Did 2006 Change US congressional election?




Steve Fraser

TO begin with, polls indicate that the election represented an explicit repudiation of the Republican Party as a party; at least, as explicit as one could possibly expect in a midterm election. Try as they did to argue beforehand that all elections are local, Republican leaders knew that not to be the case, not this time; indeed, that's precisely why they traipsed around the country vociferously denying what they deeply feared was true.
Under normal circumstances and by its very nature, in the American electoral system -- monopolised by two amorphously constituted parties of little distinct ideological or programmatic identity, and with its multiple disincentives to any kind of independent party representation -- it is usually excruciatingly hard to register voter sentiment on behalf of a party rather than a candidate. But the election of 2006 was not normal in this regard. There are indications that significant numbers of Americans voted against the Republican Party and, with less enthusiasm to be sure, for the Democratic Party.
Perhaps most tellingly, in numerous races moderate Republicans, who remained quite popular with their constituents and had enjoyed long tenure in office -- the best known case is Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island -- succumbed to Democrats who were often no more to the "left" than they were. Notwithstanding the inherent fuzziness of what either of the parties stands for, voters seemed ready to conclude that the Republican Party and the administration of George Bush could be fairly associated with the disaster in Iraq, the shameful incompetence and callousness of the response to Hurricane Katrina, the rank and systemic corruption associated with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the crony capitalism of the oil companies and Halliburton. Voting for the Democratic Party was a way of repudiating all that, even if any particular Republican candidate might be blameless.
Then, there is the matter of the "Blue Dogs." It turns out that rumours of their ascendancy were not so much exaggerated as mischaracterized. True enough Senate candidates like Bob Casey in Pennsylvania or James Webb in Virginia were well-known supporters of such social conservative causes as gun ownership or the "right to life." But these were hardly the issues they ran on. On the contrary, the campaigns of Webb and Casey, not to mention Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign in Ohio and those of many fellow "Blue Dogs" running for House seats, stressed opposition to the war in Iraq and anger directed at big pharma, big oil, tax breaks for the rich, and free-trade globalization agreements like NAFTA.
Far more often than not, economic populism, not social conservatism, is what lent the Democrats, and in particular the Blue Dogs, an edge.
This same sentiment could be felt, both before and immediately after the election, in the overwhelming support for a quick Congressional move to raise the minimum wage and to empower Medicare to lower prescription drug prices by bargaining with the big pharmaceuticals. Even more remarkable, given the perilous state of the labour movement, is the emergence of a House majority in favour of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for millions of workers to join unions, a development critical to shifting the balance of political and economic power.
It would be premature to speak of a fully formed populist/New Deal-like alternative within the Democratic Party or to suggest that people were voting for such a possibility in 2006. Nonetheless, when the Democratic leadership anointed its opening agenda as the new governing party in Congress with the resonant phrase "the first 100 hours," echoing FDR's first 100 days, there was nothing accidental about it.
So, too, certain demographic and geopolitical trends that showed up in 2006 are suggestive of changes to come. The Latino vote, which in the 2004 presidential election was relatively evenly divided between George Bush and John Kerry, went a whopping 70% for the Democrats this time. And that wasn't even the biggest percentage shift in voting behaviour from the 2004 election in favour of the Democrats. That took place among white, non-college-educated working people who, for some time, have made up the core of the conservative populist constituency of the Reagan counter-revolution. Although all the numbers are not yet in, estimates suggest that about one-half of the shift toward the Democrats came from white working-class voters.
Regionally, the Democratic Party made significant gains in the Rocky Mountain West, while clearing away the remnant outposts of Republicanism in much of the Northeast and driving Republicans from Rustbelt outposts in Ohio and Missouri. The logic of that trend -- which doesn't, of course, mean that it will be realised -- is to regionalize the Republican Party in the South. In this way, the southernization of national politics, which was the great accomplishment of the Reagan political order, might be replaced by the southernization of the Republican Party.
Even the early talk about presidential candidates seems portentous. On the Democratic side there is no one to the right of Hillary Clinton, certainly a sign of a shift in the Party's center of gravity.
But odder than that is the candidacy of Barack Obama. It seems to signal a thirst for a messiah. Such a quest can be symptomatic of many things, some bad, some not as bad.
