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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Elizabeth Edwards: Hillary Clinton’s health care plan ‘remarkably similar’ to her husband’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, breezed through Atlanta for a fund-raiser on Wednesday — and was kind enough to pick up the phone for some quick conversation.
As her husband John’s chief — and often outspoken — advocate, Ms. Edwards is breaking the mold created for potential First Ladies. Her sharp comments have put her on the cover of this week’s Time magazine.
In her phone call, Ms. Edwards noted an eerie sameness between the health care proposal laid out by Hillary Clinton this week, and the one her husband trotted out this winter.
She doesn’t use the word “plagiarize.” Nor does she speak of copyright infringement. But she does say “mimic.”
And she suggests Clinton might “cave” when it comes to negotiating the details of universal health care.
“I guess you could slip a piece of paper between what Ms. Clinton and what John proposed in February, but that’s about it. It’s remarkably similar,” Ms. Edwards began.
“We’re of course glad to have her company, and to the extent that this is an endorsement of his proposal, we’re happy to have that.
“We hoped, actually, in February that it was going to push all the candidates immediately, to propose [universal coverage]. It’s taken much too long — so you have to wonder where it’s going to come on their agenda, if it comes this late in the political process,” she said.
“I think [Clinton] has said that this is a starting point for negotiations. It makes me think she’s willing to negotiate it back. John is not willing to negotiate universal health care back. That’s a bottom line for him. It’s not a starting point for negotiation,” Ms. Edwards said.
And now you know how she got that spot on Time magazine.
Blogwatch: Sonny Perdue and an SCHIP rerun
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Amy Morton of Georgia Women Vote caught an interesting rerun the other day.
It was a look by the PBS news magazine “Now” at the federal-state program to provide health insurance for children, known nationally as SCHIP and locally as PeachCare.
Don’t feel bad if you missed it the first time it aired back in July — as we did. The program is broadcast locally at 2:30 p.m. each Sunday.
This particular program looked at two children, both from Georgia. One was a teenaged girl with Type 1 diabetes — the kind of diabetes that requires an insulin pump and such. Her father had been laid off, and efforts to get on PeachCare were useless — it was accepting no new clients, because of the fight over the program in Washington.
Gov. Sonny Perdue appears at about the eight-minute mark, and comes across a bit prickly. He’s asked what he would tell the young girl.
Says Perdue:
“We’re doing our part, and the federal part. We’re doing all that we can. To blame us for freezing a part where our federal partners are not fulfilling their obligation is not right — and I won’t accept that blame.
“We’re doing our part. You tell her to call her congressman.”
Says the reporter:
“And I’m sure if I called her and said, ‘Listen, the governor says you should call your member of Congress, she would say, ‘That’s not going to [get] me what I need to survive.’ So the next thing you would say to her would be…..”
Perdue:
“We can do no more. We’re doing the state’s portion and the federal portion. For you to take an individual and want to cast blame on the state of Georgia and me, and what would I do — what would I offer her, I do take offense to that.”
For the record, last week, the governor did put his name to a bipartisan letter urging all sides to calm down and do whatever needs to be done to keep tSCHIP/PeachCare alive.
Fair Tax: 65 down, 35 to go
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fair Tax is back and its top promoter, Duluth Republican Rep. John Linder, said Wednesday that support for the measure has reached an all time high in the House.
By Wednesday, 65 lawmakers had signed on to Linder’s tax bill, which would replace the income tax with a national sales tax, said Linder, the undisputed Little Engine That Could on the issue.
Linder is aiming for 100 co-sponsors before Congress adjourns at the end of 2008 so he can get a hearing and possibly a vote by the full House.
He’s boasting that his perennial tax bill has more co-sponsors “than any other piece of tax reform legislation proposed in over three decades.”
“We have seen extraordinary traction this year, Linder said. “I believe this is just the beginning. I can’t go anywhere anymore without someone asking me how the fair tax is doing.”
Gingrich, Kemp: Republican candidates can’t run from black, Hispanic forums
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich has a few words, in today’s Washington Post, about the lack of enthusiasm that Republican presidential candidates have shown for forums sponsored by blacks or other minorities.
The most recent example is the refusal by Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson to participate in a Tavis Smiley-hosted debate to be aired on PBS on Sept. 27.
“For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error,” Gingrich said. “I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse — this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It’s just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That’s baloney.”
Said Jack Kemp:
“We sound like we don’t want immigration; we sound like we don’t want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do — meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we’re going to be competitive with people of color, we’ve got to ask them for their vote.”
A large but not quite smashing event for Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look for tomorrow’s Barack Obama event to be large, even impressive, but nowhere near the 20,000 who gathered to hear him speak at Georgia Tech last April.
Organizers are expecting somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 to come to the Georgia World Congress Center on Thursday afternoon to see the Democratic candidate, plus Dominique Wilkins, the ex-Hawk, and some fellow named Usher.
They base those expectations on crowds drawn to similar events in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati. Tickets are $15 for students, $25 for everyone else.
Money is a secondary goal at this event. Think about it — the maximum take would be $100K, and really will probably be $60K or less. Work in venue expenses, and that’s not much. The ratio of dollars earned to trouble taken will be much higher at another Thursday event, where tickets start at $1,000.
The GWCC event is an effort to turn enthusiasm about Obama — which skews young — into actual votes on Feb. 5. Historically, whether black, white or Hispanic, voters under 25 are lazy and unreliable. With each donation, Obama’s people get a name, address, phone number and e-mail address, all of which can be used as cattle prods come Georgia’s presidential primary.
And remember that Georgia is close to South Carolina, which votes first.
Pack a few buses in Atlanta, and you can quickly deliver several hundred door-knockers to Greenville and Spartanburg.
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