Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, November 1, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
November 01, 2004
Clinton: Nevada 'massively important' for Kerry
By Steve Kanigher
<steve@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
From Yucca Mountain to homeland security to a livable wage for working Americans, former President Bill Clinton said there are numerous reasons why Nevadans should make fellow Democrat John Kerry the next president.
In an exclusive interview with the Sun en route to a campaign appearance on Saturday for Kerry at the Desert Willow Community Center in Henderson, the nation's 42nd president said that the election Tuesday will be a referendum on Yucca Mountain as it pertains to Nevada.
Clinton said he believes Kerry's stand against the federal government plan to ship 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to a repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas could help the Massachusetts senator carry Nevada.
Kerry has charged that Republican President Bush went back on his word and ignored sound science by signing off on the plan to bring the radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain. Bush has said that he considered sound science and that he did not break a promise he made to Nevadans when he first ran for the presidency in 2000.
Clinton said the presidential election in Nevada is "an up-or-down referendum on Yucca Mountain" that presents a clear choice between Kerry and Bush.
"When I ran in '92 I told you I would never approve it unless the science was right, and I was never convinced, so I resisted the approval for eight years," Clinton said. "In '92 and '96 the people couldn't have known so they took me on my word and I am grateful.
"When President Bush ran in 2000 he said, 'I won't approve it unless the science is right' and they took him on his word and gave him a narrow victory here as they had given me twice. So in 2002, as soon as (Energy Secretary) Spencer Abraham says everything is fine, he immediately approved it. Nevada took him to court and they said the scientific questions are nowhere near answered, but they're still pushing for Yucca Mountain.
"So Kerry says it won't happen. We know that the Bush administration wants it to happen. So this is the first time Nevadans have had a clear referendum on Yucca Mountain. If George Bush carries Nevada and is elected president, the inescapable conclusion will be that a majority of citizens in this state are willing to take Yucca Mountain. Never mind what the science says. There's no way out of that. That's the vote."
But Clinton said Yucca Mountain alone wouldn't enable Kerry to carry the state. A statewide Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll last month found that only 5 percent of very likely voters said Yucca Mountain would be the most important issue in their vote for president.
Other issues that Clinton believes will help put Kerry over the top in Nevada include the state's high percentage of individuals without health insurance, the high number of personal bankruptcies and inadequate funding for children who attend public schools.
"You've been disproportionately hurt by the fact that the No Child Left Behind act hasn't been funded, and that poor children have been kicked out of after-school programs," Clinton said. "Nevada would be disproportionately benefitted by a Kerry victory by putting more money into eduction.
"Nevada is a state where you can generate enormous numbers of new jobs with clean energy, solar energy, wind energy, other things that would make us less dependent on foreign oil. Kerry will be much more aggressive at pushing that."
Whether the federal minimum wage should be increased from $5.15 an hour, where it has been for seven years, is another issue that separates Bush and Kerry. Bush has said he would consider an increase provided it does not place unreasonable costs on small businesses and other employers.
Kerry has vowed to raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, arguing that the current minimum wage represents a 30-year low in purchasing power. The issue is also on the ballot in Nevada in the form of Question 6, a proposed amendment to the Nevada Constitution that would require employers in the state to raise the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour for workers who do not have health care.
"The Republicans always try to put a minimum wage bill in some sort of poison pill," Clinton said. "The last time President Bush supported a minimum wage hike it essentially gave the states the power to opt out of it. The Republicans don't like the minimum wage. They keep saying it costs employment but there is not a shred of evidence that it does.
"If anything, it adds a little bit to employment because minimum wage workers, when they get a hike in their pay, spend all their money. If you want a minimum wage increase, you ought to be for Kerry because he's clearly and unambiguously for it. President Bush has had a Republican Congress. Any time he wanted to raise the minimum wage he could have raised it. They simply don't believe in it. It is not a priority of theirs.
"The idea that I got two big tax cuts and we haven't raised the minium wage is appalling to me. Nobody can really live on the minimum wage we've got now."
Another difference between Bush and Kerry is their take on the future of Community Oriented Policing Services, a federal program Clinton got Congress to approve in 1994 in order to put an additional 100,000 police officers on the nation's streets.
The program has actually resulted in the hiring of more than 118,000 officers at a cost of more than $9 billion since it was instituted. The Bush administration, arguing that the program has already met its goal, has proposed spending just $97 million in the next federal budget on the program for officer training and technology.
Clinton said that while the Bush plan would increase funding for training first responders, it would also eliminate federal funds for 88,000 police officers nationwide.
"I just think that's a terrible, terrible mistake," Clinton said. "Kerry will reinstitute it and also beef up our fire services."
Kerry, arguing that the program has reduced crime and is worthy to retain for the sake of homeland security, believes it should be fully funded so that more officers can be hired. He has said he would provide the funding to hire as many as 100,000 new firefighters and other first responders nationally and train 5,000 more law enforcement officers to handle homeland security in local communities.
Again, Clinton believes Kerry is right on this issue.
"This issue doesn't have much traction in the states that don't feel personally threatened by terror," Clinton said. "But this is a big issue in New York. Most people outside of New York think they're voting for Kerry because it's a big liberal Democratic state. Let me just remind you we have a Republican governor, a Republican state senate and a Republican mayor of New York City. New York is not a liberal Democratic state.
"But Kerry is going to win New York big and one reason is the people of New York, who have paid more than any other people in America in this war on terror, like his security plan better. A big part of it is this whole homeland security, first responder thing.
"The majority of people know that we need to make a new beginning at home. If they can be convinced that their security will not be weakened in the fight against terror or in dealing with the troubles in Iraq by changing presidents, then I think they'll vote for John Kerry."
Clark County Sheriff Bill Young has said that Las Vegas deserves more homeland security funding because of its high profile as the nation's foremost tourist destination. Clinton said arguments such as those made by Young are "compelling" because homeland security money should be distributed to localities based on potential terrorist threat targets or "magnets."
"One of the most disappointing things to me in the Congress is that half of this homeland security money is just purely given out on politics," Clinton said. "They give it out on a per capita basis across the country without any regard to the threat. We shouldn't be giving out half this money because everyone could use a new radio system in their police department. It's nice to do but it's a scandalous waste of money.
"New York is underfunded. Washington, D.C., is underfunded. We underfund a lot of our ports, like the port of New Orleans, the port of Miami and the port of Seattle. Las Vegas would fall in that category."
One facility that Clinton said deserves more funds is McCarran International Airport.
"The reason I'd like to see more done at the airport here is the last thing you want to do is make Las Vegas inhospitable," he said. "You don't want to turn it into an armed camp, where people feel like it will take them three hours to get through the airport.
"I would be looking for non-intrusive ways, like checking the cargo containers or having good camera systems or having good intelligence about who might be in and out."
As for security abroad, Clinton praised Kerry for gaining the support of retired generals and admirals who "like his security plan better than the current administration's plan."
Kerry's plan, according to Clinton, would expand the Army and get more help in Iraq and elsewhere because "it doubles the Special Forces and intensifies efforts against Osama bin Laden and other terrorists."
"It invests more effort in trying to contain the weapons of mass destruction problem in Iran, North Korea, Russia and elsewhere," Clinton said of Kerry's plan.
"It also has a serious homeland security component. Here we are over three years after 9/11 and we're still checking only 5 percent of the cargo containers at our ports and airports. Every security expert says you can't have any deterrent effect at all unless you check a minimum of 10 to 20 percent of them."
Clinton had plenty to say about other topics as well, including a dispute that Hungarian Holocaust survivors have been having with the Bush administration.
American Jews, led by critics such as World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman, have taken the Bush administration to task for failing to support reparations from the United States government for Hungarian Holocaust survivors. Bronfman served as chairman of a bipartisan American Holocaust assets commission that was formed under Clinton.
The survivors in question were victims of plundered treasure at the hands of Nazi occupation during World War II. The so-called Hungarian Gold Train, which included 29 boxcars of gold, silver, art and other family belongings, was confiscated by the U.S. Army but a class action lawsuit representing 30,000 Holocaust survivors was filed in U.S. District Court in Florida seeking up to $150 million in compensation for belongings that were not returned to them.
"I don't understand it," Clinton said. "The Bush administration has presented itself as a great friend of Israel and American Jewry. There's no question that Jews, as a result of the Holocaust and the war, lost billions of dollars of assets.
"Now these families, many of whom are poor Hungarian Jews and some of whom live in Nevada apparently, all they asked for was compensation of $10,000 per family, very modest compensation. In fact, they're entitled to more."
The Justice Department initially chose to fight the lawsuit on grounds that the statute of limitations expired long ago and that the survivors have no legal grounds to sue the federal government. The Justice Department has since changed its tune and announced earlier this month that it would attempt to reach a settlement.
"The Bush administration fought it in court and they're still fighting it," Clinton said. "Finally, as the election draws near they seem to be open to negotiations. I have no explanation for it. This is an administration that is strong on the upper income people and throwing money at other people and I think this is wrong. It shows you an insensitivity that is unforgiveable. I know it's not a big issue in the election but it's a big issue with me.
"I put the credibility of the United States on a totally bipartisan basis out there in the world, that we had to compensate Holocaust victims for the loss of their assets. In the single instance where America owes money the Bush administration has refused to pay up. What was John Ashcroft thinking? They knew the United States led the world in getting other countries to give up $8 billion to compensate these families. Our credibility on this issue has been severely damaged, not only in America but around the world."
Clinton chastised Bush and the Republican Congress for wanting to place more power over health care decisions in the hands of health maintenance organizations and drug companies.
"So they passed a prescription drug bill that had a $40 billion outright subsidy to the drug companies, actually deprived some seniors of the coverage they already had, made it illegal for the government to bargain for lower prices for drugs bought in bulk under Medicare, and tried to get people to take out medical savings accounts," Clinton said.
"What Kerry wants to do is to put more power into the hands of patients and doctors and give individuals and small businesses more options to purchase health care without mandating anything.
"What Kerry wants to do is give Medicare the power to bargain for lower costs for drugs bought in bulk, like the VA (Veterans Administration) hospitals do, allow the reimportation of safe drugs from Canada to provide price competition, and allow small businesses and individuals who don't have health insurance to buy into the federal program, which is a private program. It has over two dozen choices."
The reason Kerry's health care plan makes sense, Clinton said, is that because the federal program would be larger, the administrative cost per policy would be smaller, leading to lower inflationary costs. Clinton also favors an aspect of Kerry's plan that offers reinsurance to policy holders who want to exceed certain limits of health care coverage.
"Kerry's plan is purely voluntary, puts more power into the hands of patients and physicians, gives them more choice," Clinton said. "Bush's plan, I think, is high cost and low coverage because it continues to push people into HMOs and lets the health insurance and drug companies call the shots. So I think Kerry's plan is a lot better."
When asked what a president could do to lower gasoline prices, Clinton said the long-term answer is for the nation to lessen its reliance on foreign oil.
"We need to be driving more hybrid vehicles," he said. "We need to be using more solar power. We need to be using more wind power. We need to be using more efficient insulation materials in our buildings, our homes and our factories. There is right now today a $1 trillion global untapped market for alternative energy technologies."
The problem is that alternative energy entrepreneurs don't have the same access to capital as do "old energy" oil and coal companies, Clinton said.
"The old energy economy, oil and coal, is well organized, well financed and well connected politically," he said. "What people should be focused on is whether they want to be paying these gas prices next year and the year after that and whether they want their children to be political slaves to a dependence on foreign oil.
"Even though the economy is down, so we should be using less energy, we're importing more foreign oil today than we were the day I left office. We need to change direction."
Recent quadruple-bypass heart surgery has not kept Clinton from hitting the campaign trail and speaking his mind on behalf of Kerry as the 2004 election enters the home stretch.
"I feel great," he said. "I get tired fairly easily but otherwise I'm doing great."
After addressing a Kerry rally Friday at the Clark County Government Center, Clinton stayed overnight and had the community center rally on Saturday in Henderson before heading to New Mexico.