Obamaism is a real mystery. Others have already noted that messiahs don't normally come from the middle as he most emphatically does. Moreover, the charisma that surrounds the prince of banality from Illinois is even harder to decipher, attached as it is to nothing tangible or providential as was Robert Kennedy's lightning 1968 ascension before his assassination, his candidacy held aloft, rightly or wrongly, by the energies of the antiwar and civil rights upheavals.
Something -- though it's hard to tell what -- may be blowin' in the wind.
Perhaps the better question, then, is: Will the presidential election of 2008 turn out to be a turning-point election of historic proportions. The greatest unknown is whether or not the status quo is headed for a breakdown crisis severe enough to clear the ground for such a transformative moment.
Signs certainly point in that direction. The convergence of imperial defeat, economic insecurity, and rampant corporate malfeasance might be enough all by themselves.
But the sudden change in the political status of global warming -- once the dim, background hum of some far distant disturbance, now more like the heart-stopping premonitory theme music from the soundtrack of Jaws -- magnifies the crisis of the whole global order, at home and abroad. Anatole Lieven has called it global capitalism's "existential challenge." Life as we've known it may be beginning to end. Congress is already holding hearings about the natural apocalypse to come, and all but the most ostrich-like politicians acknowledge global warming as an urgent reality; a fact-on-the-ground, so to speak, no longer a debatable theory.
The Bush administration -- and so the old order -- has staked a lot on Iraq, not just its geopolitical and global economic ambitions. Its already severely diminished status as a moral exemplar of democracy and civil liberties won't survive this latest plunge into military mayhem.
Moreover, the President's "surge" plan is a mortal threat to the secret source of the regime's strength at home. The politics of fear and imperial bravado, which once won it legions of followers, may, in the aftermath of the surge, reach its own turning point as those voters abandon ship as fast as they once climbed aboard.
Can the administration or the old order survive a fiasco of such proportions?
Iraq is also the equivalent of a budgetary bunker-busting nuclear device. It exacerbates an already aggravated economic dilemma. Despite a Noah's flood of statistics that seem to support a Pollyana-ish view that we live today in the best of economic good times, millions of Americans experience the opposite -- a yawning gulf of insecurity affecting their health, retirement, and employment prospects. They share a gloomy sense of moving backwards, of decline.
Once upon a time, poverty was associated with the super-exploitation of those who toiled for meager reward.
Then, in mid-twentieth century America, poverty came to be associated with the lack of work, with those so marginalized they were shut-out of the main avenues of modern commerce and industry. Nowadays, we are rushing back to the nineteenth century. Today, 30 million people in the United States work long and hard and still live in poverty.
Insecurity even more pervasive than this once supplied the energy responsible for supplanting laissez-faire capitalism with the New Deal.
Might we be approaching something of that scale and scope today? Though there can be no definitive answer to this, there also can be no question that a general crisis of economic insecurity confronts the old order. All of its self-serving and adventitious rhetoric about the heroics of risk fall on increasingly deaf ears.
Not incidentally, since we live in the age of the global sweatshop, that older order is now global in scope; and the international financial mechanisms that so far have kept the global system humming for the U.S. are themselves under great and increasing strain. The system is, at present, being kept aloft by the needs of China, Japan, and other major economic powers. One day soon they may find the burden of swallowing gargantuan amounts of U.S. debt insupportable.
Are we heading toward a breakdown like the one which, in the early 1970s, forced the Nixon administration to scrap the Bretton Woods financial system, the defining economic institution of the post-war Pax Americana? Together with defeat in Vietnam, the devaluation of the dollar, and the end of fixed exchange rates for international currencies exacerbated the general impasse in which the New Deal order then found itself.
When it comes to the social reputation of our corporate elite, is it necessary to say anything more than Enron? The litany of shameless profiteering, felonious behaviour, cronyism, and corruption at the apex of the private economy has arguably called into question the "right to rule" of those presiding over the country's key economic institutions. Even at the regime's hubristic height following Bush's presidential victory in 2004, he discovered he'd crossed a bridge too far in his attempt to turn over the Social Security System to Wall Street.
Trust in the corporate elite has only grown frailer since then. Cynicism mixed with rage is a potentially explosive brew that fuels the economic populism even someone as "establishment" as James Webb articulated in his alternate State of the Union Address.
What may make these converging dilemmas over-ripe for change is the response of the old order itself.
