Medina County Dem News

(Medina County Democratic Action Committee)

MCDAC Newsletter
December 21, 2007
Joyce V. Kimbler,
Editor

Editor's Note

Due to the fact that I will be hospitalized on December 26 for a four to five day period, this week's MCDAC Newsletter was edited on December 24, 2007. If any Democratic candidates or organizations sent us announcements for this week's newsletter after December 24, 2007, they will be included in the next newsletter. Thank you.

Joyce

Happy 2008!

MCDAC wishes you and your family a Happy and Safe 2008! For the county we wish a Democratic victory in the 2008 Presidential election. Just think only 389 days until the nightmare of the Bush Presidency ends.

Letters to the Editor

The MCDAC Newsletter would like to print letters from readers and post those letters to the MCDAC blog. To be considered letters have to be no more than 250 words and contain the writer's first and last name. Please send letters to joycekimbler@medinacountydemocraticactioncommittee.org and put "Letter to Editor" in the subject line. MCDAC reserves the right to reject any letter without a reason being given to the writer.

MCDAC Blog Entries

Below are 10 entries from the MCDAC Blog that were posted since 12.14.2007. To read other entries please go to http://www.mcdac.blogspot.com.

Medina County Voting Patterns by Age Groups

Medina County has 12,821 voters who are between 18-30 years of age. In 2006, 3,626 of them voted and 9,195 didn't vote. Those figures translate to a turn-out of 28.2%. What is interesting is to compare those figures with the age group of 31-50 year olds. In that age group there are 40,370 Medina County voters and 18,095 didn't vote in 2006. That translates into a turn-out of 55.2%, or almost 30 points greater than the 18030 age group.

Neither one of the above two age groups, however, did as good as Medina County voters age 51-65. In that age group there are 29,160 voters and only 8,144 didn't vote in the 2006 election. That translates into a turn-out of 72%. In the 66-86 age group, which did even better, there are 12,658 voters and only 3205 didn't vote, which is a turn-out of 75%.

The interesting things for Medina County Democrats is that based on the 2004 CNN exit poll for Ohio, the group that votes the least is the most likely to vote Democratic. In 2004 the CNN exit poll showed that voters in the 18-29 year old bracket voted for Kerry over Bush by 56-42%, and was the only age group in Ohio to favor Kerry over Bush. The worst age group, by the way, was 65 and older which split for Bush over Kerry by 57 to 43%.

Assuming that the CNN exit poll results for Ohio in general reflect what happened in Medina County in 2004, Medina County Democrats need to focus more attention on younger voters. Every 1000 additional votes out of that age group should result in a Democratic gain of 140 votes over Repubicans. Thus, increasing the turn-out by 5,000 votes in that age group would be worth a net gain of 700 votes. That may seem like a relatively small number until you start doing that all across Ohio. Then the number starts getting more impressive.

Clinton, Edwards, and Obama on Ending the Iraq War

If you are interested in reading how the top three candidates for the Democratic nomination plan to end the Iraq War, here are three links:

Hillary Clinton plan: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/iraq/

John Edwards plan: http://johnedwards.com/issues/iraq/

Barack Obama's plan: http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

Although all three plans call for ending the war, there are distinct differences between the three candidates. This is what Clinton says about taking troops out of Iraq:

The most important part of Hillary's plan is the first: to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration. She would also direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality health care and benefits to every service member -- including every member of the National Guard and Reserves -- and their families.

Here is what Edwards says:

We must show the Iraqis that we are serious about leaving by actually starting to leave, with an immediate withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 troops and a complete withdrawal within nine to ten months. We should leave behind in Iraq only a brigade of 3,500 to 5,000 troops to protect the embassy and possibly a few hundred troops to guard humanitarian workers.

Here is what Barack Obama says:

Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year.