Given Nevada's designation as one of the nation's few remaining battleground states in the race between Kerry and Bush, it should surprise no one that Clinton, a skilled campaigner, would want to visit states in play leading up to the election.
These are some of the election scenarios Clinton believes could occur, with 270 electoral votes needed for victory:
"Lets suppose John Kerry wins every state that Al Gore won (in 2000) and New Hampshire. That would give him 264 votes. Then, to win the election, he'd have to win Nevada and Arkansas or Nevada and one other place.
"Lets suppose John Kerry wins Ohio but loses Iowa and Wisconsin. To win the election he'd have to win Nevada.
"If he lost Iowa, Wisconsin and Hawaii, one of the states that is doing better economically because they get huge amounts of defense spending, he'd have to win Nevada and Arkansas.
"If he won Florida but lost Wisconsin and Iowa and Hawaii, he'd have to win Nevada. There are several scenarios under which how Nevada goes will determine the outcome of the presidency. So it's a massively important state."
Bottom line is no one knows who is going to win, including Clinton, who occupied the White House from January 1993 through January 2001.
"No one knows what is going to happen in all these states," Clinton said. "Kerry could win in Ohio and Florida and the election would be over. But Bush could win in Ohio and Florida, in which case Kerry has got to win a bunch of little states. No one knows what is going to happen. I don't have a clue.
"All I can do is try to clarify the choices for people. It's an easy election if people really understand the choices. It's not like these people don't have clear disagreements. They're both very strong people. They are people with convictions. But I think if people clearly understood what the real differences are, they would choose John Kerry."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 01, 2004
Editorial boards split on election
Nevada newspaper endorsements reflect closeness of race
By Sean Whaley
Review-Journal Capital Bureau
CARSON CITY -- So who are you going to vote for, George Bush or John Kerry?
Would-be voters who look to the state's newspaper endorsements to help decide who to pick in the presidential election might end up more confused than enlightened.
Just as the race between Bush and Kerry has divided the nation, it has divided newspaper editorial boards as well.
Two newspapers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Elko Daily Free Press, endorsed President Bush for a second term.
Three others -- the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Las Vegas Sun and the Nevada Appeal of Carson City -- endorsed Kerry.
And editorial writers at the Reno and Carson City newspapers said the decision to go with Kerry over Bush was close.
"It was really a close call by the (editorial) board," said Steve Falcone, opinion editor for the Reno Gazette-Journal. "To a large extent, it was the need for change, the thought that Kerry better reflects the country's values."
But Falcone, who said the board this year included three citizens in the endorsement process, said he did not know what the result would be until the vote was cast. The close vote seems to mirror the views of the public, he said.
"I have not seen this kind of split before in this state," Falcone said. "The two sides are so far apart. There is little room for listening to the other point of view."
Barry Smith, editor of the Nevada Appeal, said the vote for Kerry by the newspaper's board was close as well.
"I think the bottom line for us was Yucca Mountain," he said of the proposed nuclear waste repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "There were strong opinions on both sides on the major issues of the war in Iraq and domestic policy. But we were unanimous that we agreed with Kerry's stance on Yucca Mountain."
Kerry, in a speech Friday in Reno, said a nuclear waste repository would not be built at Yucca Mountain if he is elected president. Bush has allowed the process of licensing the site for a repository to go forward as president.
Rhonda Zuraff, publisher of the Elko Daily Free Press, said the decision to go with Bush was not difficult.
"We have a real strong sense of the strength of his leadership, his consistent message and his common sense approach to managing natural resources," she said.
John Kerr, editorial page editor for the Review-Journal, also said the decision to support Bush's re-election was not close.
"We have generally favored the Republican-oriented market economic policy for more than a decade here," he said.
"We felt he was a more resolute commander-in-chief on the war on terror," Kerr said.
Las Vegas Sun Editorial Page Editor Mike Campbell offered no comment on the editorial, saying the newspaper's endorsement of Kerry speaks for itself.
Erik Herzik, a political science professor and interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno, said newspaper endorsements are just one piece of information voters use in their decision-making process.
"We don't really know what effect newspaper endorsements have," he said. "In past elections, the individual who has gotten the endorsement from most newspapers often has not won."
Herzik said he would take all the newspaper endorsements he could get as a candidate, but that their real impact is hard to gauge.
"People are not blank slates, waiting to be told how to vote," he said. "They filter the information through their own biases and perceptions."
Nationwide, Kerry is leading in newspaper endorsements, according to a tally by Editor & Publisher, a newspaper industry magazine. So far, 125 newspapers have endorsed Kerry -- including at least 35 that had endorsed Bush in 2000 -- versus 96 for Bush.
Nevada's largest daily newspapers were more in sync in their endorsements in the major statewide races. Four newspapers endorsed Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for another term. The Elko paper did not endorse in the race.
The three largest papers also agreed on the choices for the Supreme Court: Jim Hardesty, Ron Parraguirre and Michael Douglas. The Appeal did not endorse, and the Elko paper chose Hardesty, John Mason over Parraguirre, and Joel Hansen over Douglas.
Four of the five papers also endorsed Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., for another term in Congress in District 2. The Elko paper has not endorsed, but would pick Gibbons if it does so, Zuraff said.
The two Southern Nevada newspapers both endorsed Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., for another term in Congress in District 1.
The papers split on District 3, with the Review-Journal endorsing Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., for another term and the Sun endorsing his Democratic challenger, Tom Gallagher.
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Nevada Appeal
November 01, 2004
Governor defeated by Bush speaks at BAC
By Peter Thompson
pthompson@nevadaappeal.com
Make no mistake, she may be as nonpartisan as anyone who once attributed George W. Bush's lack of verbal articulation to his having been "born with a silver foot in his mouth," But when it comes to speaking her mind, she is absolutely fearless.
"In 52 hours, we will have a new president," announced former Texas governor Ann Richards, commanding a crowd of about 200 ardent Kerry supporters for a half-hour at the Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall Sunday afternoon.
Even with a firm foothold on her early 70s, the verbal-jabbing firebrand seemed to flow with enough vigor and energy to throw lightning bolts, all of them irreverent, witty and not surpassingly, right at her longtime nemesis Bush.
Bush and Richards participated in a notoriously ugly race for governor in 1994. Bush won with, as Richards will quickly remind you, a $146,500 contribution from Enron's executive energy goon Kenneth Lay.
Sporting a pink jacket and her iconic white hair, Richards dazzled the crowd with her spirited wit, comparing the incumbent president and his political career with what she called a "post" turtle, balancing precariously on top of a fence.
"Well," said Richards. "Why a post turtle?"
She paused for comic timing.
"Well, for one, you know he didn't get up there by himself," she said.
"You know he doesn't belong there."
"And he obviously doesn't know what to do up there."
Richards worked the audience, which seemed to be celebrating her every word.
And all in all, she said, "You just want to help the poor fool get down!" garnering the first of a handful of standing ovations.
Richards went on to criticize Bush's No Child Left Behind pet project, noting that it was implemented in Texas during his years as governor. Since then, she said, the state has done exceedingly poor in standardized tests - dead last, in fact.
Next, she hit the War in Iraq with her personable blend of comedy and outright insult.
"George W. Bush lied to us about the reasons for going to war," she said.
Then, comparing his pre-election 2000 sweet talk about Yucca Mountain to a man who says, "I'll still love you in the morning" to a woman he wants to seduce, Richards implied, more or less, that Nevadans were, to put it delicately, "used."
"Enough is enough," she said, repeating the chorus several times during her diatribe.
Politics aside, Richards had some good advice for people voting on Tuesday.
"Bring an umbrella and a yard chair," she said. "It's going to be busy."
"Maybe if the Bush camp had cared enough to send somebody up to Carson City during these last nine months," began one audience member, sharing her story with Richards after the speech.
Contact reporter Peter Thompson at pthompson@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1215.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
October 31, 2004
Ann Richards blasts Bush, Cheney
Steve Timko
Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards blasted the Bush Administration on Sunday for a Medicare drug plan that doesn´t save money for seniors, for opposing stem cell research that could cure diseases of the aged and for flip-flopping on a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
Stumping in Reno and Carson City for the Democratic presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, Richards called on Vice President Dick Cheney to address these issues when he speaks today at Sparks High School.
“When Dick Cheney comes tomorrow, you can ask him why 82,000 Nevadans have lost their health care in the last four years,’ Richards said at a press conference.
Richards said Bush´s opposition to harvesting new stem cells for medical study means there won´t be research “that might be able to help our senior citizens and children with debilitating diseases.’
Bush, who defeated Richards for the governor´s seat in Texas in 1994, said four years ago he would reform Medicare, Richards said. But the drug bill pushed by Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress that uses a Medicare discount card only guarantees profits for drug companies and does not save money for senior citizens, she said.
“We can still buy them cheaper at a discount drug store than we can with that card,’ Richards said.
Speaking earlier in the day to a group of seniors and their guests at Promenade on the River in Reno, Richards criticized Bush´s plan to privatize Social Security. President Frankiln D. Roosevelt started Social Security in the 1930s to give people a guaranteed pension after the collapse of financial markets, Richards said.
Two people in the audience, who both supported Roosevelt the first time they voted, gave Richards high marks for her speech.
“She´s incredible,’ said Edna Pearl, 91, a Promenade on the River resident. “She hit on all the big issues. She knows how to communicate what she´s saying. She has extensive knowledge.’
Janice Goodhue of Reno, also 91, praised Richards for remembering all of the soldiers killed in Iraq after Bush declared a successful end to major combat operations.
“Nobody seems to care about the people still being killed, the 19-, 20- and 21-year-old soldiers,’ Goodhue said.
When Richards was Texas governor, it was one of the states being considered as an alternative to Nevada for being home to a nuclear repository. Richards said at the press conference she doesn´t think Texas would be willing to take the nuclear repository today.
“I don´t think there is any way that science can show you it is safe,’ Richards said.
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Sydney Morning Herald
November 02, 2004
Rundown of key swing states
AFP
The White House race between President George Bush and Senator John Kerry appears to hinge on a few closely fought states as they vied for a majority of the decisive 538 electoral votes.
Mr Bush appears to have 25 states with a total of 213 electors nailed down, while Mr Kerry has 14 states and the federal district for 190 electors. This leaves 11 states with 135 electors up for grabs.
A total of 270 electoral votes are needed for victory. Here is a brief rundown of the remaining "battleground" states:
Florida (27 electoral votes): Mr Bush won the south-eastern state and the presidency by 537 votes in 2000 after a recount dispute settled by the US Supreme Court. Polls are split on who is ahead but Mr Kerry is counting on an expectedly heavy turnout and Mr Bush is looking to his brother Jeb, the state's governor, to pull out Republicans. A loss in Florida would spell trouble for Mr Bush.
Ohio (20 electors): The midwestern state could hold the key to the election; no Republican has lost it and moved into the Oval Office. Mr Bush, who won here four years ago, had a narrow lead in most polls. But Ohio, badly hit by the loss of industrial jobs to cheap-labour economies, could be Mr Kerry's best chance to snatch a major state from the Republican column.
Pennsylvania (21): Mr Kerry has a slight lead in this eastern state that the Democrats won in 2000 and is a virtual must-win for them this year. Mr Bush has made the state and Ohio his most frequent campaign destinations and closed the gap in recent weeks. A victory for the Republican here could herald a relatively easy win for him in the Electoral College.
Michigan (17): Once all but written off to the Democrats, the midwestern state has become a late battleground despite housing the car industry capital and suffering high unemployment. A ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriages could draw out Republicans. Mr Kerry has a small lead and a loss here would be devastating.
Minnesota (10): The north-central state has voted Democratic in seven straight presidential elections but the Republican presence has been spreading. Polls are split on who is on top here and independent Ralph Nader could end up as a spoiler, siphoning off crucial votes from Mr Kerry.