One sign that some decisive crisis has arrived is the growing incapacity of those in charge to adapt -- as if the dire nature of what's happening dries up the springs of their political imaginations, forcing them to fall back on brittle orthodoxies. Andrew Mellon's notion of liquidating everything in sight as a way out of the Great Depression was one case of mental paralysis, a retreat to what had once "worked"; after all, the periodic busts endemic to the laissez-faire capitalist life-cycle had, in the past, always cured themselves, even if the "cure" included a great deal of what we would today call "collateral damage." The Bush administration is similarly falling back on its own orthodoxies, each move only betraying just how out of touch its top officials are with the new political and social realities forming around them.
Take its reaction to the stunning electoral defeat it suffered last November. The President's new "surge" plan, the self-destructive decision to forge ahead in Iraq without a scintilla of reasonable hope of success, even from the standpoint of the most cynical imperialist, is such a reaction: instinctive, unreflective, inflexible, and probably deeply believed in.
In other words, there is a resort to the ideological fixations which have long-driven this regime -- and the larger political order from which it rose - but which only become ever more rigidified as reality bites back.
So, for another example, the administration's response to the crisis of economic insecurity has amounted to an ideological provocation shoved right in the teeth of its own electoral repudiation. Bush proposed a massive cut in Medicare and Medicaid and, even more in-your-face than that, a tax on the health insurance of those dwindling remnants of the New Deal order who still enjoy some decent level of employer-funded health care.
Everything the old regime can imagine to defend itself ends up making things worse. With some poetic license, one is reminded of an inversion of that old Marxist axiom in which the capitalists, not the proletariat, become the gravediggers of capitalism.
Of course, that is a gross exaggeration. The question of the moment is not: Will 2008 be a turning-point election, but rather can it be one?
Here, everything depends not on what the old order does on its own behalf, no matter how bone-headed, but on how the gathering forces of opposition respond to the system's crisis. Is there a willingness to build a clear, programmatic alternative inside the Democratic Party? It is, after all, an institution deeply infected with free market/free trade ideology and most of the imperial presumptions of the conservative counter-revolution.
Is there a readiness to mobilize around non-market solutions to the general crisis: To fight openly for the re-regulation of the economy and its planned re-industrialization; for its re-unionization; for redistributive policies to supplant the idée fixe of economic growth; for the dismantling of the petro-industrial complex and its replacement by a new, non-fossil-fuel system of energy production; for a global assault on the global sweatshop?
Will there be a new era of polarization rather than centrism, partisanship rather than bi-partisanship, a head-on confrontation with the Democratic Leadership Council, like the guerilla wars once waged against the John Jacob Raskob and Al Smith elite of the pre-New Deal Democratic Party or the one waged by the Goldwater legions against the silk-stocking Rockefeller Republicans? Once upon a time, someone as mild-mannered as Franklin Delano Roosevelt found it within himself to "welcome the hatred" of those he labeled "economic royalists." Might there be someone equally unafraid waiting in the wings today?
Is there a new order being born, ready to challenge the old one where it is both weakest and also strongest: namely, in the imperial arena?
Not only has global aggression proved deadly to all, depraved in its moral consequences, and life-threatening to basic democratic principles and institutions at home, but it has also been the most fruitful, life-giving incubator of the conservative cultural populism which the old order has relied on for a generation.
Anti-World War I intellectual Randolph Bourne's prophetic aperçu -- "War is the health of the State" -- needs to be made even more embracing: War has become the health of a whole political culture, not to mention the vast, hard-wired military-industrial apparatus with which it lives in symbiotic bliss. Is there a will to take on that system of cherished phobias, delusional consolations, and implacable interests?
Finally, there is the X factor, most unknowable of all, but also most critical in converting a mere election into something more transformative. Might a social movement or movements emerge from outside the boundaries of conventional politics, catalytic enough to fundamentally alter the prevailing metabolism of political life?
Might the mass demonstrations of immigrants portend something of that kind? Might the anti-war movement soon enter a period of more sustained and varied opposition in the face of this administration's barbaric obtuseness? Straws in the wind as we race toward 2008. (Steve Fraser is co-founder of the American Empire Project and Editor-at-Large of the journal New Labor Forum. He is the author of Every Man a Speculator, A History of Wall Street in American Life, and most recently co-editor of Ruling America: A History of Wealth and Power in a Democracy)

