January 22, 2008

The upcoming 2008 Presidential Primary (February 5th) is particularly exciting for the disability community as we continue to strive for greater representation in society, the Democratic Party and at the Convention. On behalf of the Officers and Executive Committee members, I am writing to ask that after you vote for the Presidential candidate of your choice, that you support all and any of the following 23 people with disabilities who may be on your ballot running to be delegates regardless of which candidate they are supporting.

Name	Congressional District - Representative	504 Club Member	Candidate
Brooke Ellison	1 - Bishop	No	Clinton
James Sanders Jr.	6 - Meeks	No	Obama
Thomas Duane	8 - Nadler	Life Member
Elaine Berlin	8 - Nadler	No	Edwards
Arthur Schwartz	8 - Nadler	Life Member	Obama
Anastasia Samoza	8 - Nadler	previously	Clinton
Norman Rosenthal	9 - Weiner	Yes	Obama
Belinda Dixon	13 - Fossello	No	Clinton
Dilia Schack	13 - Fossello	No	Clinton
Kenneth Dash Sr.	14 -Fossello	No	Clinton
Sylvia Friedman	14 - Maloney	Life Member	Edwards
Arthur Leopold	14 - Maloney	No	Obama
Ida Torres	14 - Maloney	No	Clinton
Pamela Bates	15 - Rangel	Yes	Clinton
Gloria Alston	16 - Serrano	No	Obama
Barbara Werber	23 - McHugh	No	Clinton
Lynne Tillotson	24 - Arcuri	No	Obama
Lori Gardner	24 - Arcuri		Clinton
Denise Williams-Harris	25 - Walsh	No	Clinton
Janice Dunne	26 - Reynolds	No	Obama
Bryce Hopkins	27 - Higgins	No	Edwards
Sue Samuels	28 - Slaughter	No	Obama
Mushtaq Sheikh	29 - Kuhl	No	Clinton

If you are not presently a member of the 504 Dems, please join.

Most Club communication occurs via our listserv (join at 504Dems-subscribe@yahoogroups.com) but we're working on reviving our newsletter. Our goal would be to primarily e-mail it. So please include your e-mail on your membership renewal form and indicate if you are interested in joining the listserv, or just receive the newsletter.

Edith Prentiss, President

president @ the504dems.org or 212-781-8309

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By JEFF ZELENY and PATRICK HEALY
New York Times
February 1, 2008

LOS ANGELES — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met for debate here Thursday, sitting side by side and sharing a night of smiles, friendly eye-catching and gentle banter. Cordial as the encounter was, the candidates did not mask their own divisions, even as they previewed the attacks one of them will ultimately make against a Republican rival.

Still, it was almost as if the battle was to see which of them could outnice the other.

At the end of the nearly two-hour encounter, as the audience of Democrats and Hollywood celebrities rose to its feet at the Kodak Theater, Mr. Obama held Mrs. Clinton's chair as she rose. The two rivals, almost hugging, held each others' elbows and whispered in one another's ear, offering a striking image that captured the tenor of the debate.

"When we started off, we had eight candidates on this stage. We are now down to two," Mr. Obama said. "I think one of us two will end up being the next president of the United States."

Gone were the sharp and sometimes personal attacks that have characterized a year's worth of debates, particularly a combative session last week in South Carolina, which both sides conceded had tarnished their images.

Still, the candidates were at pains to lay out their differences on issues like national health care, the Iraq war and experience in their last appearance together before voters in more than 20 states weigh in Tuesday on the presidential nominating fight.

As she has through much of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton found herself defending her 2002 Senate vote to authorize war against Iraq — a position that has been enduringly unpopular with Democrats. The vote has forced her to discuss her shifting stands on Iraq instead of the antiwar principle she has sought to embrace in the campaign.

"I think now we have to look at how we go forward," she said. "There will be a great debate between us and the Republicans, because the Republicans are still committed to George Bush's policy."

Mr. Obama, given his opposition to the war from 2002 onward, argued that he would be in a strongest position to challenge the Republican nominee over Iraq.

"I think it is much easier for us to have the argument when we have a nominee who says, 'I always thought this was a bad idea, this was a bad strategy,' " Mr. Obama said to applause. "They screwed up the execution of it in all sorts of ways."

"The question," he said, "is, can we make an argument that this was a conceptually flawed mission from the start, and that we need better judgment when we decide to send our young men and women into war?"

Still, unlike when they last met for debate, when they attacked each other over personal conduct as well as issues, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama aimed their sharpest words at Republicans.

Mrs. Clinton criticized President Bush over his stewardship of the economy, while Mr. Obama chided Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the two Republicans leading in their race, for supporting Bush-backed tax cuts for wealthy Americans after initially opposing them.

"Somewhere along the line the Straight Talk Express lost some wheels," Mr. Obama said, referring to one of Mr. McCain's political slogans.

Both lavished praise on John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who dropped out of the race this week and whose endorsement they are actively seeking.