Wisconsin (10): The midwestern state went Democratic in the last presidential election by a mere 5700 votes and Mr Bush is looking to Wisconsin to help cushion the possible loss of Florida or Ohio. Mr Kerry has come from behind to take a slight lead but the outcome could turn on the success of get-out-the-vote efforts by each side.
Iowa (7): Despite a heavy Democratic tradition, Mr Bush lost the midwestern state four years ago by just 4144 votes. The Republican is looking at Iowa as another possible cushion and hopes to reverse the 2000 verdict in a state that is half industrial, half rural with a booming farm economy, and overwhelmingly white. Polls are split with a small edge to Mr Bush.
New Hampshire (4): Once faithful to the Republicans, the northeastern state has been fickle in recent presidential elections. Bill Clinton won in 1992 and 1996 before Mr Bush took New Hampshire four years ago. Mr Kerry has hopes of snatching it back but the polls show the race a toss-up.
New Mexico (5): Mr Bush lost the western state in 2000 by the smallest of margins, 366 votes, but hopes to win this year on the strength of an improved local economy. Both candidates have courted the Hispanic vote and Mr Kerry is counting on Governor Bill Richardson, a strong supporter, to bring out Democrats. A toss-up.
Colorado (9): Mr Bush won the western state by more than 8 per cent in 2000 but Mr Kerry smelled blood after Colorado lost 80,000 jobs under the Republican. Polls give the President a modest lead but the electoral seats could be allotted proportionally if a referendum proposal passes on Tuesday.
Nevada (5): The western desert state went for Mr Bush in 2000 but Mr Kerry has made a move in the hope of profiting from unhappiness over plans to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain a storage dump for nuclear waste. Polls give the President a modest lead.
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Chicago Tribune
November 01, 2004
ELECTION 2004
Bitter duel is dead even
6 states hold key as campaign marches to its dramatic close
By Jeff Zeleny
Tribune national correspondent
MIAMI -- A presidential race waged under the specter of a global war on terrorism and a conflict in Iraq closes with an air of uncertainty as President Bush and Sen. John Kerry dash through a half-dozen states they believe could settle the bitter duel that has divided the nation.
The campaign, molded by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had a jarring October surprise when Osama bin Laden offered commentary on the election in a videotape warning to America. But as the debate intensified Saturday about which candidate would offer better protection from such threats, the outcome is still likely to turn on which party more skillfully navigates the election mechanics in the final two days.
Before the polls open Tuesday, one-fifth of the ballots may already have been cast through early voting, a fresh wrinkle to an election rife with lingering suspicion from 2000. Further, a surge of new voters not only threatens to defy predictions, but also increases the prospect that the winner might not be immediately known because provisional ballots offered to voters whose names aren't on the rolls won't be authenticated until after Election Day.
Lawsuits already are percolating in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and here in Florida, where both parties and a cadre of watchdog groups have assigned thousands of attorneys to monitor polling places. Both campaigns also have airplanes standing by to dispatch teams of lawyers to the site of a post-election legal battle.
While Bush once talked confidently of building a strong majority at all levels of government, the final chapter of the campaign arrives with Republicans feverishly working to keep their narrow grip on the Senate. Labor unions and other Democratic groups have invested in the presidential race and open Senate seats, such as the one in Illinois, saying their chances of taking control of the House are doubtful.
On the final weekend in the race for the White House, as the candidates targeted familiar terrain, they paid careful attention not to be startled by shifts in the electoral landscape. The margins are so close that Vice President Dick Cheney was flying Sunday to a rally in Hawaii, which has four electoral votes, where polls show Republicans might have promise in a state they lost by 19 percentage points four years ago. Democrats had countered by sending Al Gore there.
While Bush's approval rating hovers at or below 50 percent--historically a sign of trouble--no U.S. president seeking re-election in wartime has ever lost. Still, daily casualty reports, questions about missing munitions in Iraq and the extension of National Guard deployments also could influence the outcome, particularly in states such as Wisconsin, which has seen more troop deaths per capita than many states.
"Iraq has created a real sense of uneasiness for a lot of people in the middle who would be inclined to support a sitting president during a war," said Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. "There is a real growing unease about the long-term strategy in Iraq."
Complicated puzzle
Interviews with campaign officials and state party strategists suggest the electoral map is a complicated puzzle, with Bush fighting for Ohio, which has been won by every Republican to reach the White House, and Kerry battling for Iowa, which launched his presidential ambitions in its caucuses in January.
At the same time, Bush is making a late foray into Michigan, which Kerry had believed was safely his. But Pennsylvania, which Bush has visited more than 40 times since taking office, was leaning to Kerry. And Florida, New Mexico and Wisconsin--all decided by a hairsbreadth four years ago--also remained narrowly divided.
To reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, candidates must solve a riddle of geography and mathematics.
While furiously plotting scenarios, most strategists follow a double 2-out-of-3 formula: A candidate is likely to claim the White House if he wins two states in the Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania cluster, as well as two from the trio of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
"It's like one of those back-and-forth football games, and you're saying to yourself: The team who has the ball last is going to win this game," said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat. "What you want to do is time it so you cross the goal with no time left."
While Bush and Kerry have concentrated on driving turnout to record highs among their core constituencies, they closed the campaign also trying to reach the narrow band of undecided voters without a deep allegiance to either ticket. An important target: Latino voters.
As Latinos have become the nation's largest minority group, estimated by the census at nearly 40 million people, Democrats and Republicans have crafted strategies to capitalize on the changes. Bush and Kerry were guest stars in recorded appearances Saturday on "Sabado Gigante," a variety show seen by 2.5 million people last week on the Univision cable network.
The stakes are profound for both candidates, with Bush trying not to repeat his father's 1992 defeat. For his part, Kerry hopes to become the first U.S. senator since 1960 to be directly elected to the White House, and the first Democrat from north of the Mason-Dixon Line to win since John F. Kennedy.
The national campaign has been dominated by concerns over Iraq, the prospect of another attack and a series of domestic worries, from soaring health-care costs to the stability of Social Security. But the contest also is being fought with rare intensity at the neighborhood level in many battleground states where local issues could sway the outcome.
Will Bush's decision to approve nuclear waste storage in Yucca Mountain hurt his chances in Nevada? Will Kerry's previous support for the Northeast Dairy Compact, which helped dairy farmers in Massachusetts but not Wisconsin, cost him votes in the critical Midwest battleground? Will Ralph Nader's presence on 34 state ballots influence the race, or will his admirers follow the lead of his 2000 running mate, Winona LaDuke, and endorse Kerry?
Or could the race be influenced by a shortage of flu shots?
There's always likability
Those questions aside, during a campaign consumed by arguments over national security, the race also could come down to a gut-level feeling of which man is the most likable and could offer the strongest assurances against threats. Even Democratic leaders worry privately that Kerry has not sealed Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa--all of which Al Gore won--because of a connection with voters that often seems uneasy.
"There's no question that there is a personal culture component to this campaign," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican. "In the Midwest, there is an appreciation for a folksy style. You have this patrician from Massachusetts who is frankly a little more stiff than the president, who is kind of warm and has this aw-shucks approach."
Social conservatives have seized on Kerry's support for abortion rights and have circulated leaflets expressing his views, pointing out that he is a senator from Massachusetts, where same-sex civil unions are legal. The cultural division has taken on greater importance with the likelihood the next president will make an appointment to the Supreme Court.
In the final days of the campaign, from before dawn to beyond dusk, the candidates have sprinted through a well-worn map of states, delivering their closing arguments amid last-minute developments in the contest, like bin Laden's video, which mentioned Bush and Kerry by name.
But for millions of voters, it is too late to be swayed. Election Day has already come and gone.
While the ballots aren't counted until Tuesday, the campaigns are keeping a careful tally of the raw numbers of early voters and the people who have requested absentee ballots.
By the close of business Friday in Iowa, 313,761 absentee ballots had been submitted, according to a spokesman for Vilsack. In Nevada, officials said, more than 200,000 people had cast ballots by midweek. And in Florida, more than 1.8 million people had voted well before Kerry campaigned here Friday and Bush arrived in the state late Saturday.
Doubts about vote integrity
Still, despite the option of voting early, the 2004 presidential race seems to be picking up where the last campaign closed, with allegations of fraud and suspicion about the integrity of the election. Tens of thousands of absentee ballots had gone missing in Democrat-rich Broward County, and confusion surrounding the new touch-screen devices was causing delays of three or four hours at the polls.
Unlike four years ago, irregularities are likely to be detected swiftly because an infantry of lawyers will be circling polling precincts.
"The instant a voter emerges from the polls without an `I voted' sticker on them, we will approach them and find out what problems occurred," said Elliot Mincberg, legal director for the People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal group that has sent attorneys to several battleground states.
In the last presidential election, 105 million people voted. This year, strategists predict turnout could increase to more than 115 million. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate projects that 71 percent of eligible voters will be registered, up from 68 percent in 2000.
So even as Bush and Kerry rushed through states and time zones, they took a back seat to the most critical element of the race: the ground game. Legions of volunteers and paid employees fanned out through key battlegrounds, making telephone calls and knocking on doors as they execute a well-oiled plan to get out the vote.
To compete with Democratic groups investing more than $300million to target new voters, Republicans have paid particular attention to evangelical Christians.
Last week, in time to prepare their weekend sermons, pastors across the country received a new DVD, "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House." A description of the film, which ministers are invited to read to their congregations, says: "Nobody spends more time on his knees than George W. Bush. The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer."
But in the waning hours of the race, one development of concern was not written into the campaign's Election Day countdown: the re-emergence of bin Laden. In a videotape broadcast from a secret location, he declared, "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands."
Neither campaign could be sure how bin Laden's words would affect the election, so the candidates proceeded, bickering about who would offer the best protection against terrorism. Still, several Democrats worried that the renewed focus on terrorism might benefit Bush, who has made the war on terror the cornerstone of his re-election.
Even before Al Qaeda's leader surfaced late Friday, a glossy brochure from the Republican National Committee arrived in mailboxes throughout battleground states, featuring images of the burning World Trade Center towers and a picture of bin Laden.
It was the party's last mailing of the race.
- - -
FLORIDA
Electoral votes: 27
Can the state conduct a credible election?
IOWA
Electoral votes: 7
Will early voting swing the state?
MICHIGAN
Electoral votes: 17
A must-win state for Kerry
NEW MEXICO
Electoral votes: 5
Latino vote will be critical
OHIO
Electoral votes: 20
No Republican has won without the Buckeye State
WISCONSIN
Electoral votes: 10
Cultural issues may be decisive
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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PR Newswire
November 01, 2004
Sierra Club Votes '527' Campaign Heads into Final Stretch
Thousands of Volunteers Get Out the Vote in 11 Key Sites in Nine States
**Advisory and Contact Info**
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Heading into the final days of the 2004 election, thousands of Sierra Club volunteers are mobilizing around the country to get out the environmental vote in battleground states and raise the profile of environmental issues in the 2004 election.
Sierra Club principals and on-the-ground spokespeople are available for comment before and after the election. In addition, Sierra Club Votes will release a poll on Election Day concerning voter opinions about the most critical environmental issue in this year's election -- the designation of Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a national nuclear waste repository.
The Sierra Club Votes "527" campaign already has proved a tremendous success. In nine battleground states, staff and volunteers have knocked on more than 1 million doors, made more than 1 million phone calls, and sent more than 2.2 million pieces of direct mail. Additionally, some targeted voters participated in the Sierra Club's first Internet outreach campaign. As of October 31, Sierra Club Votes was responsible for more than 4.2 million direct contacts to environmental voters and the recruitment of nearly 12,000 new volunteers.