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Home Remodeling Plans - Do Your Homework And Find Someone Trustworthy

Helen Yanulus
Pocono Life Writer

Americans spent an estimated $210 billion on residential remodeling in 2005, and the most popular areas to renovate are kitchens and baths.

Mike Gillenkirk, owner of Kitchen Tune-Up of Pocono Pines, said, "It's a huge industry. If you take your remodeling dollars and apply them anywhere in the home, the most cost-effective is in the kitchen and bath areas."

That's because the way people use their homes has changed.

"From a kitchen standpoint, it has evolved into a gathering area, the center of the home," Gillenkirk said. "They're entertaining there and want space that is inviting, comfortable and up-to-date."

Gillenkirk has found that the majority of decision makers in his clientele are women over age 45. He has asked them, and all his customers, why they want a change.

Usually the quality of what exists in the room isn't up to par, and they would like to change that. Sometimes, clients need more room and need to redesign the space to accommodate that need. Some simply want to change the look of the cabinets.

On average, Gillenkirk estimated that people spend between $20,000 and $50,000 to completely renovate their kitchen, particularly if the room needs to be redesigned. The cost is much less for refacing cabinets and other cosmetic changes without changing the design, which may be priced under $10,000.

So when investing in a home, Gillenkirk had a few helpful tips to get the homeowner through the process.

  • Examine the design. "Ask, 'Am I happy with the size of my kitchen? Can I live with the present design?' " Gillenkirk said. Changing the design can be costly but worth it in the end. This is truly a matter of budget.


  • What are your dreams? Do you want something dramatically different? Do you want to knock out a wall for more space? Even though some dreams may be costly, by deciding what is important to you will help you to come up with a list of must haves versus would like to have. "Make sure your voice is heard, and you get out all you want in your new kitchen," Gillenkirk said.


  • Are the cabinets in good shape? They may be in good condition, but you may be tired of the look. This might qualify for refacing, which is less costly than new or custom cabinets.


  • Decide on a budget. What can you spend? Where will you get the money? Savings, a home-equity loan and financing by contractors are some options. Also, be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, such as bad wiring or a rotting subfloor. Those may add to the cost of the job.


  • Find a good contractor. Seek out referrals from family and friends. "A referral from someone who has worked with the contractor is the best way to go," Gillenkirk said. Also, check references and get two or three bids. "Don't get hung up on the price. It's tempting to grab the lowest price supplier, but look at a variety of things, including the trust of the salesperson, the pictures of completed work, reputation," Gillenkirk said.


  • Find someone you trust. "Trust is so important. If no one is there, the work has to be done during the week. The homeowner must provide a key," Gillenkirk said.


  • Be prepared for a mess. "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. There will be a disturbance in the home. Ask the potential contractor, 'Do you clean up each night?'"


  • Don't be afraid. Gillenkirk said, "People should not be scared off by what they see in slick magazines and on HGTV. Kitchen makeovers can be a lot more affordable."

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    Democrats bask in 2006 success, look toward 2008 at annual event


    Doug Wilson

    Herald-Whig Senior Writer

    Democrats are celebrating their recent election victories and trying to lay the groundwork for future gains during Democrat Days.

    "A lot of people turned Northeast Missouri a little bluer than it used to be on the red and blue dials," said Sen. Wes Shoemyer, D-Clarence.

    Democrat Days co-chairman John Yancey cited voter backlash against President Bush and the Republican majority, but noted there also might have been regional motivations.

    Others in attendance agreed.

    "I think there's been a real unhappiness with what's going on in Washington and in Jefferson City," said former Rep. Robert Clayton III. "And when they're unhappy, they come out looking for alternatives and at Democrat Days they're definitely going to get different alternatives."