Mr. Obama said he and Mr. Edwards were determined to fight special interests and big business. Mrs. Clinton twice noted early on that her universal health care plan — which, unlike Mr. Obama's, includes a requirement that all Americans have health care — was very similar to that of Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Obama countered that about "95 percent" of his plan and Mrs. Clinton's were the same, but that he believed his proposal went further to reducing costs.

But their tone Thursday night was largely friendly. Each candidate laughed agreeably and nodded at the other's remarks, and they praised each other at different points and looked ahead to the battle with the other party.

"They are more of the same," Mrs. Clinton said of the Republican candidates. "Neither of us, by looking at us, is more of the same — we will change our country."

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton sidestepped a question about whether either would select the other as a running mate. Wolf Blitzer of CNN, the moderator, called it a "dream ticket" in the eyes of many Democrats. In fact, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have built up resentments toward each other over the campaign and seem unlikely to want to pair up for the general election.

"We've got a lot more road to travel," Mr. Obama said, "and so I think it's premature for either of us to start speculating about vice presidents." When pressed, he said, "I'm sure that Hillary would be on anybody's short list."

Mrs. Clinton responded in kind. "Well, I have to agree with everything Barack just said," she replied, to laughter from the audience.

Later, Mrs. Clinton was forced to fend off a question about her ability to "control" former President Bill Clinton from interfering in her administration should she become president in 2009, given his assertiveness on the campaign trail. (Mrs. Clinton has acknowledged that her husband has become "carried away" at times recently.)

"The fact is that I'm running for president, and this is my campaign," she said to applause. She added: "At the end of the day, it's a lonely job in the White House. And it is the president of the United States who has to make the decisions. And that is what I'm asking to be entrusted to do."

On one flash point — immigration — Mr. Obama cited his role in immigration reform legislation in Washington last year. He voiced his support for states giving driver's licenses to undocumented workers.

"People don't come here to drive, they come here to work," Mr. Obama said.

It was an issue that stirred controversy in a debate last year, which Mr. Obama sought to raise by pointing out that his rival gave "a number of different answers on this over the course of six weeks."

"Now she does have a clear position, but it took awhile," Mr. Obama said Thursday. "The only reason I bring that up is to underscore the fact that this is a difficult political issue."

It was the first dust-up of the evening between the candidates, occurring near the end of the first hour. Mrs. Clinton smiled and offered her reply.

"I just have to correct the record for one second," she said, explaining that she initially supported the concept of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants so she could help Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York, who was being criticized over the issue. Turning to Mr. Obama directly, she said: "You were asked the same question and could not answer it. So this is a difficult issue."

Asked by Mr. Blitzer whether she was "missing in action" during the immigration debate, Mrs. Clinton was quick to reject the suggestion.

"I cosponsored comprehensive immigration reform in 2004, before Barack came to the Senate," she said.

In a week where Senator Edward M. Kennedy endorsed the candidacy of Mr. Obama, as did Caroline Kennedy, Mrs. Clinton was asked why they had chosen her rival and whether she would represent the kind of change that would inspire a nation.

"I have the greatest respect for Senator Kennedy and the Kennedy family," Mrs. Clinton said. "I'm proud to have three of Bobby's kids supporting me — Bobby, Kathleen and Kerry supporting me."

She added, "I think having the first woman president would be a huge change for America and the world."

The candidates could not question one another in the debate, but took questions from viewers. A 38-year-old woman in South Carolina, who sent her question in by e-mail, said she had never voted for someone not named Bush or Clinton. She wondered how Mrs. Clinton would represent change.

"You have to make the case for yourself," Mrs. Clinton said. "And I want to be judged on my own merits. I don't want to be advantaged — or disadvantaged."

The debate also featured questions about the strengths of Senator McCain and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts — the two leading Republican presidential candidates. Asked about Mr. Romney's experience as a chief executive officer, Mr. Obama drew laughs when he reminded the audience that Mr. Romney has significantly outspent his rivals, investing millions of his own money.

"Mitt Romney hasn't gotten a very good return on his investment during this presidential campaign," Mr. Obama said, adding that he would match his financial management skills with Mr. Romney's. (Hours before the debate, Mr. Obama's campaign announced that he had raised $32 million in January alone.)

Not only was the debate much less contentious than Wednesday night's debate among the remaining Republican candidates, but it was also far more muted than recent Democratic debates — an obvious calculation on the part of both candidates, who have been criticized for being overly harsh and personal. Democratic leaders feared that the negative tone would carry over to the general election, tamping down voters' enthusiasm.

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By ADAM NAGOURNEY
January 14, 2008
New York Times

LAS VEGAS - After staying on the sidelines in the first year of the campaign, race and to a lesser extent gender have burst into the forefront of the Democratic presidential contest, thrusting Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton into the middle of a sharp-edged social and political debate that transcends their candidacies.

In a tense day of exchanges by the candidates and their supporters, Mrs. Clinton suggested on Sunday that Mr. Obama's campaign, in an effort to inject race into the contest, distorted remarks she had made about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama tartly dismissed Mrs. Clinton's suggestion, adding that "the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous."

