The Weekly's, Phil Dawdy reports on Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske getting very involved in the presidential election:
"...but just as unusual and possibly more significant has been Kerlikowske's recent and frequent national advocacy. Kerlikowske has emerged as a chief critic of the federal government and the Bush administration, even serving as a spokesperson for John Kerry's presidential bid. On ABC's Nightline, he dinged the feds for not compensating local law enforcement for the shift of personnel from the streets to fighting terrorism. His sharpest criticism has been for the GOP-controlled Congress, which last week allowed the 10-year-old federal assault weapons ban to lapse. Kerlikowske was one of the prime advocates for the 1994 ban, when he was police commissioner of Buffalo. He debated a National Rifle Association official last week on PBS's NewsHour. Perhaps no one should be surprised that the chief is critical of the Bushies; in the late 1990s, under the Clinton administration, Kerlikowske was deputy director of community policing programs at the Department of Justice. But some eyebrows rose when, on Sept. 13, the chief took part in a national conference call on behalf of Kerry's campaign 'to discuss George W. Bush's wrong choices on crime,' as a campaign statement put it. A spokesperson for the Bush campaign says that police chiefs, retired and active, have made campaign appearances for Dubya. But a spokesperson for the Kerry campaign couldn't name another instance of a top cop hitting the hustings for the senator. Kerlikowske did not respond to requests for comment."
David Postman reports that Washington business groups have sent an angry letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, scolding the mega business lobby for sponsoring negative ads against Deborah Senn in last week's attorney general primary, and then trying to hide the fact that they sponsored the ads. People who followed the AG race seem to agree the ads backfired and worked in Senn's favor.
The letter: "Washingtonians don't like surprises or what they perceive as outside interference."
Oregon
Republicans are again concerned about potential fraud with Oregon's mail-in ballots, The Oregonian reports.
The Oregonian also reports on early voters, which both parties are trying to lock up now.
Alaska
Bear-baiting is the big issue in Alaska this morning, the Anchorage Daily News reports:
"A group that wants to ban the controversial practice of bear baiting says the official state election pamphlet contains lies and misinformation about Ballot Measure 3 that were placed there by ban opponents, including U.S. Rep. Don Young."
More: "Citizens United Against Bear Baiting says its opponents wrongly link it with radical Outside animal rights groups, overstate the penalties for breaking the proposed new law and inflate the law's effect on wildlife management. On Tuesday, the group asked the state to stop publication of the booklets.
But while opponents of the ban stood behind the wording, it was a moot point -- more than 300,000 pamphlets had been printed, said Division of Elections director Laura Glaiser. They are to go in the mail Oct. 11.
And even had there been time for changes, Glaiser said, her agency cannot be expected to fact-check the information provided by candidates and groups for dozens of political races and ballot measures. Whatever they deliver is what the election pamphlet contains, she said.
'I understand their concern,' Glaiser said. 'All I can say is, how many people do I hire to check and recheck every candidate's statement, every birth date, every address?' "
You said it, sister.
National
The New York Times has two good stories. First, John Kerry is losing among women, according to some polls. That's really bad news for him, as Bill Clinton and Al Gore won their popular races by winning big margins among women. That's why Kerry was on Regis and not-Kathy Lee, trying to attract women now known as "security moms" -- soccer moms now terrified of terrorist attack. The Times reports that The Fear affects women who don't live in areas where terrorists are expected to attack. These women trust Bush more to protect them.
The Times also reports that after his speech at NYU Monday, John Kerry has laid out a starkly contrasting view of the situation in Iraq as that painted by President Bush. Bush partisans had thought that every day the campaign narrative was about Iraq was a victory day for them, but after three Republican senators came out Sunday using words like "incompetence," and given all the bad headlines, they're no longer so sure.
But the plan has risks for Kerry as well, because he has to explain his confusing votes and shifting statements about the war.
He voted to authorize, but against the supplemental $87 billion in funding, and then said he'd still vote to authorize knowing what we know now: no weapons, etc.
Also, The Times reports that CBS News says the producer on the fake Bush National Guard docs story broke policy by tipping off the Kerry campaign about the story and connecting the source of the docs with Joe Lockhart, Kerry's chief strategist. Lockhart says he took advice from the source, and nothing more.
The Guard story is now totally neutralized. Advantage: Bush/Cheney.
Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, born Stephen Georgiou, has been deported, for alleged terrorist associations. He once supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
Truly is a wild world these days.
(Thanks to reader MJC for the tip.)
And, finally, we nearly forgot, we went to maybe the bluest event you can possibly imagine last night: Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham speaking at Town Hall. Lapham thinks the country is going off the deep end, wealth taken from the "union of the poor" and given to the "confederacy of the rich," liberties eroded, fear exploited. And so on.
The highlight must have been the woman standing outside with a sign that read "Need One Ticket." When a guy tried to unload a ticket on her, she said she needed a free ticket.
What is this, a Dead show? we thought to ourselves. Hardly, though Jerry had a hacking smoker's cough not unlike Lapham's.
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