    Rep. Rachel Bringer, D-Palmyra, said Northeast Missouri had more gains for Democrats than any other part of the state. Six of nine House seats are now held by Democrats and Shoemyer holds the Senate seat.

    Others believe Democrats made big gains in the region because of a new mindset and approach to governance.

    "We finally got organized and formed the Northeast Missouri Democrats. I believe if other areas would do this and do grassroots type things it would bring out more voters and the Democrat party would be stronger," said Mackey Johnston, a precinct committeeman from Newark.

    Rep. Tom Shively, D-Shelbyville, pointed out a group of young volunteers who helped him win Linn County during his campaign last fall against incumbent Rep. Kathy Chinn, R-Clarence.

    Shively wants to see more young people involved in politics. They may be motivated to get involved when they hear about the financial bills their generation may have to pay due to decisions by today's politicians.

    Rep. Paul Quinn, D-Monroe City, has been attending Democrat Days for years. He spent 22 years in Monroe County offices before winning his legislative seat last November. He thought his schedule was busy before, but Quinn now sees lots of days where his activities calendar is full for 12, 13 or more hours.

    Still, it's been an enjoyable experience so far and Quinn felt relaxed and at ease visiting with constituents gathered at the Hannibal Inn.

    Shoemyer said the annual Democrat gathering is a good way to hear from voters. It's also good for energizing the party faithful.

    Duane Burghard of Columbia was trying to energize the crowd in other ways. He took training from Al Gore so he could do slide presentations dealing with Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which deals with global warming. Burghard was set to do two presentations during Democrat Days.

    Burghard unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, last fall. He said while talking with Hulshof after the final results were in, the incumbent told him that while Burghard had lost, many of the issues he espoused won nationwide.

    More than 700 people had registered for this year's event. That's up from many non-election years.

    Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, who is expected to challenge Gov. Matt Blunt next year, is expected to attend the banquet tonight. U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also is expected to attend. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., will be the keynote speaker.

    Contact Senior Writer Doug Wilson at dwilson@whig.com or (217) 221-3372

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    Hillary Clinton 44th US President - predicts Indian Numerologist


    Indian Numerologist predicts that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the 44th President of the United States of America. According to the Indian Numerologist analysis, the next U.S. Presidential election is on November 4, 2008. On that day, numerologists predict that signs would remain favorable for her. Besides, the next election is to choose the 44th U.S. President (4 + 4 = 8), Hillary will be in her 62nd year (6 + 2 = 8), to be more precise, on that day pf the election, Hillary will be 61 years and 10 days old (6 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 8). Indian numerologists M.K. Damodaran confidentially predicts that numbers 4 and 8 being highly influential for Hillary Rodham Clinton and she will be elected as the 44th US President.

    It is seen that generally number 8 persons are influenced by number 4 also. So, this will be an additional luck for Hillary in the November 4, 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

    Amateur numerologists M.K. Damodaran of Kannur District, Kerala State, India, confidentially predicts that numbers 4 and 8 being highly influential for Hillary, and she will be elected as the 44th US President.

    Damodaran further writes, “It is seen that the year 2008 is very crucial for Hillary and Bill Clinton.

    Given below the analysis and prediction regarding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects in the forthcoming US Presidential race/

    ”I am herewith submitting a detailed write-up regarding the chance of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Nov. 4, 2008 U.S. Presidential election . I humbly request to examine this.

    Now that Hillary Rodham Clinton is hoping to be nominated as the candidate for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, it is immensely interesting to numerologically analyze her prospect.

    Now, let us examine the influence of numbers 4 and 8 in Hillary’s life.

    She was born on October 26, 1947. Her birth number is 8 (2 + 6 = 8) It is seen that number 8 has a strong influence on Hillary. To begin with, she was officially nominated to run for New York Senate seat on May 17, 2000 (1 + 7 = 8) After winning the election, she became a Member of the 107th Senate (1 + 0 + 7 = 8).

    The next U.S. Presidential election is on November 4, 2008. On that day, Hillary will be in her 62nd year (6 + 2 = 8). To be more precise, she will be 61 years and 10 days old (6 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 8). Besides, the next election is to choose the 44th U.S. President (4 + 4 = 8).