Mr. Obama's campaign then attacked Mrs. Clinton for failing to repudiate one of her top black supporters for "engaging in the politics of destruction" with an apparent reference to Mr. Obama's acknowledged drug use in the past. And throughout the day, supporters of Mrs. Clinton and of Mr. Obama each accused the other of injecting race in search of political gain.

The exchanges created apprehension among many of their supporters who viewed this moment - if perhaps inevitable, given the nature of the contest - as divisive for Democrats. At the same time, it offered a portrait of a party struggling through entirely unfamiliar terrain that has been brought into relief by Mr. Obama's victory in Iowa and Mrs. Clinton's in New Hampshire.

Two factors have helped create the atmosphere in which race and gender are coming to play a more prominent role. The first is that Democrats now increasingly view both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as credible and electable candidates, given their victories.

In addition, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are now moving into a series of contests, particularly in South Carolina but also in California, where black voters could play a pivotal role.

Indeed, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama spoke from the pulpits of black churches on Sunday, Mr. Obama in Las Vegas and Mrs. Clinton in South Carolina.

The candidates and their campaigns have not been innocent bystanders to all this. In fact, since her loss in Iowa, Mrs. Clinton has, subtly but unmistakably, pushed gender, engaging in a series of events intended to present her in softer ways. Many Democrats believe that Mrs. Clinton won New Hampshire after a decisive swing of women into her camp, particularly after a debate on the Saturday night before the primary in which John Edwards and Mr. Obama joined forces in criticizing her.

"I never thought we would see the day when an African-American and a woman were competing for the presidency of the United States," she told black parishioners at a Presbyterian church in Columbia, S.C. "Many of you in this sanctuary were born before African-Americans could vote. So this is not a piece of history that is happening to someone else; this is happening to us."

Mr. Obama, reflecting the different way he has talked about race during his own campaigns, took pains in speaking at a church service here on Sunday to avoid portraying his election as historic because of the possibility of putting an African-American in the White House.

"We're on the brink or cusp of doing something important; we can make history," Mr. Obama said, speaking to a few hundred worshipers at the Pentecostal Temple Church of God. "I know everybody is focused on racial history. That's not what I'm talking about. We can make history by being, the first time in a very long time, a grass-roots movement of people of all colors."

Mrs. Clinton said Sunday, in an interview on the NBC program "Meet the Press," that she was hopeful race and gender would not be an issue in this contest.

Still, supporters of Mr. Obama said in interviews Sunday that they were concerned Mrs. Clinton and her allies might be deliberately raising the issue of race at the very time that Mr. Obama had shown signs of taking off.

"I don't want to believe that, but I've got to tell you I'm wondering," said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who is black and an Obama supporter. "I don't want to believe it is true."

Mrs. Clinton and her supporters denied that. Geraldine A. Ferraro, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 1984, said she thought Mr. Obama and his campaign were fanning the issue to draw black voters away from Mrs. Clinton before the primary in South Carolina, where about 50 percent of the electorate is expected to be black.

"As soon anybody from the Clinton campaign opens their mouth in a way that could make it seem as if they were talking about race, it will be distorted," Mrs. Ferraro said. "The spin will be put on it that they are talking about race. The Obama campaign is appealing to their base and their base is the African-American community. What they are trying to do is move voters from Clinton by distorting things. What have they got to lose?"

In a sign of how the issue was churning the waters, Mr. Edwards, also speaking at a church in South Carolina, expressed pride in Mr. Obama while criticizing Mrs. Clinton for what some have seen as her suggesting that President Lyndon B. Johnson deserved more credit than Dr. King for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"As someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel an enormous amount of pride when I see the success that Senator Barack Obama is having in this campaign," said Mr. Edwards, who grew up in North Carolina. He added: "I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change came not through the Rev. Martin Luther King, but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that."

Mr. Obama spoke in general terms Sunday about the attacks on his candidacy on a day when Mrs. Clinton specifically challenged his record on opposing the Iraq war.

"I think they have decided to run a relentlessly negative campaign, and I don't think anybody who's watching would deny that," he said. "I gather that she's determined that instead of trying to sell herself on why she would be the best president, she's trying to convince folks that I wouldn't be a good one."

Aides to both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama expressed squeamishness at the direction the conversation was heading. And publicly, the campaigns spent much of the day shadow-boxing on an issue that advisers to both of them described as volatile. The issue broke through when Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who appeared at a rally with Mrs. Clinton in Columbia, S.C., seemed to allude to Mr. Obama's use of cocaine as a young man.

"To me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood - and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book - when they have been involved," Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Johnson later issued a statement saying he was referring to Mr. Obama's work as a labor organizer in Chicago, which he described in his book "Dreams From My Father."

Asked about Mr. Johnson's statement, Mr. Obama said, "What's there to respond to?"

"I'm not going to spend all my time running down the other candidates, which seems to be what Senator Clinton has been obsessed with for the last month," he said.

Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Patrick Healy in New York; Katharine Q. Seelye in Columbia, S.C.; and Jeff Zeleny in Las Vegas.

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January 4, 2008

The candidates have spent a year and tens of millions of dollars in Iowa, and Thursday night the first actual voters offered their first assessments. Some candidates and their strategists were hoping the caucuses and the New Hampshire primary next week would settle the race, weeding out the contenders for the two major parties' presidential nominations. Watching the campaign in cold, snowy and mostly empty Iowa, we were hoping for something else - that this year's Iowa-New Hampshire rush to judgment will be the last.

For all of Thursday night's drama, the results in Iowa did not
preclude a race going into New Hampshire, and, we hope, beyond - to South Carolina, Florida and the cluster of primaries on February 5. Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, but she's got plenty of money left, and John Edwards got a boost. Mike Huckabee's win was unlikely to deter Mitt Romney or the Republicans who did not contest Iowa: John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani.

Keeping this race alive so significant numbers of Americans in more populated states can participate would begin to make up for the ludicrous spectacle of the past year, which enriched the television networks and the political consultants (some $300 million already spent) far more than it enriched the political dialogue. We hope both parties will wake up and end the undemocratic system in which the choice of a new president rests far too heavily on nonbinding votes in January by voters that don't necessarily represent the rest of the country.

We don't question the enthusiasm or the commitment of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire. But Iowa, where a huge turnout amounts to less than 10 percent of the population, is about 92 percent white, more rural and older than the rest of the nation. New Hampshire has a non-Hispanic white population of about 95 percent. Iowa's Democrats are more liberal and more protectionist than the nation's Democrats. Its Republicans are more conservative, and religiously driven, than the nation's Republicans. And yet, The Boston Globe reported that Mr. Romney spent $7 million on ads in Iowa. That's nearly $4 per registered voter.

We do believe that the time has long passed for both parties to not only break the Iowa-New Hampshire habit but also end the damaging race to be third, with states pushing their primaries closer and closer to New Year's Day.

Instead, the country should adopt a more sensible and more representative system of regional primaries, in which states are divided into regional groups that vote on a designated day. The honor of going first would rotate year to year among the regions. That would give a far broader range of American voters a say in this vitally important choice.

Make no mistake, there are choices to be made in this first election in many, many years in which both parties' nominations are being contested. Most of the Republican contenders (with the exception, most of the time, of Senator John McCain) offer the same kind of politics of division that has so polarized this nation over the last seven years. It is a politics that thrives on religious and social intolerance and fear.

Mr. Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, cloaks himself in affability and Christianity. But he bullied Mr. Romney into pleading with religious conservatives to accept his Mormon faith as Christian enough for a Republican nominee and, after professing charity, has recently become a scourge of undocumented immigrants.

Fear often appears to be the only plank on which Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is standing, when you can tell where he is standing at all. Mr. Giuliani, who parlayed the 9/11 tragedy into a lucrative business and now speaks, bizarrely, of the "9/11 generation," has switched his views a dizzying number of times - on immigration, on abortion, on New York.

Almost as dizzying, in fact, as the pirouettes executed by Mr. Romney, who wants American voters to forget his record as governor of Massachusetts - where he endorsed gay marriage and reproductive choice - and believe what he says now that he wants to be president. Among Mr. Romney's tailored-for-the-campaign proposals is to double the size of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which even President Bush knows must be closed.

All of the Republicans want to continue President Bush's disaster of a war in Iraq, including Mr. McCain. He, however, has taken a courageous stand for immigration reform, which seemed to doom his candidacy last year, and is a strong advocate of the need to confront global warming and to stop the abuse of prisoners in Mr. Bush's system of secret prisons.

The Democrats are united in their opposition to the war, but none have spelled out a persuasive plan for getting American troops home without setting off a wider conflagration.

Senator Obama generates enormous excitement with his youth, and his promises of change - even if it's not entirely clear what he intends to change or how. Senator Clinton, meanwhile, wavers between wanting to be seen as ready to serve as president because of her eight years in the White House with her husband - and trying to satisfy voters' yearnings for new ideas and new ways.

Mr. Edwards has a strong populist message, but it sounds a bit odd coming from a former tort lawyer and hedge fund executive who ran as a completely different person in 2004. One of his ads features an out-of-work Maytag employee who said Mr. Edwards promised his 7-year-old son: "I'm going to keep fighting for your daddy's job." We're still waiting for Mr. Edwards to explain how he, or any politician, can turn back the tide of economics and globalization. We'd prefer if he explained how to make it work for all Americans.

None of this has led us to a choice in the nominating contests, never mind for the presidency. The majority of Americans are in the same position. That's why they should be allowed to see and hear more of these candidates, and not have to settle for the judgments of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire.

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By PATRICK HEALY, January 4, 2008

DES MOINES - The Democratic and Republican establishments and their presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Governor Mitt Romney, were brought low in Iowa on Thursday night, shaken seriously by two national newcomers who won decisively on messages of insurgency and change.

