The Votes That Really Count

From property rights to abortion, a look at the key issues being decided in referendums and initiatives on Nov. 7.


For all the money, advertising time and media attention that congressional races generate, few of their outcomes will directly impact people's lives nearly as much as ballot measures will. In addition to electing representatives to go to Washington, voters across the country will also have their say on more than 200 ballot initiatives, proposals and referendums. The topics range from the mundane, like a legislative referendum on fishing and hunting in Georgia, to divisive national issues like the referendum to reject an anti-abortion law passed earlier this year in South Dakota.

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The Votes That Really Count



From property rights to abortion, a look at the key issues being decided in referendums and initiatives on Nov. 7
.

For all the money, advertising time and media attention that congressional races generate, few of their outcomes will directly impact people's lives nearly as much as ballot measures will. In addition to electing representatives to go to Washington, voters across the country will also have their say on more than 200 ballot initiatives, proposals and referendums. The topics range from the mundane, like a legislative referendum on fishing and hunting in Georgia, to divisive national issues like the referendum to reject an anti-abortion law passed earlier this year in South Dakota.

Following are a few of the ballot issues that will be eagerly watched around the nation.

PROPERTY RIGHTS:

According to the National Council of State Legislatures, property rights will be the most debated issue being decided this election season, having garnered the attention of voters in 12 states, several of them dealing specifically with regulatory taking, eminent domain and in some cases both. The issue grew large after the landmark Supreme Court decision of Kelo v. City of New London, in which the High Court found that government can take private property and give it to a development interest so long as the community can enjoy some economic benefit. The 2005 decision has since found a host of critics, who eventually built a strong enough coalition supporting owners rights to bring it to the state initiative arena.

The Kelo decision awoke a sleeping tiger, says Leonard Gilroy, a senior policy analyst with the Reason Foundation, a public policy research nonprofit. People realized their property rights werent fixed. When you look at whats happened to property rights over the last 100 years there has been a fundamental erosion of property rights. That happens all the time, and the problem is that landowners are not compensated for those impacts.

States Voting: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Lousiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington.

GAY MARRIAGE:

Close behind, and perhaps more emotionally charged, is the same-sex marriage debate. Eight states will decide on how to define marriage, whether to prohibit similar legal status, and in Colorado, create domestic partnerships. Kansas and Texas decided last year that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. Earlier this year, Alabama passed a legislative referendum that prohibited the state from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, or even recognizing same sex licenses issued in other states. In 2004, a total of 13 states passed same-sex marriage bans, and the ballot measures themselves were credited with helping to boost Republican turnout in a presidential election year.

Although there were more states making this choice in 2004, the New Jersey Supreme Courts October ruling that the state must give gay couples the same legal rights as straight couples has brought more attention to the upcoming votes. But some say it wont make a difference in the minds of voters who are convinced one way or the other.

Im not sure [the New Jersey ] decision will have much impact in changing the voting, says Pamela Johnston Conover, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she warns that how voters do choose, based on the language on the ballots, could have a far-reaching effect effect on legal rights for same-sex couples. Most of the ballots have components that go beyond the marriage issue. If passed, they have the potential to have a more wide-sweeping impact on gay and lesbian couples than the ballot initiatives that only look at same sex marriage.

States Voting: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin.

SMOKING:

Continuing an ongoing series of appearances in the political and legal arena, tobacco will again be on the minds and ballots of voters in seven states. Choices will range from statewide smoking bans to cigarette and tobacco taxes and even decisions on how to use the money won in the 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement, which are expected to amount to $246 billion over a 25-year period.

Arizona, Ohio and Nevada have the more interesting smoking ban initiatives because voters will have to choose between competing proposals. **Some are sponsored by organizations representing hotels, casinos and restaurants because they are less restrictive and accommodate gamblers who do smoke. Others are represented by health care interests. But to date, only Florida and Washington have approved statewide smoking bans. California rejected the measure in both 1978 and 1994.

Meanwhile, Florida and Idaho will be deciding on what to do with the tobacco settlement revenues. The former will choose whether or not to dedicate 15 percent of the money to a tobacco education and prevention fund. The latter would choose if the state should create a new endowment fund that would receive 80% of the settlement money and support schools and higher education and give the remaining 20% to the Idaho Millennium Fund, which will finance tobacco prevention and treatment programs.

Lastly, following the path of 15 other states, voters in four states will decide on increasing taxes on tobacco products to help benefit health care programs. If history is any guide, the proposals will pass easily. No proposed tobacco tax increase has failed to pass in any state since 1994.

States Voting: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota.

MINIMUM WAGE:

Six states will choose whether to create increases above the federal minimally required wage of $5.15 per hour. Each of the ballot proposals provide for an increase based on annual inflation.

The ballots will allow for raises of hourly wages ranging from $6.15 to $6.85, except in Nevada, where voters can choose to hold it at $5.15 per hour, provided the employer offers health benefits. Advocates of minimum wage increases believe that the vote could well set the precedent for a new federal increase next year, though opponents continue to insist that raising the wage will hurt businesses, and as a result, slow job growth.

Part of what is driving the initiative is that the minimum wage is at its lowest real value in over 50 years, says Liana Fox, economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that focuses on economic issues. Due to federal inaction, were seeing the lowest buying power in a long time.

Fox says more than 1.5 million workers would benefit from a minimum wage increase, as well as 652,000 children, with a cost increase for businesses at less than 1%. She explains that if the initiatives passed in all six states, 70% of the U.S. workforce would live in states that require a minimum wage above the federal level. Thus, it's no surprise that candidates from both parties have aligned themselves with the issue.

You hear candidates talking about it because its such a long overdue issue, says Fox.

States Voting: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio.