    It is seen that, generally number 8 persons are influenced by number 4 also. So, this will be an additional luck for Hillary in the November 4, 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

    In addition to that, it is submitted that her ‘name number’ (occult number) is 67 which adds up to 4.

    Name number is arrived at by adding together the value of each alphabet of the name. English alphabets are placed into 8 groups and each letter in a particular group assigned a particular value. This is discussed below.

    No. of groups Letters Value of each letter

    1) a, i, j, q, y - 1

    2) b, k, r - 2

    3) c, g, l, s - 3

    4) d, m, t - 4

    5) e, h, n, x - 5

    6) u, v, w - 6

    7) o, z - 7

    8) f, p - 8

    Now, let us find out the name number of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

    Hillary = H + i +l + l + a + r + y
    = 5 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 16

    Rodham = R + o + d + h + a + m
    = 2 + 7 + 4 + 5 + 1 + 4 = 23

    Clinton = C + l + i + n + t + o + n
    = 3 + 3 + 1 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5 = 28

    Thus Hillary Rodham Clinton = 16 + 23 + 28
    = 67 (6 + 7 = 13 Further adding, 1 + 3 = 4)

    While discussing the influence of numbers on Hillary, it is quite interesting to note the influence of number 1 on Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was born on August 19, 1946. His birth number is 1 (1 + 9 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1). Further, his name number is 37 which adds up to 1 (3 + 7 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1). So, Bill Clinton is literally ‘numero uno’. Now, see the strong influence of number 1 on Bill Clinton.

    1) He was elected U.S. President at the age of 46 which adds up to 1 (4 + 6 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1)

    2) On May 28, 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “Paula Jones sexual discrimination suit against Clinton can proceed while he is in office” (2 + 8 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1).

    3) On January 10, 1998 Clinton deposed in the Paula Jones case (1 + 0 = 1).

    4) Kenneth Starr submitted his enquiry report in Monica Lewinsky case on September 10, 1998 (1 + 0 = 1)

    5) Papers in Paula Jones case released on October 19, 1998 (1+9 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1)

    6) Congressional hearing on impeachment began on November 19, 1998.

    7) There were 37 members in the House Judiciary Committee (3 + 7 = 10, 1 + 0=1)

    8) ‘One’ member belonging to the Republican Party voted along with Democrats.

    9) The Senate voted on October 28, 1998 on an impeachment trial plan that called Monica Lewinsky to testify (2 + 8 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1).

    10) The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on December 19, 1998 (1 + 9 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1)

    11) Questioning of Monica Lewinsky started on February 1, 1999.

    12) Clinton was acquitted on impeachment charges only because 10 Republicans cross-voted in his favour ( 1 + 0 = 1).

    13) Clinton was the first President to visit Gaza Strip.

    The year 2008 adds up to 1 (2 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1). So, the year is
    very crucial to Bill Clinton.

    Hence, it is seen that the year 2008 is very crucial for Hillary and Bill Clinton.

    So, coming back to Hillary, numbers 4 and 8 being highly influential for Hillary, she will be elected 44th U.S. President in the election to be held on November 4, 2008, on which day Hillary will be 61 years and 10 days old (6 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 8).

    M.K. Damodaran writes in conclusion, “As an amateur numerologist passionately researching in numerology for the last 18 years, my findings/predictions have been widely published (The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Times of India and The Asian Tribune etc.). The following internationally interesting findings/predictions made by me were reported.

    1) Accident death of Princess Diana.

    2) Violent death of former Afghan President Dr. Najibullah.

    3) Bill Clinton influenced by number 1.

    4) That number 13 was lucky for Vajpayee and that he would return as Prime Minister after the election in 1999.

    5) Electoral victory of George W. Bush in the November 7, 2000 U.S. Presidential election.

    6) That Bush will lose out to Saddam and that the former will be the ultimate loser in the Iraq affair.

    (However, the prediction that Bush will not come to power for the second time was proved incorrect)

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    Real Conservatives Cannot Afford To Sit This One Out.