Clinton and Obama seem to allow themselves more flexibility in removing troops than Edwards does. Clinton doesn't mention how many troops should be withdrawn or what kind of troops should be withdrawn. She states that she will develop a plan within 60 days of taking office, but doesn't say how long it would take to redeploy out of Iraq. Further she doesn't state how many troops she envisions in Iraq after such redeployment. Arguably her plan would result in no American troops left in Iraq, but she doesn't commit to that result.

Obama says that he will withdraw troops that are engaged in combat and that such troops would be out within a year of the implementation of the plan, but doesn't say how many troops will remain in Iraq after the "combat troops" are withdrawn. Again, arguably, the number of troops would be relatively small, since they wouldn't be "combat troops" but it could also be that under his plan there would be thousands of troops left in bases in Iraq, but they wouldn't be engaged in combat.

Edwards, however, sets forth a timetable of 9-10 months and at the end of the process to withdraw almost all the troops from Iraq and at the end of the process envisions a brigade left in Iraq plus a few hundred additional troops to guard aid workers.

To read more about the three plans, click on the links above.

Feds Reject Ohio Plan to Epand Kids' Health Coverage

The Toledo Blade has a story dated Saturday, December 21, 2007, on how the Bush Administration has rejected Ohio's bi-partisan to expand health insurance for working families. This plan, which was in the Governor's budget which passed with only one negative vote, would have expanded health insurance coverage for families up to $62,000 in family income. The Bush Administration announced this rejection with a one-sentence explanation and refused any other requests for more information.

This means that the Bush administration is not only fighting the Democratic Congress in its efforts to expand S-CHIP but is also fighting the efforts of states like New York and Ohio to use state money and federal money to insure children. This is, of course, in keeping with Bush's philosophy of trying to get uninsured children into private health insurance plans as opposed to using government funded plans. Never mind, of course, that such insurance plans are prohibitively expensive and don't really exist for working families. It's more important to Bush and his radical right-wing allies to fight for a philosophy than actually see uninsured children insured for medical purposes.

Ohioans need to recognize that Ohio can't depend on Washington to solve this problem for us. It is possible that a Democratic President will get elected and that S-CHIP will be expanded in early 2009, but it is certainly not a certainty. That's why SPAN-Ohio, which stands for Single Payer Action Network is working for a universal health insurance plan in Ohio. If you are interested in their efforts, go to www.spanohio.org. You will find ways to get involved in this struggle.

So What is the Iraq War End Game?

On December 18, 2007, the United States Senate voted on an amendment offered by Senator Russ Feingold, (D-WI), to re-deploy United States troops out of Iraq. The amendment failed by a vote of 71 to 24, with 71 Senators voting against it and 24 Senators voting for it. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio backed the Feingold amendment, but Senator George Voinovich voted against it. So here's our question for George Voinovich and the other 70 Senators who voted against the Feingold amendment: How much longer do you see us in Iraq? Here's another question: How much more are you willing to spend to keep American troops in Iraq?

Those two questions are very seldom asked by reporters covering this war. Bush is allowed to get away with trite sayings like, "We will stand down as the Iraqis stand up", whatever the hell that means. No one wants to talk about how longer American troops will have to stay in Iraq or how much more money Bush's war will cost this country.

If Bush would have told the American people that his Iraq War would cost over 3,000 American lives, over half a trillion dollars in taxpayer money, and would last over five years, the support for his war would have measured in single digits. It was only because he and his administration basically promised a cakewalk that he got Americans to support his war. It was only because of the stupidity of the Kerry campaign ("I voted for the resolution before I voted against it) that he got re-elected. This war was sold to the American public by lies and is being maintained not because it has the support of the American people, but because the Republican members of the Congress put loyalty to Bush ahead of the desires of the American public.

So, this is no longer just George Bush's war, it is now George Voinovich's war. Ohioans need to ask Senator Voinovich just how much longer he is prepared to support keeping American troops in Iraq and just how much money he is willing to spend to keep American troops in Iraq. All that is needed now is a way to ask those questions, since it is pretty obvious that the media won't ask tough questions of this war's supporters.