ABORTION:

Abortion has only shown up on three state ballots in this year, but one of them is particularly high profile. In South Dakota citizens will vote to repeal a law passed in February that bans all abortions, except in cases where the mother's life is threatened (legislators voted against amendments that provided exemptions for women who became preganant through rape or incest). If voters choose to keep the law, challenges to its constitutionality are expected, quite possibly all the way to the Supreme Court. That is exactly what the law's backers, who want it to serve as a test case to try and overturn Roe v. Wade now that the court has two new conservative justices, had in mind when they drafted it.

Two other states are also considering abortion measures, but only to decide on requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed.

States Voting: South Dakota, California, Oregon.

MARIJUANA:

Marijuana has found a way to roll itself up in the ballot vote again. This time Nevada and Colorado will decide if an ounce of pot should be legal for personal use for people 21 and older, similar to laws in some European countries. South Dakota will consider legalizing it for medical use.

In fact, the issue has spread statewide across Colorado after an initiative in Denver was successful. If the proposal carries in any of the three states, it would push the question of across-the- board legalization to the national forefront. However, many opponents maintain that marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances that, if pot is legalized, would easily find its way into the hands of minors.

States Voting: Colorado, Nevada, South Dakota.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:

Finally, in what could be a major decision in a vicious fight that swept through California and Washington State in the late '90s driven by African American businessman Ward Connerly, Michigan will decide if it wants to amend the state constitution to eliminate affirmative action in public institutions for educational, employment and contracting purposes.

Behind the initiative is Jennifer Gratz, who in 1997 sued the University of Michigan for discrimination after being denied admission as an undergraduate. The case went to the Supreme Court, which found in her favor, but said that affirmative action could be be applied in education as long as schools didn't use a strict points-based quota policy. She is now executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, the group that began the push for the referendum in 2003. Connerly has reportedly contributed $450,000 of the $2 million it has raised.

However, a host of organizations and individuals, from the League of Women Voters to Michigan State University basketball coach Tom Izzo, have banded together to fight the initiative. The battle could be brutal because opponents have already vowed to try to block its implementation, if the proposal is approved by voters through the court system.

Organizations and individuals are using initiatives like this to accomplish policy change, says Jeannie Bowser, policy analyst with the National Council of State Legislatures. She noted, If it passes, it may be an indication of a change in public attitudes.

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Campaigne 06 - The Tipping Point Races

Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.


Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)


After a bruising final spate of campaigning that included half a dozen debates, a major push by both parties to court women and rural voters, and ads by Michael J. Fox for McCaskill and a host of celebrities for Talent, the Missouri Senate race remains deadlocked.

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Inside the President's Strategy, Win or Lose

chambers. But Bush's aides have begun signaling his plans to deal with a Congress that, regardless of the midterm outcome, is certain to include fewer Republicans.


Reporters keep asking White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about President George W. Bush's "contingency plans" if Democrats were to win the House and/or Senate in today's midterm elections. Snow has been patiently explaining for weeks that no such formal plans are being made, since the President expects Republicans to defy the pundits and win both. Another top aide said, "If you

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Today in history - Nov. 7

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 7, the 311th day of 2006. There are 54 days left in the year. This is Election Day.


Today's Highlight in History:


On Nov. 7, 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.


On this date:


In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in "Harper's Weekly."


In 1893, the state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote.


In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.

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The Case For Dividing Iraq




With the country descending into civil war, a noted diplomat and author argues why partition may be the U.S.'s only exit strategy.

Iraq is broken.

Iraq's national-unity government is not united and does not govern. Iraqi security forces, the centerpiece of the U.S.'s efforts for stability, are ineffective or, even worse, combatants in the country's escalating civil war. President George W. Bush says the U.S.'s goal is a unified and democratic Iraq, but we have no way to get there. As Americans search for answers, there is one obvious alternative: split Iraq into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite states.

The case for the partition of Iraq is straightforward: It has already happened. The Kurds, a non-Arab people who live in the country's north, enjoy the independence they long dreamed about. The Iraqi flag does not fly in Kurdistan, which has a democratically elected government and its own army. In southern Iraq, Shi'ite religious parties have carved out theocratic fiefdoms, using militias that now number in the tens of thousands to enforce an Iranian-style Islamic rule. To the west, Iraq's Sunni provinces have become chaotic no-go zones, with Islamic insurgents controlling Anbar province while Baathists and Islamic radicals operate barely below the surface in Salahaddin and Nineveh. And Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, is now partitioned between the Shi'ite east and the Sunni west. The Mahdi Army, the most radical of the Shi'ite militias, controls almost all the Shi'ite neighborhoods, and al-Qaeda has a large role in Sunni areas. Once a melting pot, Baghdad has become the front line of Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite war, which is claiming at least 100 lives every day.

Most Iraqis do not want civil war. But they have rejected the idea of a unified Iraq. In the December 2005 national elections, Shi'ites voted overwhelmingly for Shi'ite religious parties, Sunni Arabs for Sunni religious or nationalist parties, and the Kurds for Kurdish nationalist parties. Fewer than 10% of Iraq's Arabs crossed sectarian lines. The Kurds voted 98.7% for independence in a nonbinding referendum.

Iraq's new constitution, approved by 80% of Iraq's voters, is a road map to partition. The constitution allows Iraq's three main groups to establish powerful regions, each with its own government, substantial control over the oil resources in its territory and even its own regional army. Regional law supersedes federal law on almost all matters. The central government is so powerless that, under the constitution, it cannot even impose a tax.

American leaders seem to be in denial about these facts. President Bush continually asserts that the Iraqi people have voted for unity, while Condoleezza Rice once told me how impressed she was by the commitment of the Iraqi Kurds to building a new Iraq. James A. Baker III, co-chairman of a congressionally mandated commission tasked with formulating new policy options, has ruled out the idea of dividing Iraq. The most prominent American politician to endorse anything resembling partition is Senator Joseph Biden, who, along with former Council on Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, proposes dividing Iraq into three regions while maintaining a "central government in charge of common interests."