Sierra Club members and staff will spend the final day of the campaign getting out the vote as part of the America Votes coalition. Spokespeople are available in the following areas:
Local Sierra Club Votes Locations: Following are cell phone numbers for Sierra Club Votes spokespeople in battleground states:
* Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM: Jessica Hodge, 202-494-8717
* Columbus, OH: Bryan Clark, 614-461-0734
* New Hampshire: Kurt Ehrenberg, 603-498-2275
* Las Vegas, NV: Tara Smith, 702-308-8227
* Milwaukee, WI: Joyce Harms, 240-425-7830
* Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: Heather Cusik, 612-202-7599
* Philadelphia, PA: Elise Annunziata, 703-629-8441 or Brian O'Malley, 202-744-8487
* Pittsburgh, PA: Rachel Martin, 814-227-8201
* Portland, OR: Paul Shively, 503-201-1254
* Reno, NV: Illysia Shattuck, 310-386-0455
* Tampa Bay, FL: Darden Rice, 727-560-2479
SOURCE Sierra Club
Web Site: http://www.sierraclub.org
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 31, 2004
Clinton attacks Bush on Yucca
Stumping for Kerry in Henderson, ex-president says election a referendum on repository plan
By Christina Almeida
The Associated Press
A vote for President Bush is a vote for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, President Clinton said in a speech Saturday in Henderson.
Using some of the starkest language yet in the campaign for Nevada's five electoral votes, Clinton called Tuesday's vote a referendum on the Yucca repository, an unpopular plan being fought by both Democrats and Republicans in this battleground state.
"If the president carries Nevada, the inescapable conclusion will be the majority of the people of Nevada have voted to put (nuclear waste) here," Clinton told a crowd of about 250 John Kerry supporters at a senior center. "There is no other conceivable explanation."
The issue of burying 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste in the Southern Nevada desert has been at the forefront of the presidential campaign in the state.
Democrats have attacked Bush's approval of the plan in 2002 and promoted Kerry's vow to stop the project if elected.
"When John Kerry tells you he's not going to do it because the science is not right, you know that," Clinton said. "And you know what the president is going to do, because he's already done it."
Nevada Democrats have accused Bush of breaking his 2000 campaign promise to base a decision on Yucca Mountain on "sound science." They point to a federal appeals court ruling in July that tossed out the project's radiation standard as inadequate as proof Bush reneged on his promise.
State Republicans, however, claim the president relied on bad science and say they have "agreed to disagree" on the issue. Bush has accused Kerry of pandering to voters on the matter.
"If Kerry wins, they'll say you voted against it," Clinton said. "If Bush wins, they'll say you voted for it. You can't get out of it."
Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt dismissed Clinton's comments as "last-minute campaigning by desperate Democrats."
"President Bush has been clear and consistent and forthright with the citizens of Nevada," Schmitt said. "If you look at the polls, Nevadans understand and appreciate that President Bush based his decision on sound science rather than on a calculated campaign strategy."
During Saturday's speech, Clinton also talked about Kerry's plans for homeland security and health care. The former president said the Bush administration believes health insurance and drug companies should be making decisions for the American people.
"If you want a high-cost, low-coverage plan, you should vote for the president," Clinton said. "If you want a lower-cost, higher-coverage plan, you should vote for Kerry."
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, who was in Las Vegas to attend a rally with hundreds of volunteers, said Clinton's visit will not have much impact on the presidential race in Nevada.
"It does reflect the fact that Senator Kerry is experiencing some lack of enthusiasm among some core Democrats, and I think he hopes that President Clinton will correct that for him," Gillespie said. "But I don't believe that kind of charisma is transferable. People are going to base their vote on John Kerry and George W. Bush."
Also on Saturday, Wesley Clark praised Kerry at town hall meetings in Reno and Elko.
The retired Army general criticized Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, saying his "wrong choices" there have made America less safe.
Clark was the latest in a string of Kerry surrogates who have visited the state in recent days, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, actor Ed Norton and Kerry's sister, Peggy Kerry.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani campaigned on behalf of Bush in Las Vegas on Tuesday, just hours before Kerry attended a rally at a park across town.
Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards planned to campaign for Kerry in Reno today, a day before Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, are set to appear at rallies in Henderson and Sparks.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
October 30, 2004
Clinton stresses Yucca issue
Anjeanette Damon
In this year´s presidential election, Nevada voters finally have a referendum on whether the state should host the nation´s most radioactive nuclear waste, former President Bill Clinton told a small crowd of supporters in Henderson on Saturday.
“If the president carries Nevada, the inescapable conclusion will mean the majority of the people of Nevada have voted to put that here,’ Clinton said of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. “There is no other conceivable explanation.
“This is the very first time you have ever had a clear, unambiguous, undebatable referendum on Yucca Mountain. This is it. If Kerry wins, they´ll say you voted against it. If Bush wins, they´ll say you voted for it. You can´t get out of it. You need to tell everybody you can find between now and Tuesday.’
In an address that was supposed to focus on health care and Social Security, Clinton spoke to a mostly senior citizen crowd of 300 people at the Desert Willow Community Center.
After spending about 10 minutes on U.S. Sen. John Kerry´s health care proposals, Clinton launched into a lengthy discussion of Yucca Mountain – the issue that has been at the heart of Kerry´s campaign in Nevada.
Kerry has promised repeatedly to stop the project if he is elected.
Shortly after President Bush was elected, he approved Yucca Mountain as the storage site for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste.
Democrats contend he broke his 2000 campaign promise to base that decision on science.
In deciding a lawsuit brought by Nevada, a federal court earlier this year found that the project does not meet safety standards set by the scientific community.
“The scientific questions were not answered — not close – and they approved it anyway,’ Clinton said.
As president, Clinton vetoed a plan for the interim storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. But he did not stop the progress of the project.
Republicans say Bush kept his word and based his decision on the scientific evidence gathered during the Clinton administration.
They also point to a series of Senate votes Kerry made in the 1990s to help move the project along, saying the candidate can´t be trusted to keep his campaign promise.
Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, said the presidential race in Nevada is about more than Yucca Mountain.
“We believe this election to be about leadership and credibility,’ she said. “John Kerry is someone who has offered no leadership and has zero credibility on Yucca Mountain. From the beginning of this campaign, he has attempted to mislead the voters about his record.’
Kerry said his Senate votes in the 1990s supported studying Yucca Mountain. But he began voting against the project after 2001, saying the studies have convinced him the project is not safe.
Peggy Rosch, a 62-year-old Las Vegas retiree who has lived in Nevada for 45 years, said she trusts Kerry to stop the project.
“Anyone who lives in Nevada and does not vote for Kerry to stop the nuclear waste dump, there is something wrong with them,’ she said.
Clinton´s speech, his second in Clark County this week, comes as both campaigns focus their last efforts to get voters to the polls on Tuesday.
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, attended a rally of campaign volunteers Saturday in Las Vegas. The cadre of volunteers will spend the weekend calling and also knocking on voters´ doors throughout the state.
“Turnout, turnout, turnout,’ Gillespie said of the Bush-Cheney campaign´s final push in Nevada. “The most dangerous place to be on Tuesday will be between a Bush voter and the polling place.’
Gillespie said the Kerry campaign has “been reduced to’ spreading fear, as public polls indicate Bush has a slim lead in Nevada.
He said Democrats are trying to scare seniors by saying Bush will bankrupt Social Security, scare young people by talking about reinstating the draft, scare workers by saying Bush will eliminate overtime and scare African-Americans by saying the GOP will interfere with them at the polls.
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Washington Post
October 31, 2004
Nevada (5)
With thousands of new residents arriving in what once was reliably Republican Nevada, Kerry was tempted to try to duplicate Bill Clinton's two victories in a state that Bush carried by four percentage points last time.
Kerry seemingly had several advantages -- an energized labor movement in Las Vegas, growing numbers of Latinos and blacks, and the enthusiastic backing of Sen. Harry M. Reid. Most of all, Kerry had a ready-made issue in the Bush administration's support of making Yucca Mountain a nuclear storage dump for the whole country. However, he looks to be coming up a bit short.
Combined tallies of early and absentee voting in heavily Democratic Clark County (Las Vegas) and normally Republican Washoe County (Reno) showed a Democratic advantage of 9,000 ballots. Democrats professed satisfaction, because the turnouts in 2000 in the two most populous counties had been almost dead-even. But Republicans said the margin was smaller than their opponents need to win the state for Kerry, when the rural vote is factored in. Republicans always win outside Las Vegas, but hope to do particularly well this year, with cattlemen and mining interests strongly opposed to Kerry's environmental policies.
Bush has led by three to five points in almost every public poll, but Democrats claim their tracking showed it a tie, even before Clinton came in Friday to argue that Kerry's election would stop the Yucca Mountain project.
Cheney will do rebuttal rallies in both Las Vegas and Reno on Monday, and the GOP seems rather confident the state will go for Bush.
Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, has only nominal opposition from anti-gay activist Richard Ziser.
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Deseret News
October 31, 2004
Bush, Kerry still deadlocked
By David S. Broder, Dan Balz and Charles Babington
WASHINGTON — President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, go into the final 48 hours of the 2004 presidential campaign within easy reach of an electoral majority, but neither has a clear advantage in the remaining handful of tossup states.
This year's election is a virtual rerun of the 2000 race, with many of the same states in the too-close-to-call category. But four years ago, Bush's route to an electoral majority was clearer than Al Gore's, while this year his path appears no easier than Kerry's, given the states still in play.
Bush has solid leads in 23 states with 197 electoral votes and is favored in four more, which could bring him to 227. Kerry is equally solid in 13 states with 178 electoral votes and is favored in five states, which would bring him to 232. It takes 270 electoral votes to win.
Six states — Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and New Mexico — with 79 electoral votes could determine the winner. All are regarded as tossups by neutral observers and the two campaigns.
Democratic hopes of overturning the Republicans' shaky 51-vote majority in the Senate are unlikely to be realized. Democratic candidates would have to win all four tossup races and defeat one favored Republican to emerge with 50 seats and a tie that John Edwards could break if he and Kerry win. Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., is fighting for his political life in South Dakota against former GOP Rep. John Thune, a race both sides expect to be won or lost by fewer than 2,000 votes.
In the House, few analysts see Republicans losing more than three seats net from their 24-seat majority or adding more than that number. But two prominent Republicans — Christopher Shays of Connecticut, co-sponsor of campaign finance legislation, and Phil Crane of Illinois, a 35-year veteran, are in jeopardy.
The state-by-state analysis is based on reporting by Washington Post staff members traveling with the four presidential and vice presidential candidates and on assignment in nine states, along with private assessments from top Kerry and Bush strategists and interviews with dozens of other political players in Washington and around the country.
What makes this presidential election so difficult to call is the intensity of voter interest, reflected in swollen registration totals and long lines for early voting, combined with the most aggressive voter mobilization efforts either party and its allies have ever mounted. Democrats in particular believe their ground game may be decisive in the closest remaining states.
The other unknown is the potential impact of Osama bin Laden's Friday videotape message, which abruptly shifted headlines away from Iraq to terrorism and echoes of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush's highest ratings come for his leadership against the terrorists, but there was no discernible shift to the president in polls taken during the first hours after the video aired.
Some Democrats fear Bush may benefit from bin Laden's intervention, but until the tape appeared, Republicans complained that Bush was fighting against a tide of negative news developments: brutal killings in Iraq, shortages of flu vaccine, investigations of Vice President Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, an impasse in Congress over reform of intelligence agencies and, for most of the past week, headlines suggesting the administration had been negligent in allowing tons of Saddam Hussein's lethal weapons to fall into dangerous hands.
A deadlock
The Washington Post's latest tracking poll shows a deadlocked electorate, with Bush at 49 percent, Kerry at 48 percent and independent Ralph Nader at 1 percent, among likely voters. Most other polls show the race equally close, although a Newsweek poll put Bush up 50-44 percent among likely voters. A general movement toward one or the other candidate in the final hours could significantly alter the electoral map balance.
The candidates tried to tune their speeches to the shifting headlines as they campaigned in what they know to be the battleground states. From last winter on, both Bush and Kerry have targeted Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, believing that whoever wins two of them would likely be elected.
Despite more than 40 Bush visits, Pennsylvania has now tilted toward Kerry, and Republicans are fighting desperately to pump the vote in their central and southwestern areas of strength enough to make up for the Democratic margins in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Some public polls show the race tied, but insiders are skeptical Bush can prevail.