The victors in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama for the Democrats and former Governor Mike Huckabee for the Republicans, are as far from the status quo as possible. One is the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother who entered the United States Senate just three years ago. The other is a former Baptist minister who was best known until recently for losing over 100 pounds and taking on the issue of childhood obesity.

The two winners burst the aura of strength and confidence that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Romney had tried to cultivate for months, and left both parties suddenly without a clear path to their nominating conventions, let alone November.

Mrs. Clinton's loss was especially glaring. Her central strategy for much of 2007 was to appear as the inevitable nominee, but Iowans shredded that notion. She tried in recent weeks to convince voters that another Clinton administration could be an agent of change, but Iowans clearly did not buy it.

Without question, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Romney have the money, the campaign apparatus and the legions of supporters to stay in the hunt for the nomination and to right their campaigns. But Mrs. Clinton's lackluster finish raises anew questions about her electability, and whether independent voters - twice as many of whom backed Mr. Obama over her - will ever come around to Mrs. Clinton.

And Mr. Romney, who outspent Mr. Huckabee 6 to 1 in television advertising in Iowa, now faces a far more crowded field of rivals in the New Hampshire primary who are eager to tear into his wounded candidacy

All the candidates now move to that primary on Tuesday, which Mrs. Clinton had tried to make a fire wall for her campaign, as it was for her husband's presidential candidacy in 1992, when he finished strongly in second place.

"If Hillary doesn't stop Obama in New Hampshire, Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee," said Robert Shrum, a Democratic consultant who was John Kerry's senior strategist in 2004.

Clinton advisers declined to say Thursday night if she would now pursue a different strategy against Mr. Obama. But a shift seems likely now that Mrs. Clinton's multilayered, sometimes contradictory message - offering an experienced hand, for example, but also running as a candidate who could bring change - fell flat in this first contest.

"We built a campaign for the long haul - we feel very good about our operation in New Hampshire, and polling has us up," said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman. The danger for Mrs. Clinton, of course, is that those polls may not hold after the outcome in Iowa.

Further undercutting Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama peeled away broad swaths of women from her base of support, and the political potency of baby boomers fell apart in Iowa. Half of the Democrats under 45 said their first choice was Mr. Obama, according to a poll by Edison/Mitofsky of voters entering caucus sites.

At the same time, it was also historic that so many Iowa Democrats voted for an African-American man and a woman. For Mr. Obama, especially, the ratification of his candidacy by Democrats and independents in a predominantly white and rural state suggests that he may be able to build a broad and multiracial coalition in his bid for the White House.

The nomination fights will only intensify from now, though the steel that Mr. Huckabee will deploy in the battle is unclear. He seemed to come out of nowhere - a former governor who was so little known among Republicans that many of them could not even name the state he once led (Arkansas) - and turned from asterisk-status to giant-slayer in spite of a paltry political organization, slim dollars and a final week marked by gaffes.

As when Pat Robertson made a surprise second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses in 1988, Mr. Huckabee enjoyed substantial political support from evangelical Christians and took advantage of a muddled Republican presidential field to gain his 11th-hour victory.

For Mr. Romney, of Massachusetts, his loss will register as a deep blow to his candidacy - a failure bound to worry establishment Republicans and wealthy donors who have viewed him as their man. It will also energize and inspire Republicans who are backing Senator John McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

Mr. Romney's drive to the Republican nomination was supposed to begin with him looking formidable and confident coming out of Iowa. Mr. Romney, his wife and his sons planted themselves here for months and poured in money, including millions of his own; he now heads to New Hampshire clearly wounded and a target for even more rivals, like Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Senator Fred Thompson, and Mr. McCain, of Arizona.

Mr. Huckabee, a folksy and fairly plain-speaking politician with a sense of humor that many Iowans enjoyed, appealed to Republican caucusgoers who put a premium on a candidate's Christian faith, and who were deeply wary about seeing a Mormon, Mr. Romney, become president.

But Mr. Huckabee also struck many populist themes that have deep appeal to middle-class Iowans and farmers, promising to tailor his economic priorities to their needs and taking tough stands on a key issue here, immigration.

But Iowa voters are not New Hampshire voters, as Mr. Huckabee and his advisers are well aware. Devoutly religious voters do not exist in nearly the same numbers in the Granite State. And the fervent anti-tax sentiment among Republicans there is likely to clash with Mr. Huckabee's record of raising taxes in Arkansas.

"If Huckabee scares the Republican establishment and makes the party fear losing, you could see a rapid rallying around a second candidate," said Nelson Warfield, a Republican consultant not working for any candidate. Still, he said, "Nothing makes a man look like a leader more than a winner."

Mr. Robertson's Iowa victory in 1988 - when he came in second to Bob Dole and edged out the ultimate nominee, George H. W. Bush - gave him little bounce in New Hampshire, given the lack of a fervent evangelical base. "I'm going to be the nominee," Mr. Robertson said right after his victory, crediting God in particular with his success. But his fortunes faded after a drubbing soon after in New Hampshire.

