying out major troop withdrawals she would leave a residual force in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, battle other terrorist groups, train the Iraqi Army and deter Iranian intervention.

Mr. Obama has also talked about keeping a limited force in Iraq after withdrawing American combat units at the rate of one or two per month. But he insisted in the interview that the mission of his residual force would be more limited than that posited by Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Obama said, for example, that the part of the residual force assigned to counterterrorism might be based outside Iraq. He also emphasized that the residual force would not have the mission of deterring Iranian involvement in Iraq.

He said he would commit to training Iraqi security forces only if the Iraqi government engaged in political reconciliation and did not employ the Iraqi Army and the police for sectarian purposes. In any event, he said, American trainers would not be attached with Iraqi units that go in harm’s way.

“The trainers are going to have to be provided with missions that don’t put them in vulnerable situations,” he said. “Part of what my goal is is that the trainers are not constantly embedded in combat operations.”

Whether such a limited force could effectively influence events in Iraq is an important question. Keeping the part of the force assigned to counterterrorism outside the country raises the issue of whether it could respond in a timely way and without the benefit of the sort of intelligence that is gathered by forces that regularly interact with Iraqi civilians. Nor is it clear how, without keeping some combat forces in the country, the American military might rush to the aid of any trainers if they came under attack.

Mr. Obama acknowledged in the interview that there were “legitimate questions” as to how his concept of a residual force might work, and said he would adjust it if necessary after discussions with senior military leaders.

“As commander in chief, I’m not going to leave trainers unprotected,” he said. “In our counterterrorism efforts, I’m not going to have a situation where our efforts can’t be successful. If the commanders tell me that they need X, Y and Z, in order to accomplish the very narrow mission that I’ve laid out, then I will take that into consideration.”

For all Mr. Obama’s efforts to emphasize an approach that calls for minimal military involvement in Iraq, his plan is in one respect more ambitious than Mrs. Clinton’s. While Mr. Obama said he hoped to withdraw all American combat forces within 16 months of taking office, his plan states that American and allied troops should be prepared to return to Iraq and protect civilians if there were genocidal attacks.

“I do not anticipate that happening, because I think we can execute our withdrawal in an effective way,” he said. “What I am saying is that I as president am obviously going to be mindful of the possibility of humanitarian disaster, and if that were to occur, I am not ruling out that we wouldn’t take steps in concert with other nations — even if it was short term — to ensure that a wholesale disaster did not take place.”

Mr. Obama argued that it was “too speculative” to say if the United States would undertake such action unilaterally or only if allied nations chose to participate.

Other aspects of his policy for the Middle East also remain unclear. Mr. Obama declined to say if he would take military action if Iran did not abandon its presumed nuclear weapons program or if he would settle for a strategy of deterring and containing a nuclear-armed Iran.

“My decision making, with respect to military options versus diplomatic options, a containment strategy versus a strike strategy, is going to be informed by how is that going to impact not just Iran,” he said, “but how is that going to impact the stability of the region and how’s that going to impact our long-term security interests.”

Mr. Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Iraq in January 2006. Asked if that was his last visit, given how much events on the ground have changed since then, he jumped in before the question was finished, saying, “Given how important this is, why haven’t I gone back?”

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “Part of it is that my schedule is such that the trips would be one or two days and would be centered around the Green Zone.”

He added: “I suspect we will be going back. It probably won’t be before Iowa, realistically speaking.” The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 3.

(Mrs. Clinton has been to Iraq three times, her aides said.)

Mr. Obama has implored voters to consider his judgment in foreign policy, reminding audiences at political rallies and in television commercials that he spoke out against the Iraq war from the beginning, two years before he was elected to the Senate. That judgment, he said, would be carried over to selecting people to fill his administration.

He said his views were shaped by his foreign policy advisers, including Richard Danzig, who was Navy secretary under President Bill Clinton; Anthony Lake, a national security adviser in the Clinton administration; Susan E. Rice, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Mr. Clinton; Scott Gration, a retired Air Force major general; and Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, now retired, a former chief of staff of the Air Force.

Asked whom he would appoint as defense secretary or to important national security positions, Mr. Obama said he would consider “the best person, regardless of party.”

Obama Envisions New Iran Approach, NYT, 2.11.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/us/politics/02obama.html