Other states that have moved from the pre-convention tossup category toward Kerry are Washington, Oregon, Maine and Michigan. Hawaii, once considered a Democratic certainty, has become a battleground in which Kerry is narrowly favored.
Meantime, Bush has gained the advantage in Colorado, Missouri, Nevada and West Virginia, all considered battlegrounds at one time.
Florida and Ohio
But Florida and Ohio remain tossups. Four years ago, Bush did not have to worry about Ohio. Gore had folded his campaign in the state to concentrate on Florida, and it was something of a shock when Bush carried Ohio by only 3 points.
Still, with severe losses of industrial jobs the past four years, Republicans knew early it wouldn't be easy this time. Although Ohio has one of the nation's weakest Democratic parties, independent pro-Kerry groups such as Americans Coming Together have moved in massive numbers of organizers. Republicans have ramped up a party that controls all major offices to meet the challenge. Kerry needs a sizable margin out of the Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown area to offset Bush's support in the southern parts of the state bordering the Ohio River, where his social issue stands are much more popular.
In Florida, preparations for this election — and tensions over its outcome — have been building ever since the disputed 537-vote Bush margin gave him the presidency. Republicans retain control of the election machinery, run by an appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother. But Democrats have amassed an army of lawyers to challenge any irregularities. Both sides have prodded supporters to take advantage of the state's new early-voting law, and more than 1.5 million Floridians have turned in their ballots already. Republicans say they have growing confidence that Bush will carry the state Tuesday, but Democrats have taken heart from early vote patterns in some counties and are far from conceding.
Bush's most direct path to re-election is simply to capture those two big states he won last time. That could bring his total to 274 electoral votes. If Kerry wins them both, he will be at 279.
Another option for Bush would be to steal Michigan from Kerry. The state's economic problems, second only to Ohio's, gave Kerry the early advantage. His managers assumed the state was secure and devoted little time and money to it, an omission the Bush side moved quickly to exploit. With a revived party organization and hundreds of local "Victory headquarters," they have forced Kerry to increase his investment in the last 10 days. Kerry plans a stop on Monday hoping that a big Detroit vote will give Democrats the edge.
But if Michigan stays Democratic and Bush and Kerry split Florida and Ohio, then the other tossup states become decisive, particularly three in the upper Midwest: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. The winner of two of those three likely will win the White House.
All three went for Gore, but the Massachusetts senator has struggled to make a personal connection with midwestern voters, typified by his reference to "Lambert" rather than Lambeau Field, home to the Green Bay Packers. All three states are now open to Bush.
The easiest for Kerry to win may be Minnesota, a state with a proud Democratic tradition but that has been trending Republican. Bush came close in Minnesota four years ago and may once again fall just short.
Wisconsin has seesawed between the two candidates throughout the fall, with Democrats worried about black turnout in Milwaukee and Bush trying to push up his numbers in the Fox River Valley south of Green Bay. Like Minnesota, Wisconsin allows voters to register on Election Day, adding an unpredictable element.
Bush's best bet to pick off a Democratic state may be in Iowa, even though it is the state that launched Kerry toward the nomination last winter. But Iowa remains too close to call this weekend. Democrats won the state four years ago on Election Day with their voter turnout operation and say they may have to do so again this year.
There is only one competitive state in New England: New Hampshire. Four years ago, after Republicans captured the attention of Granite State independent voters with their presidential primary between Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain, Bush managed to eke out a 7,000 vote victory in the general election. This time Democrats won the headlines with their primary contest, and Kerry is favored to win back the state on Tuesday.
There is one asterisk in New England, in Maine. Kerry should win the statewide vote easily, but Maine divides its electoral votes in part by congressional district and Bush is fighting to win one vote from the northern, mostly rural 2nd District.
At one point in the campaign, four Rocky Mountain states were on the target list of the two campaigns, but in the closing weeks, only two — New Mexico and Nevada — see real competition. Nevada leans to Bush, despite his support for making Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste repository. New Mexico, which went for Gore with one of the smallest margins in the country, remains a tossup, with the closing trend toward Bush.
If New Mexico turns into another dead heat, Tuesday could turn into another long night of counting, but that could be eclipsed if Hawaii remains as competitive as it has appeared in the last week. Newspaper polls in the once-staunchly Democratic state showed Bush running even with Kerry, prompting both campaigns to buy advertising and late visits by Cheney and Gore.
In the Senate, Daschle versus Thune remains the premier contest, but two other incumbents, both Republicans, are in trouble: Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The parties expect to trade open seats in Illinois and Georgia. Republicans have Democrats on the defensive in open seat races in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina. Democrats have the GOP fighting to hold open seats in Colorado and Oklahoma.
With so few House races truly competitive, Democrats' hopes of regaining the majority they lost a decade ago seem virtually nil. The key to Republicans' likelihood of maintaining and possibly expanding their majority lies in Texas. Thanks to aggressive redistricting by the state's GOP-controlled legislature, five House Democrats are imperiled, with only one given a 50-50 chance of survival. Republicans say Texas is their firewall to protect the party from possible losses in Connecticut and a handful of other states.
Republicans control 229 of the House's 435 seats (counting vacancies in two GOP-leaning districts). Democrats have 205 seats and there's one liberal independent. With Republicans poised to gain four seats in Texas, a nationwide net pickup of three seats is quite plausible. Under a best-case Republican scenario the party could gain about six seats. Under a worst-case result, Democrats would pick up perhaps four seats net, still leaving them well short of a majority. The House assessments are based in part on independent assessments of the Cook Political Report and The Rothenberg Political Report.
Only 11 states are electing governors this year. In Indiana, former Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels is threatening to end 16 years of Democratic domination in a race against Gov. Joe Kernan. Republicans are favored to hold on in North Dakota and Vermont and are threatening in Delaware and Missouri. Democrats are confident about West Virginia and North Carolina, hopeful about keeping Washington in their column and believe they have a shot to take over in New Hampshire, Montana and Utah.
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Pottstown Mercury
October 31, 2004
Plant security a campaign issue
Evan Brandt
ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
While the topic of safety at nuclear and chemical plants has long been a subject of debate, in recent months it has become a subject of debate in the presidential campaign.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the issue of homeland security has been front and center in the white-hot race between incumbent Republican George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.
And two arenas in which this debate is being waged -- the security of chemical plants and nuclear power plants -- are of obvious local interest.
Occidental Chemical Corp. operates a plant on Armand Hammer Boulevard in Lower Pottsgrove that produces polyvinyl chloride resin and is among the nation´s largest emitters of vinyl chloride, a recognized carcinogen.
And Exelon Nuclear´s Limerick Genera-tion Station is perhaps the dominant feature of the region´s landscape.
Kerry has taken the position that Bush has done too little to secure chemical plants from a terrorist attack, a charge the Bush campaign refutes. And a report released by a consumer group on Oct. 18 makes similar charges about security at nuclear plants, which the Bush campaign also refutes.
The operators of the two local plants touched by this debate insist their plants are safer now than they ever were.
Chemical Plants
Kerry has singled out chemical plants in particular saying security "is not adequate" to protect them from terrorist attack, making the communities that surround them vulnerable to harm.
Bush counters that the Department of Homeland Security "has already identified the nation´s highest-risk chemical sites and is partnering with industry to enhance protections at those sites, improving safety for over 13 million Americans."
There is evidence to support both positions.
Gaps found
Kerry´s Web site cites a number of studies including a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment that there are about 123 chemical facilities in the United States "where a terrorist attack could endanger more than 1 million people. In the Philadelphia area, there are seven such plants, the highest concentration of these facilities on the east coast," Kerry´s site notes.
Unwilling to provide easy information to terrorists, neither Kerry, nor any of the other security evaluations on this issue have identified specific plants as being particularly vulnerable.
But in general, it makes reference to numerous studies supporting the call for increased security at chemical plants. His site refers to a 2003 Washington Post story quoting a former Georgia-Pacific security chief who told the Post "security at a 7-Eleven after midnight is better than that at a plant with a 90-ton vessel of chlorine."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Carl Prine made headlines, along with a "60-Minutes" film crew, when both demonstrated the ease with which they could enter unsecured sites in western Pennsylvania, Houston, Baltimore and Chicago.
Kate McGloon, a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council, said member plants where problems were found by those reporters generally reacted to the revelations by working to improve security at their plants.
Recent reports
More recently, two reports have taken a look at potential problems.
Wednesday, a federally funded report by the Paper-Allied Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers, better known as PACE, found that while security improvements have been made at many plants after the 9/11 attacks, plants "have not done an adequate job of preventing and preparing for such an event," said Dave Ortleib, the union´s director of health and safety programs.
The study, funding by the National Institutes of Health, found while many have added fences and guards, what is "greatly lacking" at the plants is "meaningful worker involvement and participation" in developing ways to prevent an attack, Ortleib said.
"Our members are on the front lines, and we feel there needs to be a greater emphasis on prevention," he said.
A more scathing report was released Oct. 18 by Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C., in which the contributions Bush has received from the chemical industry are highlighted as a possible reason for what they say is a reluctance by the administration to take proper steps to protect chemical plants.
"Bush has abdicated his responsibility to protect America from the risk of terrorist attacks because he is fundamentally hostile to regulation of private industry and is loath to cross his big money campaign contributors," Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said when the report was issued.
Claybrook said her group accepts no money from corporations, is not affiliated with any political party and does not endorse candidates.
Rather than an attempt to influence the outcome of the election, Claybrook said it was all the talk about homeland security during the summer campaign, which she felt was ignoring this problem, that motivated the compilation and release of the report.
McGloon scoffed at the suggestion that the report had no political motivations. "It´s unfortunate that campaign contributions are being used to avoid talking about the real progress being made on chemical plant security," she said.
Political or not, its doubtful Public Citizens report was welcome news at Bush campaign headquarters. A call to the Bush campaign´s Pennsylvania communications director was not immediately returned Friday or Saturday.
Changes at OxyChem
Among the biggest contributors highlighted in the report, who gave to either Bush, his inaugural fund or the Republican National Committee was J. Roger Hirl, President and CEO of Occidental Chemical Co., who collected $100,000 for Bush in 2000.
OxyChem´s parent company, Occidental Petroleum and its employees, together donated $434,000 over the last three years, according to the Public Citizen report.
Sam Morris, the plant manager at the OxyChem plant in Lower Pottsgrove, declined to comment on that aspect of his company´s relevance to this issue.
However he was willing to talk, in general terms, about security at the 267-acre site, once a Firestone Tire and Rubber plant.
"We have implemented additional security measures since 9/11 and we have tightened up procedures," Morris said. "We have further restricted access to the facility, put up additional vehicle barricades and enhanced monitoring," he said.
He said the plant has also conducted a voluntary security assessment of the plant, made changes after vulnerabilities were identified, "and had those verified by an independent third party," that Morris would identify only as "officials."
Further, the changes and security measures are shared with a community advisory panel as well as the local emergency response team, he said.
Those are the kind of measures recommended by Isadore "Irv" Rosenthal, a research fellow with the University of Pennsylvania´s Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and a 40-year veteran of Rohn and Haas who was appointed to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board by President Clinton.
"There´s no question plants have beefed up security, the question is whether it has been done broadly enough," Rosenthal said. "There are a significant number who have not even met the minimum standard and I understand why they might not be able to. But when you rely on purely voluntary measures, there are always a number who don´t volunteer."
He added "I imagine Occidental as a company has behaved responsibly overall."
Worst case scenario
According to documents filed with the government and made available by OMB Watch´s Right to Know Network, the worst-case scenario involving OxyChem is not a vinyl chloride incident, but one involving anhydrous ammonia.
Should that storage tank rupture and its contents vaporize in 10 minutes, it could injure the 13,600 people who live within 1.7 mile radius of the plant, a radius that includes several schools and Pottstown Memorial Medical Center.
The document also makes clear that officials at OxyChem consider this scenario to be highly unlikely and would only occur if a variety of fail-safes and back-up systems all failed.