Mr. Huckabee talked about God on the Iowa campaign trail, as well, but on Thursday night there was one other word that he - as well as Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney, Mrs. Clinton, former Senator John Edwards - discussed especially and emphatically: "change."

As Mr. Edwards put it, "the status quo lost and change won" in the caucuses. Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee repeated the words incessantly in their victory speeches, brandishing the word as a talisman that overcame Mrs. Clinton's decades of experience and Mr. Romney's leadership bona fides. Yet change was not only the political message; change was the two men themselves.

Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting.

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By GAIL COLLINS, New York Times January 3, 2008

DES MOINES

As the presidential candidates tell them every single day, Iowans deserve to be the nation's kingmakers because they are exceptional citizens who take their responsibilities very, very seriously. So tonight, even though it's very cold - even though it's Hokies vs. Jayhawks in the Orange Bowl - the sturdy Iowa voters will pull on their parkas and go out to fulfill their historic destiny. Perhaps as many as 15 percent of them!

"Money will become irrelevant once somebody wins the Iowa caucus," said John (I Currently Have No Money) Edwards. "The winner of the Iowa caucus is going to have huge amounts of money pouring in." Edwards, the Democratic third-runner, has spent more time in Iowa than many Iowans, who have a tendency to flee to Florida in the winter.

People, ignore whatever happens here. The identity of the next leader of the most powerful nation in the world is not supposed to depend on the opinion of one small state. Let alone the sliver of that state with the leisure and physical capacity to make a personal appearance tonight at a local caucus that begins at precisely 7 o'clock. Let alone the tiny slice of the small sliver willing to take part in a process that involves standing up in public to show a political preference, while being lobbied and nagged by neighbors.

Ah yes, good work fighting for democracy around the globe, American troops, Pakistani lawyers, international election observers. The tiny slice of the sliver of the small state approves.

Tonight, the Iowa Deciders will divide into 1,781 local caucuses. Past history suggests that a few of these gatherings may not draw any attendees whatsoever and that several others will consist entirely of a guy named Carl. Attendance has no effect on the number of delegates involved, and we hardly need mention that the whole thing is weighted to give rural residents an advantage. Iowans in politically active neighborhoods where 100 people show up may find their vote is worth only 1 percent as much as, say, Carl's. This gives them the opportunity to experience what it is like to be a New Yorker or Californian all year round.

Iowa Republican caucuses, which involve writing a name on a piece of paper and going home, are like Athens in the Age of Pericles compared with the Democrats, who are closer to Turkmenistan in the age of Saparmurat Niyazov. Tonight the Democratic caucus-goers (We are expecting way more than 100,000!) will divide up into groups supporting each of the different candidates. (Secret ballots are for sissies.) Then some of the smaller groups will be dissolved under rules so complicated they are known only to the local insiders and experts hired by the candidates to decipher them. (Sometimes these turn out to be the exact same people!)

"What if the largest groups are not immediately apparent because more than one nonviable Presidential Preference group contains the same number of eligible attendees and will not realign?" the party guide asks rhetorically. This is the simplified version of the rules prepared for the benefit of the media, but the answer, obviously, is that you flip a coin. ("A game of chance is used to determine which groups may remain.")

On the Republican side, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are at a grave disadvantage because of a failure to campaign enough in Iowa. (You'd think Florida was a state or something.) Fred Thompson is so desperate to go home that he's practically begging people to vote for somebody else. Mitt Romney is by far the best organized. His victory in the important Iowa straw poll last summer demonstrated that he would really be a president who knows how to rent a bus. Meanwhile, the very enthusiastic evangelicals are going to try to prove that if a commander in chief has a heart like Mike Huckabee's, it won't matter whether he knows where Pakistan is.

Obama backers believe Barack will win on a record-breaking turnout of new participants, some of them being actual Iowa residents. (Checking is for babies.) Or everything could come down to the minor candidates' supporters - rule by the tiny piece of the slice of the sliver.

In the Democratic caucuses, if your group is the smallest in the room you might have to: A) Relive the moment in ninth grade when you were the last one chosen for volleyball and then B) Walk over and join a different team. Dennis Kucinich has told his followers that if - by some wild chance - they find that they are not one of the most popular groups, they should switch to Barack Obama. Kucinich's positions on most issues actually seem closer to John Edwards's, but last summer Edwards was caught on tape whispering to Hillary Clinton that Dennis was really not a serious contender. Petty, perhaps, but in a contest that begins with the presumption that nobody is qualified to lead the most powerful nation on earth without making at least two visits to Pottawattamie County, it resonates.

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By ADAM NAGOURNEY
New York Times
January 1, 2008

DES MOINES - Iowa is packed with presidential candidates and hundreds of campaign aides, advisers and contributors. Twenty-five hundred representatives of news organizations have been granted credentials to cover the caucuses Thursday night, twice as many as in 2004. Rarely has a political event been so intensely anticipated as a decisive moment, at least on the Democratic side.

But what if it is not decisive?