U.S. officials are now asking that Iraqis agree to a program of national reconciliation, changes in the constitution to protect Sunni interests, and an oil law that would share revenues equitably. It's instructive that this initiative aimed at unifying Iraq comes from Americans and not the country's elected leaders. A U.S. effort to put Iraq back together would involve endless micromanagement of Iraqi affairs and an open-ended presence of large numbers of U.S. troops. Breaking up Iraq, on the other hand, could provide an exit strategy for U.S. troops, mitigate the worst effects of civil war and give all Iraqis a greater stake in shaping their future. Few Americans imagined that 3 1/2 years after "liberating" Iraq, the U.S. would be presiding over the country's demise. But in a war in which there have never been good options, partition is the best we have left.

Iraq has never been a voluntary union of its peoples. Winston Churchill, as Britain's Colonial Secretary, created Iraq from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, installing a Sunni Arab King to rule over the Shi'ite majority and a rebellious Kurdish minority. Churchill later described Iraq's forced unity as one of his biggest mistakes. In 2003 the U.S. not only unseated the last and most brutal of Iraq's tyrants but also destroyed the institutions--notably the army and the Baath Party--that held Iraq together. The sectarian slaughter that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra accelerated Iraq's disintegration.

Nonetheless, the U.S. continues to cling to the illusion of Iraqi unity. President Bush's hopes for success in Iraq depend on two pillars: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's national-unity government and the establishment of security forces that are trusted and respected by all Iraqis. But both are shams. Al-Maliki leads a religious Shi'ite coalition that includes parties that operate the death squads that kill scores of Sunnis each day. While he says illegal militias should be disbanded, he has vigorously resisted every U.S. operation against them. The Sunnis in Iraq's government are, if anything, even more extreme. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the Speaker of the Council of Representatives and Iraq's highest-ranking Sunni, has been closely associated with Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that has targeted Shi'ites and secular Iraqis. He has blamed Iraq's problems on the Jews and has said statues should be erected to those who kill American troops. President Bush has lavishly praised both al-Mashhadani and al-Maliki, but flattery has not produced statesmanship. The real problem is that they reflect the views of their respective communities, which voted overwhelmingly for them.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials speak of Iraq's army and police as if they were neutral guarantors of public safety. Iraqis see them for what they are: Shi'ites or Sunnis who are active combatants in Iraq's civil war. Shi'ite police units have kidnapped, tortured and executed thousands of Sunnis since the Samarra bombing. Sunni policemen are often insurgents or sympathizers. The army, while marginally better than the police, is divided along sectarian lines and is largely ineffective. Whole battalions do not show up for combat duties they don't like. It is not possible to build a national army or police force when there is no nation to begin with.

So what can be done? The most realistic option is for the U.S. to abandon the idea of creating a new, united Iraq and instead allow the country to break apart, enabling each of the country's three groups to choose its own government and provide for its own security. It is possible that Sunni and Shi'ite regions would remain together in a loose confederation, but Kurdistan's full independence is almost certainly a matter of time.

Partition is an Iraqi solution. The U.S. could help make it go more smoothly, but it mostly needs to get out of the way. The Kurds already have their region. Last month Iraq's parliament approved a law to allow the Shi'ites to merge Iraq's nine southern provinces into a single state. The one group that resists dividing Iraq is the Sunnis, some out of nostalgia for the days when they ran the country and others because they reject all that has happened since Saddam's overthrow. But with the Kurds and Shi'ites having their regions, partition becomes an accomplished fact. It is hard to see any alternative for the Sunnis except to do the same.

In fact, the Sunnis may have the most to gain from partition. The Sunni insurgency feeds on popular hostility not just to the Americans but to a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government. Most Sunnis don't support al-Qaeda and its imitators, but they often prefer them to Iraqi security forces, which are seen as complicit in the killings of Sunnis. If the Sunnis were to establish their own region, they could have an army and provide for their own security. Since Iraq's known oil fields are in the Shi'ite south and the Kurdish north, the Sunnis do have reason to fear being stuck in the middle with no resources of their own. So, for partition to work, the Kurds and Shi'ites would have to guarantee the Sunnis a proportionate share of Iraq's oil revenues for a period of time, as they have already agreed to do. Over the long term, exploration for oil in the largely unexplored Sunni areas provides the region its best prospect for revenues.

We should have no illusions: partitioning Iraq would not be easy. Some groups would resist bloodily. But the adverse consequences of partition have already occurred. There's no reason to believe that formalizing Iraq's breakup would make anything worse--in fact, it might even help contain the violence. It's useful to outline the three main arguments raised against partition and explain why none are as convincing as their proponents portray them to be:

The sectarian bloodbath will get worse. Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite civil war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and forced Sunnis and Shi'ites to abandon coexistence. This is tragic and certainly not what most Iraqi Shi'ites or Sunnis want. But once under way, civil wars tend to empower the most extreme elements. Civil wars do not end because the parties get tired of fighting. Rather, they end because of outside intervention or, more often, because one side wins. Partition will not stop the sectarian cleansing in mixed areas, but by giving Shi'ites and Sunnis their own regions, it can avoid an outcome in which Iraq's more numerous Shi'ites completely crush the Sunnis.

Iran will dominate the Shi'ite south. Iran's Iraqi allies already dominate Shi'ite southern Iraq. If the U.S. were serious about countering Iran's influence, U.S. troops would have to forcefully disarm the Shi'ite militias and dismantle the southern theocracies. But this would mean taking on a whole new enemy in Iraq and also require committing more troops. The Bush Administration has no intention of doing either. Right now, Iran's allies control both the central government in Baghdad and the south. Partition would limit Iran's influence to the southern half of Iraq.