The battle in Congress
Another front in the political war is how security at these plants can be regulated.
Congress has taken two basic approaches, both of which have not made it to the floor for a vote.
One, initiated in the Senate shortly after the 9/11 attacks by New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine, would require plants to reduce storage of dangerous chemicals and change processes, where possible, to use less dangerous chemicals.
While this general approach is supported by PACE, Ortleib said his union would prefer to see the spefici language before making any kind of endorsement.
McGloon said while the members of the Chemistry Council are strongly in favor of legislation to improve security at the 2,040 chemical facilities owned by its 140 members, they do not look favorably on "the federal government telling us how to run our businesses."
Instead, they support a competing Senate proposal by Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, that requires better security plans, puts the authority in the hands of the Homeland Security Department, but does not limit the use or storage of dangerous chemicals.
Claybrook derided this approach as "typical bureaucratic shifting to a department that has no power and no authority over these plants. The government regulates safety in food, in cars, why not in chemicals?" she asked.
Nuclear politics
Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are highly regulated and security at them was stiffened immediately after the 9/11 attacks.
Locally, National Guard units swarmed to the Limerick facility and stood guard for several months in the aftermath of the attacks.
As such, the debate on security at these plants at the presidential level has been less intense.
It is largely Public Citizen that has made the accusations here, which charges similar to those made about chemical plants, its report calls nuclear plant security "grossly inadequate."
This situation is allowed because Bush "has a fierce ideological aversion to regulation" and "the administration is heavily indebted to the nuclear industry and electric utilities for generous campaign contributions," Public Citizen wrote.
According to the Public Citizen report, Exelon has donated $434,161 to Bush and the RNC between 2000 until this year.
While Kerry campaigns on preventing nuclear proliferation and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, he makes no mention of security problems at nuclear plans in any of his campaign materials.
Bush´s campaign makes note of requirements he supported to improve security and training at nuclear power plans and quotes John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic International Studies, who said "there is more security around nuclear power plants than anything else we´ve got."
Lisa Washak, spokeswoman for the Limerick facility, confirmed that the plant recently installed additional fencing, guard towers and has increased the "stand-off" distance, which refers to how close people are allowed to get to the plant without being cleared by security.
"This has always been a highly secure and well-protected facility," she said, pointing to Nuclear Energy Institute material that says since 9/11, the industry has spent an $370 million on additional security.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 30, 2004
Key to Nevada's electoral votes may lie with Yucca Mountain
By Christina Almeida
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The key to winning Nevada's five electoral votes might lie with a ridge of volcanic rock some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Yucca Mountain rises 4,950 feet over the Nevada desert on federal land where no one lives. Yet a Bush-approved plan to bury high-level nuclear waste there divides voters statewide and threatens President Bush's ability to win the state again.
"This is the issue that will defeat Bush in Nevada," said Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat polls show coasting to his fourth term. Bush won here in 2000 by 3.5 percentage points, but polls indicate the race with Sen. John Kerry is extremely close.
Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, a Republican leading the state's legal challenge to the plan, said he doesn't think it's fair to blame the president for approving the project.
"He made a decision based on the information that was provided to him," Sandoval said.
Yucca Mountain is in line to begin receiving 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste by 2010. Nevada has battled the plan for decades, but in 2002 Congress and Bush authorized the site.
Kerry has vowed to kill the project if elected, saying he prefers to keep the waste at nuclear power plants across the country.
"It will take a Democratic president to stop this," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
During his only visit to Nevada in 2000, Bush said any decision on Yucca Mountain would be based on "sound science." Democrats believe the statement was enough to swing voters his way and now contend the president didn't keep his promise.
Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, voted in favor of the repository in 2002. Shortly before he joined the Democratic ticket as Kerry's running mate, Edwards promised to oppose it if he were vice president.
Kerry has opposed the project multiple times, including the crucial 2002 vote that solidified Yucca Mountain's future.
"When it's counted, I've voted no to waste at Yucca Mountain," Kerry said during an August visit to Las Vegas.
However, Republicans point out that Kerry voted in favor of an appropriations bill in 1987 that included a proposal to narrow the number of potential repository sites from three to one - Yucca Mountain.
Bush has accused his opponent of using the issue as "a political poker chip" now and questioned what Kerry might do later. "My point to you is that if they're going to change, one day they may change again," he said.
"John Kerry is trying to take the moral high ground and he cannot ... because of his record," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "If Yucca Mountain was not an issue, George Bush would win Nevada by 10 points."
---
On the Net:
Nevada Democratic Party: http://www.nvdems.com
Nevada Republican Party: http://www.nevadagop.org
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Nevada Appeal
October 30, 2004
FBI: Nevada could be prime terrorist target
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - A major airport adjacent to the tourist-rich Las Vegas Strip, and facilities ranging from Hoover Dam to an Army ammunition depot in Hawthorne help make Nevada a prime terrorist target, according to an FBI threat assessment.
"Nevada clearly presents a viable target for both international and domestic terrorist groups," said the 19-page unclassified threat assessment presented Thursday to the Nevada Homeland Security Commission.
However, there is no current specific threat in state, FBI agent and spokesman Todd Palmer spokesman said Friday.
The report outlined general threats and responses, including security measures employed during last year's New Year's Eve celebration in Las Vegas. Authorities imposed a no-fly zone over the city; checked airline manifests, hotel and rental vehicle reservations; and deployed radiation and biological hazard detection teams.
Daniel DeSimone, FBI supervisory special agent for the Nevada Regional Intelligence Center, said the greatest threat to U.S. was al-Qaida, but characterized the threat posed by Islamic extremists in Nevada as low.
DeSimone also said domestic terror groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, Aryan Nation, Skinheads, National Alliance and others were active in Nevada.
The report cited several additional possible terrorist targets including the state Capitol in Carson City, the Fallon Naval Air Station, mining sites, the state's busiest highways and shipments of highly radioactive waste to a planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Palmer termed the report, which restated information made public in the past, a "generalized assessment" of the terrorism threat to Las Vegas and the state of Nevada.
Adjutant Gen. Giles Vanderhoof, the commander of the Nevada National Guard and new state homeland security chief, said the commission will conduct a statewide threat assessment to help decide how federal homeland security funds are spent.
The state has 2.3 million residents, with the cities of North Las Vegas and Henderson ranked second and third in growth in the nation, and Las Vegas ranked 32nd. But the report notes another 47 million people who visit the state every year.
"On any given day, the Nevada population may be increased by approximately 270,000 people due to tourism," the report said.
It cites rapid growth, uncounted tourists and a "Sin City" reputation as factors that "propel Nevada to the top when being considered as a potential terrorism target."
Attack from the air is a concern in an area where 404 flights a day fly into and out of McCarran International Airport, the nation's seventh-busiest airport.
It is adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip, which the report refers to as "five miles of potential targets for terrorists."
"Eighteen of the 20 largest hotels in the world can be found in Las Vegas, along with the five largest convention centers in the United States," the report said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 30, 2004
FBI report highlights potential terror targets in Nevada
Authorities add there is no specific threat
By Brian Haynes
Review-Journal
From the massive hotels along the Strip to the monolithic Hoover Dam, Southern Nevada is filled with potential terrorist targets, according to a new FBI Terrorism Threat Assessment.
Federal authorities consider the terror threat in Nevada to be low and have no specific, credible threat involving the state.
However, the assessment points out that the state is home to many high-profile locations and plays host to many high-profile events that would make inviting terrorist targets.
The FBI presented the report Thursday to the Nevada Homeland Security Commission.
Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, who sits on the commission, said the report was a "common sense" summary of threats and issues that have already been in the public eye.
"It was not an eyebrow-raiser to me," Young said. "There was nothing in there that I didn't know about."
Because tourism is the backbone of the state economy, a major terrorist attack in Nevada could spark an economic collapse that would ripple across the country, the report said.
Potential targets in Las Vegas include hotels along the Strip, the monorail, convention centers, Hoover Dam, the Spaghetti Bowl and other transportation infrastructure, the report said.
The assessment also posed the possibility of a hijacked airliner being used to attack the Strip or surface-to-air missiles being used to shoot down an airplane over the Strip.
Large gatherings in Southern Nevada could also be targeted. Attacks at events such as the NASCAR races at the Las Vegas Speedway and the upcoming Las Vegas centennial would likely involve mass casualties and create a period of chaos, the report said.
The report also warns that "Sin City" advertisements for the city's centennial "could antagonize certain terrorist entities."
Areas of concern in other parts of the state include the capitol in Carson City, Fallon Naval Air Station and Yucca Mountain.
Young said the commission would use the report to help decide where federal homeland security money should be spent.
Las Vegas police have already earmarked some of that money for a mobile command center and a radio vehicle that allows different agencies to talk to each other during a crisis.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 29, 2004
Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Yucca lives or dies on Tuesday
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
Weekend Edition
October 30 - 31, 2004
Does Nevada deserve the nuclear waste dump?
I have heard many reasons that try to justify the government's effort to bury 77,000 tons of radioactive waste just a few miles from Las Vegas, and each one of them has been, in the language of our youth, bogus.
That's because there is no reason on Earth why thousands of trucks and trains full of high-level death need to travel through most major cities in this country on their way to Las Vegas and, ultimately, Yucca Mountain. Unless you believe that adding to the profits of the nation's power companies is a good reason or stuffing the already full coffers of President George W. Bush's campaign is sufficient enough reason to jeopardize every man, woman and child in this state for the next few hundred thousand years!
And I don't know anybody in this state who would trade the health, safety and security of his family or his neighbors just so President Bush and his friends can make more money. Actually, I do know a few of those people and I am not talking much to them anymore.
Until now, until this coming Tuesday when Nevada voters go to the polls to help choose the next President of the United States, we have always been victims of the nuclear power industry, the Department of Energy and Bush White House.
When Congress first decided to explore possible sites around this country over 20 years ago, Yucca Mountain was one of many potential places that was chosen to be studied for possible inclusion on a short list of burial candidates. Since Congress had chosen so many to investigate, alarms did not sound to the extent necessary to alert us that we were behind the eight ball. We were victims of neglect.
In 1987 the Screw Nevada Bill quickly made its way to President Ronald Reagan's desk. That legislation short-circuited the scientific pretense of the first law and singled out Nevada as the only site in the entire country to be considered. It called for years of scientific study followed by a decision in 2002 by the then current president. He was to decide, based on all the scientific evidence and the guarantee of a safe geologic site for thousands of years, whether Yucca Mountain was going to be the place for all eternity in which the deadliest radioactive substances on Earth would rest.
That legislative sleight of hand was orchestrated mainly by two senators, one from Louisiana and one from Texas. Both of them were very powerful people and decided, since their two states looked like sure winners for the dubious honor of being chosen the place where all the nation's problems would be buried, that just could not happen!
Nevada was a state with very few people, lots of federal land and virtually no electoral votes. To make matters worse, for some inexplicable reason, Nevada's senior senator, who was a close friend of President Reagan, did nothing to intercede on our behalf. And our junior senator was quick to follow his senior mentor's lead. He did nothing either.
That was a case in which Nevadans were victimized by more powerful, more able and more determined senators from others states, a small population for which nobody cared, two senators who made those who did nothing look busy, and a president who did what he was told, probably not having a clue what he was creating.
In the 1990s the Republican-controlled Congress tried in vain to send the radioactive waste our way years before the law allowed. They did it by trying to change the law. We were to be victims again, but that time we had people with guts, brains and considerable political brawn. Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan joined our representatives, Shelley Berkeley and Jim Gibbons, to outfox the power industry pawns in the GOP. And then they brought out the big guns of President William Jefferson Clinton who threatened vetoes twice before he finally had to exercise that presidential prerogative.
Then came the presidential election of 2000. Believing candidate Bush's promise to accept only sound science in making his decision about sending that deadly garbage to our state, Nevadans chose Bush and, by doing so, provided the margin of victory for his march to the White House.