What if at the end of Thursday, the three leading Democrats - former Senator John Edwards and Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama - are separated by a percentage point or two, leaving no one with the clear right of delivering a victory speech (or the burden of conceding)? A number of polls going into the final days have suggested that after all of this, the Democratic caucus on Thursday night could end up more or less a tie.

In truth, amid all the endless permutations of outcomes that are being discussed - can Mrs. Clinton, the putative front-runner, survive a third-place finish, or Mr. Edwards a second-place one? - aides are beginning to grapple with the frustrating possibility that all the time, money and political skill invested here might prove to be for naught when it comes to identifying the candidate to beat in the primaries and winnowing the top tier.

"It would be like a six-month trial and a hung jury," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. "I think it is really possible."

Rather than clarify the state of play and consolidate this crowded field a bit, an outcome like that would almost certainly muddle things further and potentially extend the time before Democrats know their nominee.

For different reasons, Iowa is not likely to determine much for the Republicans, either. Only Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, are going all-out here, and whatever happens between them, the Republican race already seems likely to go on at least until the cavalcade of primaries across the country on Feb. 5.

But for the leading Democrats, an inconclusive ending here would be a much more complicated result.

Because none of them would be judged a decisive loser, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama would all be able to go on to the New Hampshire primary next week, no questions asked. And you can bet on this: the other Democrats in the race - Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph R. Biden Jr., Representative Dennis J. Kucinich and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico - would feel less of the morning-after-Iowa pressure to pull out.

It would be hard for any candidate to play the "I beat expectations" game and claim some sort of chimerical victory, much the way Bill Clinton proclaimed himself the winner after coming in second in New Hampshire in 1992 - although Mr. Edwards, who for much of the year campaigned in the shadow of his two rivals, would no doubt try.

"Frankly, if there's a three-way tie, that changes the dynamics of what has been reported the entire year: that it's a two-person race," said Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, the Iowa campaign director for Mr. Edwards, who has put in more than a year preparing for this week. "It changes the way people look at the race, and they'll see it as a three-way race."

It is a good bet, in fact, that one candidate would try to claim a victory, even if it was by a single percentage point or less. Still, that is not likely to get him or her on the cover of Time or Newsweek (that would be the old-school way of measuring the political impact of winning in Iowa). The other two would be left fighting for the right of second place. And politics being politics, it is likely there would be a campaign trying to present a three-way tie as a victory.

Beyond that, New Hampshire, which for Democrats has seemed something like a stepchild in this year's nominating process given all the attention being paid to Iowa, would get a chance to have some real influence over the nomination. For 25 years, there has been debate and study about how the outcome in Iowa affects New Hampshire voters. This time around, because of the decision by the New Hampshire secretary of state, Bill Gardner, to set the primary on Jan. 8, voters will have just five days to examine the candidates and make their decision.

One of the bedrock political assumptions of the year - and certainly one that has informed Mrs. Clinton's campaign - is that winning Iowa and New Hampshire would set the table for sweeping the 20 or so states that vote on Feb. 5, the day when many Democrats believe that their contest will effectively be decided. But if Iowans end up being equally divided among what many party leaders view as an unusually strong cast of candidates, who is to say that voters in the Feb. 5 states won't be as well?

None of this is meant to suggest that such an outcome would mean that what has taken place here over the past year is insignificant. Quite the contrary. Watching these candidates, Democrats and Republicans, deliver their final speeches, take the last rounds of questions from Iowans and shake the hands of supporters one more time, it is apparent that most of them are much better at campaigning than they were a year ago.

Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, an old Iowa caucus hand who has moved here to help out in the final days, said as much in explaining why he would be comfortable with even an inconclusive outcome. "The experience here in Iowa," he said, "has been tremendous for the entire campaign."

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By LESLIE WAYNE
New York Times
January 1, 2008

DES MOINES - Spurred by a recent Supreme Court decision, independent political groups are using their financial muscle and organizational clout as never before to influence the presidential race, pumping money and troops into early nominating states on behalf of their favored candidates.

Iowans have been bombarded over the last few days with radio spots supporting John Edwards that were paid for by a group affiliated with locals of the Service Employees International Union, which just kicked in $800,000 - on top of $760,000 already spent.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, rolled across Iowa on Monday in a customized black-and-gold bus emblazoned with his picture and the logo of the International Association of Firefighters, which has spent several hundred thousand dollars supporting him. And at campaign events in Iowa, backers in AFSCME union shirts turned out Monday to show their support for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. Those appearances come in addition to the union's $770,000 advertising campaign promoting her candidacy.

The groups are prohibited from coordinating their efforts with the campaigns. But the candidates, while often distancing themselves from these efforts, certainly benefit from their activities. Iowa airwaves have been filled with commercials from these groups as they take advantage of the June ruling that lifted a ban on broadcast messages from independent groups within 30 days of a primary or caucus.