A divided Iraq will be destabilizing to Iraq's neighbors. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors all fear the destabilizing consequences of partition. But they fear an Iran-dominated Iraq even more. Turkey, Iraq's other powerful neighbor, has a population that includes at least 14 million Turkish Kurds. The Turkish nightmare has been the emergence of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq. But now that it is actually happening, Turkey has responded pragmatically: it is by far the largest source of investment in Iraqi Kurdistan and has cultivated close relations with its leaders. As Turkey's more sophisticated strategic thinkers understand, Turkey and an independent Kurdistan have a lot in common. Both are secular, pro-Western, democratic and non-Arab. Not only will Kurdistan depend on Turkey economically, but it can serve as a useful buffer to an Iran-dominated Islamic Iraq.

For many Americans, the biggest appeal of partition is that it makes possible a relatively rapid U.S. exit from much of Iraq. If U.S. goals no longer include preserving national unity or establishing Western-style democracy, there is no need for U.S. troops in the Shi'ite south or Baghdad. We would leave behind a civil war and an Iran-dominated south, but that outcome would be no different if we were to stay with the current force levels and mission. One overriding interest in Iraq, however, is still achievable: that Iraq's Sunni areas not become a base from which al-Qaeda and its allies might attack the West. With the security that comes from having their own region, the Sunnis might deal more effectively with the terrorist threat, since continuing violence would prevent economic progress in the Sunni areas. While local leaders are now unwilling to fight the most radical elements of the insurgency when the beneficiary is Iraq's Shi'ites, they may be more willing to do so when it benefits them.

The U.S. will still need an insurance policy against the threat of al-Qaeda in western Iraq. This could be accomplished by deploying a small force to Kurdistan, from which the U.S. could readily move back into the adjacent Sunni areas if necessary to disrupt al-Qaeda operations. This force would discharge a moral debt to the Kurds who fought on our side and could help consolidate democracy in the one part of Iraq that turned out as we hoped.

American administrations are instinctively committed to existing lines on the map. But not all breakups are a disaster. Although President Bush's father tried to hold the Soviet Union together, few mourned its ultimate demise. Trying to put back together Iraq, a state that has brought nonstop misery to most of its people for its entire 80-year history and is not desired by a substantial part of its citizens, will only bring about more pain and blood for Americans and Iraqis. If the country's people are to be saved, the only choice is to end Iraq. [This article contains maps and diagrams. Please see hardcopy of magazine.] THE GREAT DIVIDE

Iraq is checkered by different religions and ethnicities, its history marked by forced relocations and bloody conflict. The current Sunni-Shi'ite war has once again changed the demographic map of Iraq, leading some to call for the country to be split into three states. But carving up Iraq could displace millions, provoke struggles for the control of territory and make the bloodshed even worse. Shi'ite Arabs 60% Sunni Arabs 20% Kurds 17% Others 3%

Area by ethnic and religious groups

Kurd Sh'ite Arab Sunni Arab Shi'ite/Sunni-Arab mix Sunni Arab/Kurd mix Sunni Turkoman Christian Mixed area Sparsely populated Population density

0 10 1,000 100,000 Per sq. mi. (2.6 sq km) 5 miles 5 km BAGHDAD AIRPORT RASHEED AIR BASE SADR CITY ADHAMIYA WASHASH MANSUR Green Zone Tigris River IRAQ Turkey • Neighboring Turkey worries that an Iraqi Kurdistan would incite its Kurdish population and that access to the area's oil would be lost. Along with Iran and Syria, Turkey might be tempted to exploit internal Kurdish divisions Baghdad With Sunni and Shi'ite living cheek by jowl, partition could lead to widespread sectarian cleansing and more violence for its 6 million residents

Kurdistan • The Kurdish-dominated north already enjoys wide autonomy and relative peace, but Kurds want oil-rich Kirkuk to be part of an independent Kurdistan--something the country's Arabs fiercely oppose

Central Iraq • Iraq's Sunni Arabs have resisted partition. With no significant oil fields and thus no real oil revenues, Sunnis might try to fight for oil-rich areas like Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul

Southern Iraq • The Shi'ite-dominated south would probably form a government based on Islamic law and modeled on Iran's. It has the lion's share of the country's oil resources Oil Supergiant oil field (5 billion bbl. in reserve) Other oil field Pipeline

60 miles 60 km

DAHUK NINEVEH ARBIL SULAYMANIYAH TA'MIM NAJAF WASIT DIYALA MUTHANNA SALAHADDIN ANBAR QADISYAH KARBALA BABIL MAYSAN DHIQAR BASRA Kirkuk Mosul Arbil Nasiriyah Baqubah Najaf Sulaymaniyah Karbala Hillah Samarra Diwaniyah Fallujah Ramadi Tikrit Tall 'Afar Kut Samawah Faisaliya Basra Amarah

Tigris River Euphrates River

SAUDI ARABIA IRAN SYRIA TURKEY JORDAN KUWAIT

BEFORE IT WAS IRAQ

• Under Ottoman rule Until WW I, Iraq was a region divided into three provinces (vilayets), with Shi'ite Basra in the south, Baghdad in the center and a largely Kurdish Mosul in the north OTTOMAN EMPIRE Persia Syrian Desert Vilayet of Mosul Vilayet of Baghdad Vilayet of Basra British controlled

• Under British rule In the postwar division of Ottoman territory, the provinces came under British control, forming the borders for Iraq. It was granted independence in 1932

Persia Turkey Protectorate of Kuwait British mandate of Iraq French mandate of Syria

OIL RICHES Total known oil reserves by province Oil reserves in millions of bbl. 65,810 10,000 1,000 100

Sources: Brookings Institution Iraq Index; GlobalSecurity.org HealingIraq.blogspot.com Iraq Revenue Watch; NASA; DigitalGlobe; LandScan/UT-Battelle TIME Map by Kathleen Adams and Joe Lertola

Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia who has advised the Kurds on constitutional issues, is the author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End

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Will a Divided Congress Mean Gridlock?


The conventional wisdom is that nothing gets done when the White House and Congress are controlled by different parties. Not so.