In a very short time, President Bush reneged on his commitment and selected Nevada, over the objections of every reasonable scientific study. The Senate overwhelmingly caved in to the White House's pressure and the age-old "not in my backyard" syndrome.
Despite science, all rational thought and a complete disregard for the brand new threat of terrorism in our homeland -- and the unthinkable thought of thousands of "dirty" nuclear bombs just waiting to be unleashed on our highways and byways -- the president did what he always intended. He, like the Congress before him, screwed Nevada.
Once again we were victims. This time, the victims of President George W. Bush. That brings us to Election Day 2004. And, for the first time since this nightmare started three decades ago, Nevada has the chance to no longer be the victim. We have a chance to finally help ourselves. The choice between the two candidates is absolutely clear. On the one hand we have a president who has proved his unreliability by promising to follow sound science and, when the first opportunity presented itself, ignored that science and stuck that dump up our Yucca Mountain. And he continues to do all that he can to make sure those trucks and trains are rolling our way as soon as possible.
On the other hand is Sen. John Kerry, who has promised that if he is elected president Yucca Mountain will never open. Instead, he will challenge science to find a 21st century solution to the problem of nuclear waste. Backing him up is Sen. Harry Reid, who not only has confirmed that a President Kerry can stop the dump but that he, Harry Reid, will make sure his friend will do just that.
So there you have it. We can continue to be victims or we can determine our own destiny. We can continue to be the Entertainment Capital of the World or we can re-elect President Bush and risk turning this city into a ghost town.
In 2000, Nevada gave its electoral votes to Bush and made him president. This time we can give them to Sen. John Kerry and, most likely, make him president.
If we do that we will finally stop being victims. If we don't, we deserve the dump!
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Las Vegas SUN
October 29, 2004
Columnist Jeff German: A vote for Kerry can stop Yucca dump
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.
Weekend Edition
October 30 - 31, 2004
We have the power Tuesday to stop the high-level nuclear waste project at Yucca Mountain.
All we have to do is vote for John Kerry for president.
Kerry is promising to kill the dump, while President Bush is pushing to send 77,000 tons of deadly waste our way.
It is true that we have heard promises like Kerry's before from presidential candidates.
To win our electoral votes in 2000, Bush told us he would recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress only if the science was sound. But when he got to the White House, he broke that promise. He recommended the multibillion-dollar project, even though the science had not proven it safe.
We were betrayed by a man who put the interests of the powerful nuclear industry over our well-being.
Today the best Bush can do is promise that he will abide by any court decisions challenging the project. As weak as that is, it's another promise that can't be believed, as we watch the president's Energy Department working feverishly on its Yucca Mountain license application.
For Kerry supporters like Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, Yucca Mountain has become an issue of character in the presidential race.
"Bush lied to us, and the people know he lied to us," Reid says. "That's probably the reason why he has been through two elections in Nevada and has never responded to a member of the Nevada press."
Kerry, on the other hand, has been to the state seven times during this year's campaign and talked to the media every time.
In August I was among a handful of local journalists who had a chance to sit down with the Massachusets senator and press him on several issues. I didn't see a candidate who was making empty promises about Yucca Mountain, like George Bush did in 2000. I came away impressed with the depth of Kerry's opposition. He clearly had taken the time to educate himself and form an intelligent opinion.
Kerry told us why he's uncomfortable with the concept of a centralized repository for nuclear waste and what he would do as president to stop the dump, starting with holding up the licensing process.
But what impressed me the most was that Kerry said he was ready to stand up to the political pressure he surely would face from the nuclear power industry and its lackeys in the Republican-controlled Congress.
And so for the first time in this 22-year battle with Washington, we have a clear shot at winning.
"It's very simple," says former Gov. Bob Miller, who led the fight against Yucca for 10 of those years. "If you don't want Yucca Mountain, vote for Kerry and it's over. If the president of the United States can't do it, we're in real trouble."
What has been the biggest disappointment in this year's campaign is the lack of backbone displayed by our elected Republican leaders. We finally have the pro-Yucca Mountain forces on the ropes, and the Republicans have been afraid to deliver the knockout punch.
No one knows the dangers of Yucca Mountain better than Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval. Yet, with the state's five electoral votes up for grabs, they have refused to withhold their support of the president until he commits to halting Yucca Mountain. Instead, Guinn and Sandoval have co-chaired Bush's Nevada campaign.
Sen. John Ensign and Reps. Jon Porter and Jim Gibbons also call themselves Yucca Mountain opponents. But, like the governor and attorney general, they have been unwilling to go to the mat for the cause. Instead, they have advanced the party's disingenuous argument that Kerry can't be trusted, when they know in their hearts that the only one who can't be trusted is Bush.
They all have let us down.
In the final analysis, the facts can't be disputed. With John Kerry, we have hope for a safer future. With George Bush, we can look forward to being dumped on -- again.
Our destiny is in our own hands on Tuesday. All we have to do is cast the right vote.
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Boston Globe
October 30, 2004
Anger over nuclear-waste site might sway votes in Nevada
By Susan Milligan
LAS VEGAS -- In a state populated by people as different as showgirls, Mormons, cowboys, and retirees, one issue unites virtually all Nevadans: Yucca Mountain.
Nobody wants it to be a storage facility for radioactive waste.
"Would you want it in your backyard?" asked Maxine Ernst, 79, as she waited to cast an early vote at a local mall. "I don't want a toxic dump," added Louise Boyd, 56, a hotel inspector.
The question of where to put the nation's nuclear waste doesn't come up outside the Silver State, which got saddled with the task after a selection process spanning more than 20 years ended in 2002. But John F. Kerry's campaign hopes the highly emotional local issue could swing critical votes their way. Bush won Nevada in 2000 by 22,000 votes but signed a resolution two years later to put the nuclear waste at Yucca, a site about 100 miles from Las Vegas.
Yucca is one of several local issues in battleground states that could prove decisive. In Florida, for example, a small number of Cuban-Americans are upset about the administration's new, tightened restrictions on family travel to Cuba, and polls show Bush has lost some support among the Cuban-American community.
In Wisconsin, dairy issues may move some farmers. Democrats are escorting Mary the Marathon Cow, a 30-foot inflatable bovine, to taunt Bush on his campaign swings there. The Kerry campaign in the Badger State charges that Bush failed to fight for the extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract program, which provides support to dairy farms.
Bush's campaign, driven more by broader themes, such as terrorism and conservative cultural matters, may weather the localized attacks. The president, for example, still enjoys overwhelming support among Cuban-Americans, who tend to vote Republican, and his antitax message is popular in Nevada. In a year when a small number of votes could swing a state, the Kerry campaign and its sympathizers are hitting the local issues hard.
"Yucca is part of a whole number of ways George Bush has not been good to the State of Nevada," said Anne Sheridan, the Kerry campaign's Nevada director. Kerry, on visits here this month and in August, called the Bush administration's position on nuclear waste "a symbol of the recklessness and arrogance with which they are willing to proceed with respect to the safety issues and concerns of the American people." Kerry has not proposed an alternate site, saying he would have a blue-ribbon panel study the matter.
Republicans counter that Kerry's record is inconsistent about Yucca and say that Nevada, a state with solid economic growth and a strong tradition of voting for Republican presidential candidates, is Bush country. Still, the scheduled appearance here Monday of Vice President Dick Cheney in Reno indicates the GOP campaign is not secure about its chances here.
"We feel good about where we are in the race right now," but "We're not taking anything for granted," said Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Nevada.
Former President Bill Clinton, the only Democrat in the last 40 years to take Nevada in the presidential campaign, also rallied voters in Las Vegas yesterday, a sign that Democrats believe they can win an upset here. Recent polls indicate Bush in the lead, but most of the poll results have been within the statistical margin or error.
The poll numbers represent an ironic turnabout in political power for the state. Nevada ended up receiving the Yucca dump in part because it was a state with a small congressional delegation, fighting such other dump candidates as Washington, Texas, New Hampshire, Louisiana, and North Carolina. New Hampshire used its power as the first primary state to be spared from the task. Other states benefited from having congressmen as leaders of the House or of key committees.
Now, Nevada finds itself wooed ardently for its five electoral votes. Kerry has visited the state 11 times; Bush four times. Monday will be Cheney's sixth visit here. Jon Ralston, a political analyst who hosts a television show called "Face to Face," said he has been stunned this year to score on-air interviews with Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman and Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state under Clinton. "That would not happen unless they cared," he said.
Democrats and Bush critics are seizing on comments Bush made in a 2000 letter to Governor Kenny Guinn that he would "veto legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," a statement some took to mean Bush would spare the state from being the nation's central nuclear dump.
A Moveon.org ad in August accused Bush of breaking his promise on Yucca, a sentiment echoed by some voters here, though Bush did not explicitly pledge he would stop Yucca if "best science" supported it. A Bush television ad on Yucca says Kerry voted seven times for measures supporting the transport of nuclear waste to Nevada. Kerry voted to stop Yucca in key votes in 1987 and 2002.
As he waited in line to vote, Earl Scott, 31, was critical of Bush, saying, "The last thing we need is toxic waste in our community." But he wondered if Kerry would be better. "He said this and that" against Yucca, "but he also has a history of saying the opposite."
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New York Times
October 30, 2004
An Evolving Identity Helps to Leave Five States in Search of a President
By Timothy Egan
ACOMA, N.M., Oct. 29 - As the sun sets over the land on Election Day, the American West could become the landscape of victory for the man who will be president in the next four years.
For all the attention that the parties are paying to Sioux City, Iowa, or Dayton, Ohio, the election may well be decided in places like Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where the London Bridge was transplanted to the sands of the Mojave Desert, or here at Acoma, an Indian pueblo that claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the nation.
Heavily urban despite its open spaces, and soon to be more Hispanic, the West is also an unpredictable region in search of a new political identity. The war, terror, climbing health insurance premiums all matter here as elsewhere, but people are more likely to be independents.
As the electoral map dried up in the South for Democrats, they turned to the long-forgotten interior West. But both campaigns have discovered that political brand loyalty is a hard thing to find here.
"I'm a Democrat who voted for George Bush last time, and I'm voting John Kerry this time just because things don't feel right and maybe change is the only way out," said Amanda Mordem, a nurse's assistant in Bullhead City, Ariz., a sprawling town at the edge of a county that takes in part of the Grand Canyon and Indian reservations.
Five states - Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, with a total of 36 electoral votes - are still within reach of either candidate, according to most recent polls.
A tour through these five states this week, when millions of people were well into the thick of early voting, found a big land pulsing with the harsh intimacy of battle in the campaign's closing days.
"You can't keep it down this year - people are just off the charts for this election," said Elizabeth Boyd, who works at the Face to Face Spa in Bend, Ore., where politics has elbowed aside talk of wonder exfoliants and earth-friendly facials.
Former President Bill Clinton plans to be in New Mexico Saturday and Sunday, pitching for its five electoral votes as President Bush's father did on Thursday.
"I've never seen the kind of churning we're seeing right now in the West," said Ron Judd, the Western region director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "There is this undercurrent like we had in 1994 when the Congress changed hands, like we're on the verge of something big."
Oregon's Culture Clash
In Oregon, a state where doctors can prescribe drugs for the terminally ill to kill themselves but drivers cannot pump their own gas, people have been voting for more than a week in the all-mail-in ballot.
Oregon looked like a tossup for much of this year, with an island of Democrats in the Portland metropolitan area surrounded by Republican counties. Some Oregonians believe the state is trending more like Colorado did in the 1990's, full of Republican California exiles. But Democrats are still optimistic. Al Gore eked out a 7,000-vote victory in 2000, but he was hurt by Ralph Nader, who drew 5 percent of the vote. This year Mr. Nader is not on the ballot.
The red and the blue clash in Deschutes County, on the other side of the mountains from Portland. It grew by 54 percent in the 1990's, drawing people who live for cutthroat trout that rise in streams that dance through the high desert.
Clay and Julia Johnston, a pilot and his wife, formerly of Portland, were sipping coffee while filling out their mail-in ballot on a chilly morning. They predicted a victory for President Bush - at least in this county where the two political cultures of the state collide.
