Monday, December 22, 2003
Political Notebook: Forget the holiday — There's a primary
By C.J. Karamargin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Holiday, schmoliday. A presidential campaign is under way, and candidates see no reason to let up just because it's Christmas.
That no-rest-for-the-weary-White-House-wannabe approach might explain a trip to Tucson this week by Wesley Clark, one of nine Democrats hoping to run against President Bush next year.
The Christmas repast will hardly be past by the time the retired general jets into town on Saturday. The time and location of the visit had not been set as of late Friday, but check these pages over the next few days for details.
Clark and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean are essentially tied for first place among Arizona Democrats, according to a recent poll commissioned by KVOA Eyewitness News/Channel 4 and the Arizona Daily Star.
Both candidates are now saturating Arizona airwaves with television commercials.
The SurveyUSA poll found that Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (who will start running TV spots here next month) is third, followed by Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Kerry, by the way, isn't paying so much attention to Arizona these days, at least according to The Boston Globe. The paper reported last week that he will be "all but skipping" Arizona and the other six states that go to the polls on Feb. 3.
The reason: Kerry's sputtering campaign has forced the candidate to focus his energy on doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire, which go to the polls on Jan. 19 and Jan. 27 respectively.
Deadline coming up
You have two weeks from today to register to vote if you want to cast a ballot in Arizona's presidential primary.
The Jan. 5 registration deadline applies to new voters and voters who have moved or changed their name since they last registered. Only registered Democrats can vote in the primary.
Registration forms are available from the Pima County Recorder's Office, 115 N. Church Ave., Motor Vehicle Division branches, post offices, libraries, political party headquarters, city and town halls, or online at www.recorder.co.pima.az.us.
Call the recorder at 740-4330 for more information.
McCain doubted
detainee policy
It was a front page headline in this paper and numerous others across the nation on Friday when two federal courts ruled against the Bush administration's policy on terror suspects in U.S. custody.
Days before the big news, though, one of our own raised questions about the policy after a little-noticed tour of the military's detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a one-time prisoner of war in Vietnam, came away convinced that the more than 600 prisoners have "the right not to be detained indefinitely."
In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, McCain and two other lawmakers wrote that "a serious process must be established in the very near term either to formally treat and process the detainees as war criminals or to return them to their countries for appropriate judicial action."
In one of last week's rulings, an appeals court declared that denying the Guantánamo prisoners access to legal protections was unconstitutional and a violation of international law.
Bush says so: No
migrant amnesty
President Bush early last week touched briefly on a topic of importance to Arizonans: illegal immigration.
In case you missed it, Bush was asked to clarify his administration's policy on the matter during a press conference dominated by talk of Saddam Hussein's capture.
"First of all," the president said, "I have constantly said that we need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee. It makes sense that that policy go forward, and we're in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation to the Congress."
And then he added, "Let me also clarify something: This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty."
The comment was applauded by Reps. Jim Kolbe of Tucson and Jeff Flake of Mesa, who along with McCain are sponsoring legislation creating new work visa categories for foreigners to work in the United States and for foreigners already here.
Bush's position embodies the "core principles" of that bill, Kolbe said. In Flake's view, the president "hit the nail right on the head."
Immigration is expected to be a topic of discussion next month when Bush and his Mexican counterpart, Vicente Fox, meet.
Fox was quoted by The Associated Press on Thursday saying that he and Bush will be "talking about restarting the migration issue." As for amnesty, "That is not the context in which we will be working," Fox said.
* Contact reporter C.J. Karamargin at 573-4243 or at cjkarama@azstarnet.com.