    Ann C. Mulkern
    Denver Post Staff Writer

    The next president must possess core conservative principles or risk losing the election and much of what America stands for, Rep. Tom Tancredo told a cheering crowd today at a conservative convention.

    The Littleton Republican who is considering a presidential run presented his political vision in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

    In a packed and cheering ballroom, Tancredo said it's imperative to crack down on illegal immigration and reject "the cult of multi-culturalism" that he says is destroying American values. Tancredo also declared the need to return to traditional conservative ideals, including opposition to legalized abortion.

    "With the world at war, and the very survival of Western Civilization at risk, with the Supreme Court potentially one death or retirement away from reversing Roe Vs. Wade," Tancredo said, referencing the case that legalized abortion, "real conservatives cannot afford to sit this one out."

    Tancredo was one of several potential and declared presidential candidates appearing at the conference, an annual Washington D.C. gathering of the right wing of the Republican Party. In presidential election season, it serves as an audition for candidates wanting to capture conservative activists and impress the national media with their ability to draw crowds.

    Tancredo has formed a presidential exploratory committee, saying he sees the need for a true conservative in the race. He touted his conservative credentials and used three Biblical references during his speech.

    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., also spoke.

    Conservative Political Action Conference members will take a straw poll Saturday indicating which candidates they most support.

    Walking on to the stage to the strains of the theme from the movie "Rocky," Tancredo said he's a "huge long shot" and compared himself to the hero of the Oscar-winning boxing movie.

    Tancredo alternately spoke about his potential to win the presidency, saying he knows it's David vs. Goliath, but that "David won." But he also seemed to concede he won't advance when he said he wants "a candidate in this presidential election that I can vote for."

    "I'm so tired of voting because the person is the lesser of two evils," Tancredo said. "I want to be able to vote for somebody &I believe is leading a crusade, somebody who I actually want to participate in that crusade because they inspire me to do so.

    "I may not be that person, I understand," Tancredo said. "But look for that in whoever it is you're going to support."

    Some Tancredo supporters at the event said they believe he can win the nomination, despite the fact that lead candidates are raising an estimated million dollars a week. Tancredo's congressional bank account had $189,000 when he made the last required disclosure at the end of 2006.

    "I absolutely think he can get elected," said Nathan Rager, 21, of Virginia. "He's the most well-known conservative in this race."

    According to Rager, Former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has a liberal record. Romney's record on conservative issues isn't consistent, he said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "is just an amnesty supporter," he said, referring to McCain's support of a legal status for illegal immigrants.

    Republican K.C. McAlpin of Virginia didn't vote for President Bush in either 2000 or 2004, choosing instead an independent candidate. He wouldn't say whom. He said he'll do so again rather than vote for McCain, Romney or Guiliani.

    Tancredo, McAlpin said "is an authentic conservative."

    Romney supporter Ruth Malhotra, 23, of Georgia, however, said while Tancredo's done a "amazing work" on the immigration issue, he's "not presidential material.

    "When you're looking at someone to lead our country, you need a strong record of leadership, more broadly defined," Malhotra said. "I don't think Tom Tancredo is the best person to lead our country."

    During his speech, Tancredo demonstrated his fondness for controversy. He repeated his tempest-provoking remark made last year that Miami is like a Third World Country. He talked about the letter he received from then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. In that letter, Bush said Florida people celebrated diversity.

    "I'm all for celebrating diversity," Tancredo told the crowd. "When you make a state religion out of it, that's when you have a problem."

    He said that the country needs a leader who knows we need a strong national defense "because our enemies are psychopaths and our allies are the French."

    When comparing himself to the fictional Rocky character, Tancredo joked that one of the differences between himself and Sylvester Stallone was that "probably Sylvester Stallone does not smoke cigars. But I do."

    The crowd erupted in large cheers and hoots. Last month, a Capitol police officer came to Tancredo's congressional office after a neighbor smelled smoke and called police. Tancredo was smoking a cigar, which is legal in lawmakers' offices.

    "Although we are in the middle of a place that's run by what I refer to as the lifestyle Nazis here in Washington D.C., that don't let you do things like smoke in public places, in my office in the capitol anyway, the smoking lap is lit, even if my next door neighbor doesn't like it."

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