Overhauling

[Chiwas]

June 6, 2005
Senator Clinton Assails Bush and G.O.P. at Campaign Fund-Raiser
By PATRICK D. HEALY

Senator Hillary Clinton castigated President Bush and Washington Republicans today as mad with power and bent on marginalizing Democrats during a speech to 1,000 supporters at her first major re-election fund-raiser, which netted about $250,000.

Mrs. Clinton, who is running for a second term in 2006 and is widely described as a possible Democratic nominee for the presidency in 2008, said that her party is hamstrung because Republicans dissemble and smear without shame and the news media has lost its investigatory zeal for exposing misdeeds.

Left unchallenged, especially if Democrats fail to pick up seats in next year's Congressional elections, she said, Republican leaders could ram through extremist conservative judges, wreck Social Security and make unacceptable concessions to China, Saudi Arabia and other nations that are needed to finance the United States budget deficit.

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Mrs. Clinton described Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even "destroy" the Senate to gain political advantage over the Democratic minority. She also labeled the House of Representatives as "a dictatorship of the Republican leadership," where individual members are all but required to vote in lock-step with the majority's agenda.

Referring to Congress' Republican leadership, she said, "Some honestly believe they are motivated by the truth, they are motivated by a higher calling, they are motivated by, I guess, a direct line to the heavens."

Then, leavening the moment a bit, she referred to reports from the Clinton White House that she would try to channel with a favorite First Lady of the past. "Now, I talk to Eleanor Roosevelt all the time, and she has never said there is any reason to only have one point of view," she said. "But apparently they have a different direct line."

While Mrs. Clinton has sought opportunities in recent months to stake claims to the political center, emphasizing nuances on abortion and immigration that may appeal to some Republicans and conservatives, her speech today was a starkly partisan rallying cry to her troops at a time when at least four New York Republicans are preparing to challenge her in 2006. She did, however, have some kind words for some past Republican presidents - Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush - but only to praise their stabs at bipartisanship and to slight the current President Bush's posture by comparison.

"We can't ever, ever give in to the Republican agenda," she declared. "It isn't good for New York and it isn't good for America."

Abetting the Republicans, she said in some of her sharpest language, is a Washington press corps that has become a pale imitation of the Watergate-era reporters who are being celebrated this month amid the identification of the anonymous Washington Post source, Deep Throat.

"The press is missing in action, with all due respect," she said. "Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.

"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine."

Suggesting some lines of reporting, she asserted that the Bush administration could not account for $9 billion in Coalition Authority spending in Iraq, and that the Food and Drug Administration had allowed religious and political bias to interfere with science-driven decision-making on reproductive drugs.

Mrs. Clinton said she wanted to "move back toward a progressive agenda that will lift up people." The other side, she argued, was pressing retrograde steps like the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown, a California Supreme Court Justice, for a federal appeals court seat. Many Democrats plan to vote against Judge Brown if her nomination comes to the Senate floor as expected this week, taking issue with an array of her court decisions and past remarks, like her once describing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as "the triumph of our own socialist revolution."

"If you read about her, try not to get upset - I had to read about her and it kept me upset for months," Mrs. Clinton said of Judge Brown. "This is a woman who truly sees the world in 19th century terms. You know, during the Clinton administration, we used to talk about building a bridge to the 21st century. This administration wants to build a bridge to the 19th century.

"They want to undo and turn the clock back on the progress of the 20th century, whether it's the right to organize, whether it's the right to be able to have a choice when it comes to the most private and intimate decisions that a woman has to make, whether it is to protect the environment."

A particularly "excruciating test" for the nation's political future, Mrs. Clinton predicted, could come this summer in a showdown over a nominee to the United States Supreme Court, if one or more current members retire.

President Bush "wants to nominate someone, I believe, who will be a confrontational nominee so that he can provide support to his far-right extremist base," Mrs. Clinton said. "And we have to stand as firmly as possible against that."

On a brighter note, she said, Democrats appear to have all but "stopped" President Bush's "scheme" to overhaul Social Security. But she decried his fiscal policies, particularly Republican-backed tax cuts, saying they were ballooning the deficit and ceding "fiscal sovereignty" to countries like China, which are harder to influence when they become "your banker."

[Mavdog]

It appears that Hillary Clinton is not going to have any difficulty in her quest for a second term as NY Senator. The citizens of New York like her perfomance as their Senator, she has a higher approval rating and a lower unfavorable rating than when she was first elected.
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20 May 05
This poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. A total of 900 registered New York voters were interviewed statewide by telephone from May 15-17, 2005. All stated they vote regularly in state elections.Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the state. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter turnout by county. The margin for error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if the entire population were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any sub-group, such as a gender or regional grouping. Past results (1999 and 2000) are from polling conducted for FOX News by Opinion Dynamics Corporation.
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First, I am going to read the names of some people. Please tell me whether
you have a generally favorable or unfavorable of each. If you’ve never heard
of one, please say so.
RECOGNIZE RECOGNIZE RECOGNIZE NEVER
FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE NO OPINION HEARD OF
Bill Clinton 64% 28% 7% -
14-15 Jun 00 54% 40% 6% -
6-7 Oct 99 50% 43% 7% -

Rudy Giuliani 62% 27% 10% -
14-15 Jun 00 53% 36% 10% 1%
6-7 Oct 99 47% 38% 13% 2%

Eliot Spitzer 60% 15% 15% 10%

Hillary Rodham Clinton 57% 33% 10% -
14-15 Jun 00 52% 39% 9% -
6-7 Oct 99 49% 42% 9% -

George Pataki 43% 43% 13% 1%
14-15 Jun 00 57% 28% 12% 3%
6-7 Oct 99 53% 34% 12% 1%