"Wherever there is money, there are Republicans," said Mr. Johnston. "And there is a lot of money here."
Nevada's Wild Cards
South, in Nevada, money was on the air nonstop, and on the ground, as the campaigns bused people to mobile voting centers.
"Who wants to vote - this way to the bus," said a Bush campaign operative on Tuesday outside the giant Victory Christian Center in a strip mall in Henderson, for much of the last decade the nation's fastest-growing city.
Nevada has only five electoral votes, but they have been fought over as if they were the last undeveloped real estate on the Las Vegas Strip.
A few blocks away, union supporters were getting their talking points and neighborhood maps for a day of ground-pounding. They were told to remind stay-at-home moms of the nuclear waste site planned at Yucca Mountain - an issue Senator Kerry has been raising.
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Salt Lake Tribune
October 30, 2004
Utah appeals N-waste ruling
U.S. Supreme Court is asked to review lower court's decision
By Patty Henetz
The federal government has no business overruling state laws blocking the transportation of spent nuclear fuel into Utah, the governor and attorney general said Friday, especially when the laws haven't even had a chance to be applied.
For that reason and others, the state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision on the proposal to bring spent nuclear fuel to the Goshute reservation, Gov. Olene Walker and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced in a joint appearance at the Capitol.
Stopping a nuclear waste storage facility on the Skull Valley reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City is a states' rights issue, Walker said.
"My first priority is the safety of Utahns. I oppose high-level nuclear waste storage in Utah and hope the waste never comes here," she said. "But history has taught us that a strong framework of federal and state law is needed."
The state is petitioning the high court to review a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in August that said the state was wrong to pass laws in 1998 and 2001 intended to block the project because Congress already had decided it was the federal government, not the states, that is the authority on spent nuclear fuel.
The ruling upheld an earlier decision from U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell, and was considered a major setback in the fight to stop a plan by a consortium of eight electric utilities, known as Private Fuel Storage, to ship their deadly nuclear power plant waste to Utah for open-air storage until it could be taken to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The petition to the Supreme Court questions whether it was proper for the 10th Circuit to issue what Utah Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor called "an advisory position." Chancellor, the attorney who would present the case if the high court accepts it, said Utah also questions 10th Circuit intervention into a "totally local" issue of road transfers necessary to complete the PFS project.
The petition also asksfor review of the project's potential unfunded liability and the nature of PFS's limited liability business structure.
Further, the appellate court "swept aside the Utah laws even though the laws have not yet been applied, may never be applied because the project still lacks the needed federal approvals" and could be applied without usurping federal laws, the petition claims.
PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said she hadn't seen the state's petition but that the consortium's lawyers were reviewing it. "We understand it is certainly the state's right to appeal the decision of the appeals court," she said.
The proposed license for the facility at the Skull Valley reservation is now before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, which in mid-September completed three weeks of closed-door hearings on the correctness of an earlier determination that the possibility of a fighter jet crashing on the canistered waste posed an unacceptable risk.
PFS wants to store as much as 44,000 tons of radioactive waste from the nation's 103 commercial reactors, nearly all such waste
that has been generated since utilities turned to nuclear power for cheap electricity.
The 4,000 steel-and-concrete casks would hold the waste on 100 acres of the reservation for up to 40 years. The transportation plan would require shipping by rail, truck and barge and the construction of a rail spur to the reservation.
The group has presented the project as a temporary solution to the problem of the waste, which by federal law was supposed to have been shipped to a permanent federal repository that was to open in 1998. Utah has no nuclear power plants.
Multiple problems with the Yucca Mountain project, including lawsuits, intractable opposition from the state of Nevada and a lack of funding has made the new 2010 opening deadline unlikely. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has vowed to kill the Yucca Mountain project if he is elected.
A more fundamental problem with the PFS proposal recently came to light: The contracts under which the Department of Energy will accept the nuclearwaste don't allow for PFS to send the fuel to Yucca Mountain in sealed canisters. The PFS proposal doesn't include a facility in Skull Valley that would allow the private business to package the spent fuel to DOE specifications.
Additionally complicating the PFS agreement with the Goshutes are two federal indictments pending against tribal chairman Leon Bear for embezzlement and tax fraud. Bear has been embroiled in a leadership battle with the 121-member tribe since he signed the contract with PFS on behalf of the tribe in 1997.
Utah officials fear that if PFS receives its 20-year renewable license - and that could happen as early as January - and the facility is built, what gets shipped here will never leave.
Walker this week posted on her Web site a missive declaring, "If it comes here, it will not leave," and concluding the only way to manage PFS was to block it.
"Moving this stuff is a huge enterprise," said Assistant Attorney General Jim Soper. "The attitude of the [nuclear] industry is, 'If wecan send it to Utah it will be there for 40 years.' I think once it gets here, it won't leave."
Soper said the state on Thursday sent a 200-plus page response to the Atomic Safety Licensing Board's deliberations. The state expected to receive a copy of PFS' response Friday. Both sides then have three weeks to rebut each others' positions.
Candidates for governor, Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and Democrat Scott Matheson Jr., oppose the facility, as does all of Utah's congressional delegation.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 29, 2004
Albright visits Las Vegas to stump for Kerry
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright summed up the Bush administration's diplomacy from her perspective quite succinctly.
"The world is a mess," Albright said Thursday at the American Legion Hall in Las Vegas.
Albright, the highest-ranking woman in any administration, joined three retired generals, an Iraq war veteran and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in a "national security" tour of battleground states to stump for John Kerry.
"We left a surplus in our budget and a surplus in our relationships around the world," Albright said, referring to Bill Clinton's eight years as president. "We now have a mega-deficit in both."
Albright saved her harshest criticism for the post-war situation in Iraq, which she called "badly planned."
"The president calls it a catastrophic success," Albright said. "Have you ever heard those words? It's an oxymoron, like imposing Democracy."
Albright, a Czechoslovakia native who moved to the United States when she was 11, likened the current state of world affairs to a "perfect storm" in which she said Europe is mad at the United States, the Middle East peace process is in shambles, the ethnic cleansing in Sudan has gone largely unchecked and North Korea now has nuclear weapons.
"We need a new captain, actually somebody who did serve in the Navy, did save people and did tell the truth," Albright said.
During a question-and-answer session with the news media, Albright said she was concerned the Bush administration had not paid enough attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
"More active work should have been done," Albright said.
Albright said she didn't enjoy her meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat when she served. And she said she blames him for failing to accept a peace offer that could have helped his people.
"The question is who provides the best security for Israel," she added. "The road to Jerusalem does not lead through Baghdad."
Congressman Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., issued a statement on behalf of the Bush administration saying that "sending former Cabinet members" to Nevada does not answer for Kerry's "liberal" voting record in the Senate.
The security tour also traveled to Reno on Thursday as part of a concerted effort by Democrats to get voters to the polls during early voting.
Former President Clinton will speak at a rally at the Clark County Government Center today at 3:30 p.m., several hours before early voting polls close.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 29, 2004
Poll: Porter maintains lead
Democratic challenger Gallagher remains 10 percentage points behind
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
Although the race for Nevada's 3rd Congressional District began without a Democrat, the major parties didn't let the late start crimp the money spent, turning it into one of the nastiest and most expensive congressional races in state history.
Democrat Tom Gallagher didn't even make his first public speech until mid-April, and Republican Congressman Jon Porter was largely unseen in the district until late this fall.
Still, as of Oct. 15, Porter had already reported raising $2.4 million and Gallagher was one of the top-funded challengers in the nation at $1.7 million.
Congressional committees from both parties also are contributing with television ads and mailers, putting the race at the $5 million mark and leaving voters with little in the way of solid information about where the candidates stand on issues.
The race has become Gallagher the "carpetbagger" versus Porter the "rubberstamper."
"I've just been stunned at the willingness of Jon Porter to destroy his reputation," Gallagher said.
Gallagher, an attorney and retired chief executive officer of Park Place Entertainment, has been accused of trying to buy the race and lambasted for moving into a rented home in the district. Porter ads have linked Gallagher to unsavory practices, from document shredding to a pro-Yucca Mountain ad campaign, because of his work at the 800-partner law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Porter, a former state senator in his first term in Congress, has been criticized for voting 94 percent of the time with his party. Gallagher ads also have questioned why Porter didn't disclose his family's insurance business when he voted on the Medicare reform bill that included a provision for the sale of policies that his company could offer.
Porter considers it an attack on his son, who works at the family's insurance business.
"I am extremely disappointed that Tom brought my family into the campaign," Porter said. "He crossed the line.
"We had to respond to his negative attacks that started in mid-September," Porter said. "We were up on television with positive ads, we started with positive ads and it's unfortunate we had to respond to his negative ads, which weren't true."
Polls throughout the year have shown Porter with a comfortable lead, but the most recent poll conducted for the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research inc. shows the race has tightened.
The poll of 307 likely voters in the district, taken Tuesday and Wednesday, shows Porter with 51 percent and Gallagher with 41 percent. Seven percent are undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
As recently as mid-October, a similar poll showed Gallagher down 50 to 35 percent. The closest the race has been previously in Mason-Dixon polling had Porter up 51 to 40 in September.
Gallagher has not been worried about polls showing him with a double-digit deficit to make up, and believes strong Democratic participation on Election Day could send him to Washington.
"It all depends on turnout," Gallagher said. "I think what Porter is doing is even more testament to the fact that the race is closer than polls may suggest."
The latest Porter mailer alleges: "Tom Gallagher doesn't have a shred of respect for the law," and cites that he was a partner at a law firm that destroyed evidence and was assessed $800,000 in fines.
On Wednesday, the Gallagher campaign issued a statement from Ted Olson, the former solicitor general of the United States and the attorney who represented President Bush in 2000's decisive Supreme Court case regarding the election in Florida.
"Tom had nothing to do with that whatsoever, and it has long since been fully resolved," wrote Olson, a partner in the firm. "Although our politics differ, I have the greatest respect for Tom's ability and integrity."
Porter said he stands by the mailer.
"I don't know Ted Olson," he said. "All I know is that according to Tom's resume, he was a partner in the law firm. Partners share profits and share responsibility."
The first commercial Gallagher aired that directly addressed Porter contained a factual error. It said Porter voted for the war in Iraq. Porter was not yet in Congress at the time, and the ad was corrected within a day.
But Porter considers the ad the opening salvo in a series of false attacks that he couldn't let go unchallenged.
He did not participate in an in-person interview with any local print reporters this election year and pulled out of two televised debates his campaign had scheduled.
The two televised debates that did occur barely touched on any differences between the candidates.
National pundits who follow Congress refer to this race as a do-over for Democrats. The party's nominee in 2002, Dario Herrera, was entangled in scandal throughout the election year and has subsequently been indicted in a political corruption case.
Porter won by 33,717 votes, or 19 percent.
Libertarian Joe Silvestri and Independent American Richard Wayne O'Dell are also in the race.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 29, 2004
Letter: Yucca getting old
To the editor:
I think the media's infatuation with Yucca Mountain and elections is interesting and baffling. According to polls, Yucca Mountain is a low priority with voters, with only 3 percent to 5 percent considering it the most important issue in the presidential election. Many are sick and tired of a few people attempting to use the issue for political gain.
Whoever is writing the political ads opposing the project must be from out of state. The ads are clearly out of touch with the issues that are truly important to the state. The ads and comments concerning Yucca Mountain are factually incorrect. They provide misleading information concerning the number of shipments that will take place because there will be only a handful each week. Most importantly, the ads fail to communicate that the shipments won't come anywhere near Las Vegas and that Yucca Mountain is 100 miles from the valley.
I'll be glad when Nov. 2 comes and goes, and the media buyers at the local ad agencies can place ads that aren't political -- and misleading.
Rebecca Wamsley
Las Vegas
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 29, 2004
Letter: Kerry's future
To the editor:
For those who intend to support Sen. John Kerry for presi