As the fall campaign nears its end, there's much fear and loathing about what would happen if Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the House. The Republicans claim it would result in higher taxes, weakened national security and slower economic growth, all charges the Democrats dispute. But observers on both sides of the political aisle seem to agree on one thing: an era of unprecedented gridlock could soon descend upon Washington. With partisan Democrats in control of at least one chamber of Congress and the Bush Administration riding out its last two years in the White House, the thinking goes, the nation's capitol would descend into endless hearings, investigations and political scoresettling — and no legislation would get through.

But it's not necessarily so, and here's why: historically, there is actually little difference in the legislative productivity of Washington under divided government versus one-party rule. David Mayhew, a political science professor and congressional expert at Yale University (full disclosure, I took one of his courses several years ago) found that from 1947 to 1990, an average of 13 major laws were passed when one party controlled all the levers of power, compared to 12 when the President had to deal with either one or both houses of Congress being controlled by the opposition. (He counts all laws that were included in articles by the New York Times wrapping up each congressional session, http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dmayhew/data3.html)

And as Mayhew argues, this pattern has held true since then — even as countless pundits have bemoaned how much more poisonously partisan our nation's politics has become. Two of the most productive legislative sessions over the last 16 years were in 1995-1996 — when a GOP-controlled Congress and President Clinton passed 13 major laws, including a massive deregulation of the telecommunications industry and a welfare reform bill that drastically reshaped how the federal government and states supported low-income people — and 2001- 2002, when President Bush joined a Democrat-dominated Senate in authorizing two wars and passing the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind education law. Neither the 2003-04 norr the 05-06 congressional sessions, when Republicans have had control of the House, Senate and the presidency, eclipsed the first two Bush years in terms of major legislation. In fact, perhaps the most important domestic policy achievement of the last decade — and one both Democrats and Republicans remain proud of — was that 1996 welfare bill that has helped spur dramatic decreases in the welfare rolls and the number of children living in poverty.

One of the major reasons that divided government can also be productive government, Mayhew notes, is that Congress doesn't just pass things in a vacuum. After 9/11, both parties felt a need to take steps to protect the country, leading to passage of the Patriot Act, creation of the Homeland Security Department and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also Presidents tend to overreach more when one party controls both the executive and legislative branches of government. Think of President Clinton's failed campaign to create universal health care in 1993 and President Bush's brief flirtation with radically restructuring Social Security in 2005; in both cases the Senate derailed legislation with the threat of a filibuster. It's also possible that when power is shared in Washington, individual members feel less secure and are more focused on the first priority of every office-holder in Washington: relection. "Sometimes it's in the interest of both parties to put something on the books," says Mayhew.

So what does this mean for 2007 and 2008, if Democrats do win one or both houses of Congress? Certain kinds of legislation that the GOP has passed over the last four years over Democratic opposition, such as tort reform and and limits to late-term abortions, probably wouldn't be put on the floor for votes if Democrats ran the House. And Mayhew's research does show that hearings and investigations increase dramatically with divided government, as one party seeks to embarrass the executive branch of the other. So expect to see lots of subpoenas flying from the offices of Democrats Henry Waxman and John Conyers, who would head the Government Reform and Judiciary committees, respectively.

On the other hand, it's easy to imagine the passage of an immigration reform bill that includes some kind of guest worker program, which the GOP-controlled House has opposed. Congress is due to reexamine the No Child Left Behind law next year; concerns about how it works, along with support for its goal of measuring student progress through test scores and boosting minority student achievement, are shared by both parties. And members of both parties have long talked about expanding health care coverage to make sure no children go without insurance.

If the Democrats win one house of Congress, this situation won't be that unusual. The title of Mayhew's book on this subject is Divided We Govern and that's become increasingly true. Twenty out of the last 30 years, the government has been divided. The conventional wisdom has always been that voters actually prefer the wheels of power paralyzed so that politicians can't do anything too stupid. But maybe it's quite the opposite, and voters know exactly what they are doing.

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Get Ready for the Glitches



Voters will face new hurdles when it comes to getting ballots, casting them — and getting all the results by midnight.

Even before it starts tomorrow morning, the 2006 election is already shaping up as one massive lab experiment in how we cast and count 80 million votes or more. When you figure that most of us will have the chance to make anywhere from 20 to 25 choices at polling stations — on statewide races, local elections, constitutional amendments, local options and your county library and community college board elections — we are talking about tracking and tallying upwards of 2 billion different decisions. It's a wonder we can do it at all.

But it's not the sheer numbers that make 2006 unlike any election in the past. There are new legal and technical requirements this year, which could stretch some parts of this count well into the week. Here are three:

New Voter ID Rules: About a dozen states have enacted stricter voter ID laws in the last few years, and these laws usually require voters to produce a photo ID before obtaining a ballot. Since not every potential voter has a photo ID, many of these measures have been contested in state and federal courts by plaintiffs charging the state's with voter suppression, and several have been modified even in the last week. Ohio, for example, was forced by court ruling just last Wednesday to loosen its new ID requirements. A similar walk-back occurred in Georgia, where voters can now produce one of 17 different forms of ID or swear an affidavit of identity — far easier than producing a photo ID. Other states haven't backed down on their new rules. Check your Secretary of State's website if you aren't sure what to bring. But be prepared for challenges.

New Voting Machines: For the first time this year, nearly 40% of Americans will vote by electronic device; nearly all of us will have our votes counted that way. That alone will cause some delays: voters won't all know how to operate them, poll workers will not be all fully trained, and, if recent primary voting is any indication, there are going to be technical problems. As states and counties certified their new devices in October — and its not uncommon for multiple types of machines to be used in almost every state — there were reports of glitches, ballot errors, machines communicating in the wrong languages with voters, and continued doubts about chain of custody in the wake of multiple reports that most of the machines can be easily hacked. More than 26 states have adopted some kind of verifiable audit trail so voters can check their choices against the machine, but many states lack a paper trail of any kind, contending that it's not necessary or the printers are too expensive. Guam, at least, isn't taking chances: On Saturday, the American protectorate's governor signed a bill suspending the use of the electronic devices next week. There will almost certainly be dozens of real-time reports from polling places of machine malfunctions; each one will have to be run down and checked. Let the recount begin.