Edward Cox 19% 9% 17% 54%

Jeanine Pirro 11% 11% 14% 63%
FOX News/Mason-Dixon
New York State Poll
2
QUESTION: If the 2006 election for New York’s U.S. Senate seat were held today, for
whom would you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat, and
Rudy Giuliani, the Republican?
15-17 May 05 6-7 Oct 99
CLINTON 53% 47%
GIULIANI 43% 45%
UNDECIDED 4% 8%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for New York’s U.S. Senate seat were held today, for
whom would you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat, and
George Pataki, the Republican?
CLINTON 59%
PATAKI 36%
UNDECIDED 5%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for New York’s U.S. Senate seat were held today, for
whom would you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat, and
Jeanine Pirro, the Republican?
CLINTON 60%
PIRRO 24%
UNDECIDED 16%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for New York’s U.S. Senate seat were held today, for
whom would you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat, and
Edward Cox, the Republican?
CLINTON 58%
COX 25%
UNDECIDED 17%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for governor were held today, for whom would you
vote if the candidates were Eliot Spitzer, the Democrat, and George Pataki, the
Republican?
SPITZER 55%
PATAKI 38%
UNDECIDED 7%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for governor were held today, for whom would
you vote if the candidates were Eliot Spitzer, the Democrat, and Rudy
Giuliani, the Republican?
GIULIANI 50%
SPITZER 42%
UNDECIDED 8%

QUESTION: If the 2006 election for state attorney general were held today, for
whom would you vote if the candidates were Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat, and
Jeanine Pirro, the Republican?
CUOMO 43%
PIRRO 27%
UNDECIDED 30%
3

QUESTION: Thinking ahead, if the 2008 presidential election were held today,
for whom would you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the
Democrat, and Rudy Giuliani, the Republican?
GIULIANI 46%
CLINTON 44%
UNDECIDED 10%

QUESTION: If the 2008 presidential election were held today, for whom would
you vote if the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat, and John
McCain, the Republican?
MCCAIN 42%
CLINTON 41%
UNDECIDED 17%

QUESTION: If the 2008 presidential election were held today, for whom would
you vote if the candidates were John Kerry, the Democrat, and Rudy Giuliani,
the Republican?
GIULIANI 49%
KERRY 42%
UNDECIDED 9%

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as
president?
APPROVE 31%
DISAPPROVE 59%
NOT SURE 10%

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Hillary Rodham Clinton is
doing as New York’s U.S. Senator?
APPROVE 64%
DISAPPROVE 22%
NOT SURE 14%

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of the job George Pataki is doing as
governor?
15-17 May 05 14-15 Jun 00
APPROVE 42% 64%
DISAPPROVE 48% 21%
NOT SURE 10% 15%

QUESTION: Who do you trust more to handle terrorism – Hillary Rodham Clinton
or Rudy Giuliani?
GIULIANI 54%
CLINTON 30%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 4%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 4%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 8%

QUESTION: Who do you trust more to handle the economy – Hillary Rodham Clinton
or Rudy Giuliani?
CLINTON 50%
GIULIANI 40%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 3%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 1%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 6%
4

QUESTION: Who do you trust more to handle social security – Hillary Rodham
Clinton or Rudy Giuliani?
CLINTON 51%
GIULIANI 37%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 1%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 4%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 7%

QUESTION: Who do you consider more honest and trustworthy – Hillary Rodham
Clinton or Rudy Giuliani?
15-17 May 05 6-7 Oct 99
GIULIANI 41% 43%
CLINTON 38% 33%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 7% 5%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 8% 11%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 6% 8%

QUESTION: Who do you consider tougher – Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudy
Giuliani?
15-17 May 05 6-7 Oct 99
GIULIANI 54% 57%
CLINTON 27% 24%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 7% 10%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 1% 2%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 11% 7%

QUESTION: Who do you feel more shares your values – Hillary Rodham Clinton or
Rudy Giuliani?
CLINTON 46%
GIULIANI 43%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 4%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 3%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 4%

QUESTION: Who do you feel is more likeable – Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudy
Giuliani?
GIULIANI 46%
CLINTON 39%
BOTH EQUALLY (NOT READ) 6%
NEITHER (NOT READ) 5%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 4%

QUESTION: Do you think Hillary Rodham Clinton’s positions on the issues are
too liberal, too conservative, or about right?
15-17 May 05 14-15 Jun 00
TOO LIBERAL 30% 26%
TOO CONSERVATIVE 7% 7%
ABOUT RIGHT 52% 48%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 11% 19%

QUESTION: Do you think Rudy Giuliani’s positions on the issues are too
liberal, too conservative, or about right?
TOO LIBERAL 6%
TOO CONSERVATIVE 31%
ABOUT RIGHT 48%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 15%

QUESTION: If Hillary Rodham Clinton runs for re-election to the Senate in
2006, do you feel she should also tell the voters of New York her intentions
for the 2008 presidential race, or not?
YES 65%
NO 29%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 6%

QUESTION: If Senator Clinton is re-elected next year, do you think it would be
fair to the citizens of New York if she then decided to run for president in
2008, or not?
YES 54%
NO 36%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 10%

QUESTION: Regardless of which candidates run for president in 2008, do you
want the state of New York to vote for the Democratic or Republican
presidential candidate?
DEMOCRAT 50%
REPUBLICAN 22%
DEPENDS (NOT READ) 18%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 10%

QUESTION: On the issue of abortion, would you say you are more pro-life or
pro-choice?
15-17 May 05 14-15 Jun 00
PRO-CHOICE 58% 64%
PRO-LIFE 31% 26%
MIXED (NOT READ) 7% 5%
NOT SURE (NOT READ) 4% 5%

[Chiwas]

I received this for my birthday today:



Does she, the friend of mine, know something?