Dems Should Not Act as if They Were Defeated

Huffington Post has this headline up: "Defeated Dems Limp Out of Washington". The sub-headline is "Congressional Majority Fails to Alter Bush War Plans." The two headlines contain links to articles by the BBC and the Washington Post. If you actually read the two articles, however, a different picture emerges.

The Washington Post article points out the following:

Of the six initiatives on the their "Six for '06" agenda, congressional Democrats sent five to the president and got his signature on four: a minimum-wage increase, implementation of the homeland security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, college cost reduction, and an energy measure that requires conservation and the expanded use of renewable sources of energy. Federal funding for stem cell research was vetoed by Bush.

The BBC article points out that originally Bush wanted 190 billion for his Iraq War and he got 70 billion. Clearly getting less than 50% of what he wanted is no great victory for Bubble-Boy and the Duck Hunter.

Given the facts, then why is Huffington Post depicting what happened in 2007 as "defeat" for the Democratic leadership? The reason is pretty simple: Huffington Post depends on stirring up progressives to get people to come to its website. People coming to the website brings in more advertising revenue, which makes the site profitable. Therefore, like Rush Limbaugh on talk radio, it has a financial interest in keeping its readers ticked off.

Are we saying that 2007 was a great year for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? No, but we are saying that it is a lot better than progressive websites want to recognize. And, it is a hell of a lot better than what would have happened if Republicans had kept control of Congress.

Great Newsweek Article on why Fear Works in Political Ads

Newsweek has an interesting article in this week's edition, which deals with why appeals to fear and anger work better in political ads than appeals to reason. This is a quote from the article:

Fear makes people more likely to go to the polls and vote, which reflects the power of negative emotions in general. "Negative emotions such as fear, hatred and disgust tend to provoke behavior more than positive emotions such as hope and happiness do," says Harvard Universitypsychology researcher Daniel Gilbert. Perhaps paradoxically, the power of fear to move voters can be most easily understood when it fails to—that is, when an issue lacks the ability to strike terror in citizens' hearts. Global warming is such an issue. Yes, Hurricane Katrina was a terrifying example of what a greenhouse world would be like, and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" scared some people into changing their light bulbs to energy-miserly models. But barely 5 percent of voters rank global warming as the issue that most concerns them. There is little public clamor to spend the kind of money that would be needed to change our energy mix to one with a smaller carbon footprint, or to make any real personal sacrifices.

If you are interested in the interaction between politics and the biology of the brain, check out this article.

Huffington Post Reports NYC Mayor Bloomberg and GOP Sen. Hagel Talking

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein has a story up that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel are holding private conversations, presumably about running for president/vice-president on an independent ticket. If that was to happen, Bloomberg would be free to use his billions of dollars to finance such a campaign. There have been reports in the past that he would use up to one billion of his own money to run for president.

Such a move, if it happens, will probably spell doom for the GOP ticket in a presidential election. It brings to mind Perot's independent run for president in 1992, which got around 18% of the total vote. Although Republicans like to argue that Perot was responsible for Clinton's victory, the truth is much more complicated. According to polls taken on election day, Perot's support came equally from both Bush and Clinton and Perot's effect was to deny Clinton a majority of the vote. This led to Bob Dole questioning the legitimacy of Clinton's victory on election night and helped fuel GOP efforts to derail the Clinton Presidency from the start.

Such a result could happen again in 2008 in the sense that a serious Bloomberg run for the presidency would mean that Republicans would be competing with Bloomberg for the votes of white men, a constituency that is vital for Republican success. In 2004, according to the CNN exit poll, Bush took 62% of the white male vote and that vote accounted for 36% of the total vote. Kerry took 27% of the white male vote. Given the fact that Bush only won by 3% nationally, competition for that vote with Bloomberg would probably make it impossible for the Republican nominee to win the Presidency against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards.

Another interesting thing about Bloomberg running would be that if either Obama or Clinton were the Democratic nominee, you would have a person who is Jewish, a woman or an Afro-American, and a white Christian male running for President. It would be a very historic election.