Alternative Voting:A number of states have gone to what is called "no fault" absentee voting this year, which means voters no longer need an excuse to obtain an absentee ballot. Applications for the absentee option have exploded partly because of worries about the paperless-machines, and partly because both parties have mailed applications to millions of voters whether they requested them or not. That could shorten lines at the polls on election day but lengthen the count on election night. All around the U.S., the percentage of absentee balloting is exploding: most jurisdictions are seeing a jump in the ballots going out and coming back in by mail. More than 50% of the total turnout in the states of Washington and Nevada will be by absentee ballot; in California, the estimate is 44% of turnout. In San Diego last week, officials ran out of absentee ballots and had to send out photocopies. In Cleveland, more than 100,000 people are expected to vote absentee. Cuyahoga County officials can't start counting those until midnight on Election Day morning; they have to stop counting when the regular votes arrive. The upshot? It's going to be a long night in Ohio. And probably a few other places as well.

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Campaigne 06 - The Tipping Point Races



Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.

Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)

After a bruising final spate of campaigning that included half a dozen debates, a major push by both parties to court women and rural voters, and ads by Michael J. Fox for McCaskill and a host of celebrities for Talent, the Missouri Senate race remains deadlocked. It has now become a test of the two parties Get Out The Vote operations, with the GOP pouring volunteers into neighborhoods and drawing on the party's vaunted voter list, while the Dems scramble to mobilize urban voters in St. Louis and Kansas City. Democrats have to hope that two ballot initiatives — one for increasing the minimum wage, and another supporting stem cell research — will make up for the admitted advantage Republicans hold in targeting likely voters. Virtually every poll for the last six months has put the race in a dead heat, and in 2002, Talent won by all of 21,000 votes, so the final push will likely be the determining factor.

Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester (D)

Dogged by connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a series of campaign gaffes that included attacking some firefighters for doing "a poor job" containing a blaze in the state, Republican Conrad Burns is in danger of losing in Montana, where President Bush won by 20 points two years ago. Polls are virtually even in his race against Jon Tester, the Democrat who is president of the state Senate there.

To inoculate himself against attacks from Burns and national Republicans about the national Democratic Party's liberalism, Tester highlights his biography as a third-generation Montana family farmer with a flat-top haircut who lost three of his fingers in a meat grinder accident. He's also closely linking himself with Brian Schweitzer, the state's popular Democratic governor. Burns, meanwhile, is emphasizing his longtime efforts to bring back federal money to the state.

New Jersey: Robert Menendez (D) v. Thomas Kean, Jr. (R)

The Senate race here has been close, even though the state's voters lean Democratic, strongly oppose President Bush and the war in Iraq and the incumbent is a Democrat himself. The Republican challenger has moved to the left on some key issues, even calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign, but his success has mostly stemmed from having the right last name. Thomas Kean, Jr., is the son of Thomas Kean, who was governor of New Jersey for much of the 1980s, more recently the co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission and remains a revered figure by voters in both parties.

The race has become a bit of a proxy war, as Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez seeks to link Kean to President Bush and the Republican Congress, while Kean has relentlessly portrayed Menendez as part of a Democratic Party in the state that has been involved in numerous corruption scandals. Menendez, a longtime member of the House who was appointed to this Senate seat earlier this year after his predecessor Jon Corzine became New Jersey Governor, has also tried to cast the boyish-looking Kean, who has been in New Jersey state legislature since 2001, as too inexperienced for the job. If Kean wins, it will be very difficult for the Democrats to win control of the Senate.

Tennessee: Harold Ford (D) v. Bob Corker (R)

In the contest to replace retiring Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, House Democrat Harold Ford has waged a surprisingly strong campaign against Bob Corker, the Republican candidate who used to be the mayor of Chattanooga. Ford was considered an underdog, both because a Democrat hasn't won a Senate race in the state since Al Gore in 1990 and because of the political baggage from his family, which is active in state politics but known for a spate of corruption scandals. His father, former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr., was charged with federal bank fraud and acquitted in 1993 and his uncle, a former state Senator, was indicted for bribery earlier this year.

Ford has emphasized his credentials as pro-gun, anti-tax, church-going politician to win in this conservative state, while Corker and the Republicans have sought to portray him as a rich, urbane liberal who wears fancy suits, stays in lavish hotels and has never held a real job other than being in Congress. Corker, who won an intensely fought primary over two more conservative G.O.P. rivals, has highlighted his success as a businessman in starting and developing a construction company that has earned him millions, much of which he pumped into his campaign.

A win by Ford would be historic, as he would be the first black Senator elected in the South in more than a century. Racial politics became a subject in the race last month when Republicans ran an ad attacking Ford for his attendance at a Playboy Superbowl party that included a blond white woman saying "Harold, call me' — which some Democrats said was an attempt to play on concerns about interracial dating. Corker himself denounced the ad, but the campaign has only gotten nastier and more heated as Election Day has approached.

Virginia: George Allen (R) v. Jim Webb (D)

Back in June, when former Secretary of the Navy and Republican-turned-Democrat Jim Webb won his party's nomination to take on Virginia Senator George Allen, it seemed he had no chance to win. Webb, who had never run for office before and had almost no money, was taking on a popular, well-funded incumbent in Allen, who had already been elected as both governor and senator in the state. Allen was in fact starting to prepare for a run for the G.O.P. presidential nomination in 2008.