All in all, a Bloomberg-Hagel ticket probably ensures the defeat of the Republican nominee and puts a Democrat in the White House.

Senator Sherrod Brown Co-Sponsors Diabetes Bill

One of the real passions that drives Senator Sherrod Brown is a concern for improving the health care of Americans. His interest in this area is long-standing. It started early in his life since his Dad was a family doctor in the Mansfield area. While he was in the United States House, he took the lead on trying to get the Federal Government to do more on breast cancer. Now that he is in the United States Senate, he is taking on diabetes care and treatment.

Ohio.com has an article up its website dated Friday, December 14, 2007 about Senator Brown working with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to pass the Catalyst to Better Diabetes Care Act, which he plans to introduce with Coryn. The reason why this caught the attention of Ohio.com is that since 2000 only two other counties in Ohio have had as big a jump in diabetes cases as Summit County. Those counties are Mahoning County and Montgomery County.

What's interesting about Brown working with Cornyn is that Cornyn is a very conservative Republican from the very red state of Texas. Yet, Brown is able to work with him on this very important piece of legislation. Sometimes we get so caught up in the partisan bickering in Washington that we don't realize that there are many issues which cut across partisan lines. Diabetes treatment is apparently one of them. Both Senators Brown and Cronyn deserve our thanks for working together on this legislation.

How About a Democratic Approach to Income Taxes? Lower Rates, Treat All Income the Same

One of the things that is puzzling is the failure of the Democrats in Congress to get behind Senator Ron Wyden's plan for income tax reform. Basically what Wyden is proposing is that the current six rates of taxation be changed to three rates; that all income be treated the same; and that most deductions, exemptions, credits, etc. be eliminated. Wyden's plan would keep the home mortgage interest deduction, the charitable contribution deduction, and the credits for education and earned income.

This plan is fair and would end the discrepancy in way that earned income is treated from unearned income. Although Bush and his Republican allies claim to value work and working families, their claim is hollow given the fact that the highest tax rate for unearned income is 15%, compared to the top rate of 35% for the highest income tax brackets.

This plan is also a way to fight the Bush propaganda on issues such as the alternate minimum income tax. Congressional Democrats want to minimize the impact of that particular tax, but to do so, they wanted to raise the income tax on hedge fund managers, whose income is taxed at the same rate as investment income. Bush and the Republicans won't support this concept because they want to help their rich business allies. They are able to get away with this, though, because they just announce their opposition to raising taxes and count on the media not to explain to the public whose taxes would be raised.

This kind of deliberate confusion would be harder to do if the Democrats adopted a comprehensive approach to taxes such as Senator Wyden is proposing. Such an approach would get attention from the media and would be easy to explain to voters. Why Democratic candidates running for president aren't jumping on Wyden's tax plan is hard to figure. Maybe they like being beat over the head by the Repubicans on taxes.

Edwards Polls Best Against Republicans, Ignored by Mediaz

Joshua Holland, in an article for Alternet.org, argues that John Edwards is the best candidate that the Democrats can nominate. He bases this argument on several polls which show that consistently Edwards beats all Republicans by the widest margins. The question then becomes: Why isn't Edwards getting much more media attention, given his relative strength in the polls?

Holland blames it on what he calls the "usual shoddy political journalism" that we get from most of our print and electronic media. He apparently believes that this "shoddy" journalism is a result of the media's fascination with process stories like who has raised the most money, has the most endorsements, and put together the most impressive organization.

Something else could also be at work and that is the fact that the nomination of either Clinton or Obama would be historic. No major political party in the United States has ever nominated either a woman or an African-American for president. Having the top two contenders be either a woamn or an African-American is, by definition, "news."

On the other hand, a major political party nominating a white male from the South for president is not news. It has been going on every since the development of the political party system in the U.S. Such a story has no political sex appeal. Therefore, there is not a lot of political journalists wanting to write or broadcast that story.

Newsletter prepared by:
Medina County Democratic Action Committee
Joyce Kimbler, Treasurer
P.O. Box 1213
Medina, OH 44258
MCDAC Website