But then Allen, at a campaign rally in August, referred to a South Asian supporter of Webb's as "macaca," a term considered by many to be a racial slur. That helped lead to accusations that Allen had used racial slurs to describe blacks in the 1970's and put his campaign in a downward spiral that eventually put the race into a dead heat. It's been a bizarre campaign: Allen learned in the midst of it that his mother was Jewish, while Webb has become dogged by accusations that's he's a sexist, brought on by a 1979 article in which he called the Naval Academy's co-ed dorms a "horny woman's dream." Democrats have suggested, without any evidence, that Allen may have been arrested for domestic violence in the 1970's, while Republicans have attacked Webb for sexual scenes in his novels. These character attacks and odd controversies have detracted from the biggest difference between the two candidates on the issues, namely that Webb has long opposed the Iraq War, which Allen voted for in the Senate.

Connecticut: Chris Shays (R) v. Dianne Farrell (D)

This is the second time these two have faced each other; G.O.P. incumbent Chris Shays defeated former Westport First Selectwoman Dianne Farrell 52% to 48% in 2004. This time Shays, who has held this seat since 1987, has a major problem: Iraq. The moderate Congressman has become closely associated with his support for the war, as he has visited Iraq more than a dozen times since the invasion.

Farrell opposed the war from the beginning, and Shays' position has become increasingly unpopular in this blue state. In August, Shays became one of the few Republicans to call for a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, while Farrell has called for creating benchmarks that determine when troops return home. Farrell's challenge is to convince voters to dump a well-liked congressman because they disagree with him on Iraq and want Democrats to control Congress as a check on President Bush.

North Carolina: Charles Taylor (R) v. Heath Shuler (D)

Democrats have for the last decade struggled to win in the South, but they think Heath Shuler may be the candidate to start a new tradition in this western North Carolina district. Shuler not only was a football star, both in North Carolina in high school and then at the University of Tennessee, but he's also anti-abortion and frequently talks about his hunting, which has helped him appeal to conservative and rural voters in this area. Taylor, an eight-term incumbent, says he would be much more influential for the district than Shuler, because he sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which determines where much of the federal budget is spent. And he never fails to argue that Shuler doesn't have enough experience for the job


New Mexico: Heather Wilson (R) v. Patricia Madrid (D)

A battle between two tough public servants, this race has followed the party playbooks to the letter. Wilson, a centrist Rhodes scholar and former National Security Council member, has run a non-stop stream of ads calling her opponent weak on law enforcement and national security and a liberal who will raise taxes. Madrid, New Mexico's attorney general and a former district judge, has relentlessly tied Wilson to President George W. Bush in ads and campaign events, finishing off the season with a TV spot with the tagline, "Heather Wilson and George Bush: Desperate to Hide the Truth." The district, which includes Albuquerque, has always been closely divided. An election-eve poll found Madrid surging to a four-point lead, though still within the margin of error. Wilson released her own poll showing herself up by two points. Both showed 6% of voters still making up their minds just a week before the election.

Ohio: Deborah Pryce (R) v. Mary Jo Kilroy (D)

No race better demonstrates the difficulties that Republicans are up against this year than the re-election battle of Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House leadership. Pryce has not faced a serious challenge since her first election in 1992, despite the fact that her Columbus, Ohio, district has otherwise trended more Democrat. But as election day has approached this year, the moderate Republican has been considered the underdog against liberal Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy.

Though Kilroy is a stronger opponent than Pryce has faced in the past, the incumbent's difficulties come largely as the result of a lagging state economy, a G.O.P. scandal in the statehouse and opposition to the Iraq war. As if all that weren't enough, in a local magazine interview published just a month before the Mark Foley scandal broke in Washington, Pryce named the Florida Congressman as one of her closest friends in the House. Kilroy seized upon that connection in an ad she placed on Christian radio stations, in which the announcer intoned: "Deborah Pryce's friend Mark Foley is caught using his position to take advantage of 16-year-old pages."

Kilroy has largely hammered on national Democratic themes. Her mantra: "We need a change in Washington. We need a new direction." Pryce has portrayed herself as a moderate counterweight to the rest of the GOP House leadership, and to the Republican Party nationally. She also has stressed the amount of federal money that she has been able to bring back to her district by virtue of her seniority and her leadership position. Both sides agree that this race will ultimately be a test of which candidate has the better turnout operation.

Pennsylvania: Jim Gerlach (R) v. Lois Murphy (D)

The suburbs outside of Philadelphia have become one of the key battlegrounds of 2006, with three close House races, and the contest between Democrat Lois Murphy and incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach is perhaps the tightest of them all. Gerlach eked out a victory in 2004 against Murphy, collecting 51% of the vote. To hold his seat, he is trying to focus the race on local issues like the federal money for local roads he's brought home, and at the same time trying to link Murphy with Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco lawmaker likely to become Speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Gerlach says Pelosi and the Democrats would raise taxes and oppose measures like the Patriot Act that he says keep the country safe. Murphy, like Democrats across the country, is trying to unseat the incumbent by highlighting his support of President Bush, particularly on the Iraq War. Gerlach has tried hard to show how often he disagrees with Bush, such as his support for expanding embryonic stem cell research.

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The Tipping Point Races



Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.

Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)

After a bruising final spate of campaigning that included half a dozen debates, a major push by both parties to court women and rural voters, and ads by Michael J. Fox for McCaskill and a host of celebrities for Talent, the Missouri Senate race remains deadlocked. It has now become a test of the two parties Get Out The Vote operations, with the GOP pouring volunteers into neighborhoods and drawing on the party's vaunted voter list, while the Dems scramble to mobilize urban voters in St. Louis and Kansas City. Democrats have to hope that two ballot initiatives — one for increasing the minimum wage, and another supporting stem cell research — will make up for the admitted advantage Republicans hold in targeting likely voters. Virtually every poll for the last six months has put the race in a dead heat, and in 2002, Talent won by all of 21,000 votes, so the final push will likely be the determining factor.

Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester (D)

Dogged by connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a series of campaign gaffes that included attacking some firefighters for doing "a poor job" containing a blaze in the state, Republican Conrad Burns is in danger of losing in Montana, where President Bush won by 20 points two years ago. Polls are virtually even in his race against Jon Tester, the Democrat who is president of the state Senate there.

To inoculate himself against attacks from Burns and national Republicans about the national Democratic Party's liberalism, Tester highlights his biography as a third-generation Montana family farmer with a flat-top haircut who lost three of his fingers in a meat grinder accident. He's also closely linking himself with Brian Schweitzer, the state's popular Democratic governor. Burns, meanwhile, is emphasizing his longtime efforts to bring back federal money to the state.


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Inside the President's Strategy, Win or Lose

The White House is vigorously predicting Republicans will hold both chambers. But Bush's aides have begun signaling his plans to deal with a Congress that, regardless of the midterm outcome, is certain to include fewer Republicans.

Reporters keep asking White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about President George W. Bush's "contingency plans" if Democrats were to win the House and/or Senate in today's midterm elections. Snow has been patiently explaining for weeks that no such formal plans are being made, since the President expects Republicans to defy the pundits and win both. Another top aide said, "If you think Karl Rove is spending any time thinking about losing, you're crazy."

However, the President and his aides have begun signalling a legislative strategy that they can pursue, win or lose: challenge Congress to go after big goals, including debating an overhaul of Social Security and the other two big entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Bush has spoken increasingly frankly about his plans to run up the hill on Social Security again, and sources say Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will use his Wall Street cachet to promote discussion of an issue that had Republicans running for the doors last year.

As Air Force One flew to Pensacola, Fla., on Monday for one of the President's final rallies, Snow gave a preview of the language you can expect to hear him using on television as he talks about the coming legislative season, beginning with the breakfast shows on Wednesday. "There's the thing that you do need to know," he said, "which is that the President plans for a very active final two years of his presidency. And there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed that everybody knows need to be addressed. One is winning the war on terror. The second is continuing to build economic strength. You have No Child Left Behind, you have an interest in creating better educational opportunities; you've got energy, which is a shared interest. So the President is going to be very aggressive, and he's not going to play small ball."

Snow told Rush Limbaugh on Monday that Republicans have "got a lot of I-told-you-so moments right now because polls are tightening." But if voters wind up choosing divided government today, a big wave of news coverage will focus on whether the President can become a uniter, working with Democrats as he did when he was Texas governor. Snow caused a stir online and in the White House press corps last month when he told Powerlineblog.com that one of the administration's goals for the next two years -- the final quarter of Bush's presidency—is to "maybe to de-toxify American politics a little bit."

TIME asked Snow what he meant by that, and his answer served as a preview of points he can be expected to make frequently in the days ahead. "What've you've had is a very toxic atmosphere," he said. "Democrats have decided, and Nancy Pelosi has said as much, that the strategy is to tear down the President. While that may be effective as a political strategy, and I have questions about that, it's not good for the country and people are bored with it. When you have a war on terror that's not going to go away, when you have an economy that needs constant care and attention, when you've got an entitlement crunch that is not going to go away, when you have challenges on the energy and education fronts, when you have immigration, where we have started to deal with a comprehensive solution but have much further to go, you want people to stop calling each other names and do the people's business. It is not only possible but it is desirable that people on both sides of the political divide be able to call each other friends and to be able to disagree amicably without waging World War III. We expect that of our kids. We ought to expect it of our lawmakers. The President has always tried to extend a hand to people on both sides of the aisle and he'll continue to do it."

The President's public schedule for Wednesday is blank so far, but he has a Cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday. When he meets the cameras, his message is likely to include similar points. He'll be a uniter, his aides say, if Democrats will reciprocate. The question is whether they have an incentive to do so, and the answer to that will be able to be read in tonight's results.

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Today in history - Nov. 7



The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 7, the 311th day of 2006. There are 54 days left in the year. This is Election Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 7, 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

On this date:

In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in "Harper's Weekly."

In 1893, the state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote.

In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.

In 1940, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state collapsed during a windstorm.

In 1944, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1962, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt died in New York City.

In 1962, Richard M. Nixon, having lost California's gubernatorial race, held what he called his "last press conference," telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."

In 1972, President Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

In 1973, Congress overrode President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive's power to wage war without congressional approval.

In 1998, John Glenn returned to Earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery, visibly weak but elated after a nine-day mission.

Ten years ago: The U.S. liquor industry voted to drop its decades-old voluntary ban on broadcast advertising. Thousands of Communists marched through Moscow to mark the 79th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. A Nigerian Boeing 727 jetliner crashed en route to Lagos, killing 142 people. NASA's Mars Global Surveyor blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a mission to map the surface of the Red Planet. (It went into orbit around Mars the next year.)

Five years ago: The Bush administration targeted Osama bin Laden's multimillion-dollar financial networks, closing businesses in four states, detaining U.S. suspects and urging allies to help choke off money supplies in 40 nations. At the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, allies in the war on terrorism, confidently offered back-to-back pledges of victory, no matter how long it took. More than 15 months after a Concorde crashed outside Paris, two of the world's only supersonic jetliners returned to the skies.

One year ago: President Bush, in Panama, defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful, saying, "We do not torture." A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing four American soldiers.

Today's Birthdays: Evangelist Billy Graham is 88. Opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland is 80. Actor Barry Newman is 68. Singer Johnny Rivers is 64. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 63. Singer Nick Gilder is 55. Actor Christopher Knight ("The Brady Bunch") is 49. Actor Christopher Daniel Barnes is 34. Actors Jeremy and Jason London are 34. Actress Yunjin Kim ("Lost") is 33.

Thought for Today: "It's not the voting that's democracy — it's the counting." — Tom Stoppard, Czechoslovak-born British author and dramatist.

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