Independent groups also act as a vehicle for negative advertising that campaigns are reluctant to engage in. The Club for Growth, for instance, has spent $700,000 so far, largely on broadcast spots here and in other early voting states that criticize Mike Huckabee's record on taxes while he was Arkansas governor, an effort that has received several hundred thousands of dollars from an Arkansas political rival of Mr. Huckabee, a Republican.

The shifting stand on abortion by Mitt Romney, a Republican former governor of Massachusetts, has come under attack in broadcast advertisements here and in New Hampshire from the Republican Majority for Choice, a group of Republican women who support abortion rights.

In the final two weeks before the caucuses on Thursday, independent groups have so far spent at least $5 million in Iowa, with much of the money benefiting the campaigns of Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton. During the last presidential primary election cycle, these groups spent nothing on advertising before the caucuses, largely because of the prohibition on such activity in the 30 days before nominating contests. But independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org played a major role in the 2004 general election.

The June ruling, in a case involving a Wisconsin anti-abortion group, allowed television issue advertisements from third-party groups - whether unions, corporations or wealthy individuals - to run right up to an election day. Under the McCain-Feingold law, which limits the role of money in campaigns, these spots had to cease 30 days before a primary election and 60 days before a general one.

"This more permissive standard," said Kenneth Gross, a veteran campaign finance lawyer, "means there will be more money, more ads and more saturation."

Unlike national political parties and their candidates, many of these interest groups face no limits on how much they can take in from their contributors and often do not have to disclose their donors' names until after an election. As a result, it is difficult - if not impossible - to determine just how much money they are spending. While there is, ostensibly, an independent relationship between a campaign and these groups, restrictions on coordination between the two are considered so murky that they are often difficult to apply.

In Iowa, the efforts on behalf of or against the candidates involve not only television and radio advertisements, but also the nitty-gritty of a campaign: direct-mail brochures, bus tours, pep rallies, telephone calls, educational efforts to explain the caucuses, and traditional get-out-the-vote efforts. Independent groups pay for billboards, banners, yard signs, caps, T-shirts and mugs and set up Web sites on behalf of their favorite candidates, efforts that often look as though they were produced by the campaign itself.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is the only leading Democrat who has not attracted support from any of these groups in Iowa. By contrast, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards are the biggest beneficiaries of independent efforts, largely because of the union support the two have garnered. And yet both candidates are proponents of stricter campaign finance rules.

Mr. Edwards, in particular, has made tightening such rules a cornerstone of his campaign, putting him in a delicate position as he denounces expenditures coming indirectly from some of his closest supporters, like locals of the service employees' union.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards has called on the groups, known as 527s for the section of the tax code they fall under, to stop running advertisements supporting him. But he has said he will not ask them directly.

"I do not support 527 groups, Mr. Edwards said. "They are part of the law, but let me be clear: I am asking this group and others not to run the ads. I would encourage all the 527s to stay out of the political process."

Mr. Dodd is getting a spirited boost from the firefighters' association, which is traveling with him on a 23-city tour on a bus with an enormous picture of him and the union's logo on its side.

"You can see that bus from two miles away," said Harold Schaitberger, the union's president, who flew in from Washington to lead the effort for the 287,000-member union.

Mr. Schaitberger declined to say how much the group planned to spend, other than that it would be "a considerable sum."

The bus tour shows how the lines are blurred: a previous tour cost the union $100,000, while this one, using the same bus, is being paid for by the campaign. The union has also posted "hundreds" of four-foot-by-eight-foot Dodd signs, he said. Federal records show that the group also spent over $10,000 in the last few days on billboards and $102,000 on full-page advertisements in Iowa's 23 largest newspapers last Sunday.

Emily's List, a political action committee that supports women running as Democrats, is making a special effort for Mrs. Clinton. Its campaign is titled "You Go Girl!" and is directed at women who have never attended a caucus.

The group's own polling showed that Mrs. Clinton had a two-to-one lead among women who had not previously attended a caucus. As a result, that group, which Emily's List pared to 60,000 names, became the focus of its efforts with a direct-mail campaign, a phone bank and a "You Go Girl!" Web site. All efforts feature women with Midwestern accents explaining how the caucus works and urging them to support Mrs. Clinton.

"Getting someone who has not caucused to go out is the hardest effort," said Maren Hesla, director of the effort, which she says has cost $300,000 so far and "we're not done spending."

The Web site is also linked to a number of Google search terms. If an Iowan searches terms like "safe toys," "stocking stuffers" or "after-Christmas sale," a banner advertisement with the link to the Web site will appear.

Mrs. Clinton is also the beneficiary of a $770,000 television advertising campaign from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The spot features Iowa voters talking about how Mrs. Clinton can "start this job on Day 1," which is one of her campaign's themes. The union estimates that it will spend more than $1 million on this television campaign.

Mr. Edwards's efforts to distance himself from third-party efforts has not halted the ardor of some union groups campaigning on his behalf.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners has formed a group, Working for Working Americans, that has paid around $500,000 for television spots supporting Mr. Edwards. The advertisements focus on the issue of job loss and cite the closing of the Maytag factory in Newton, Iowa. They say Mr. Edwards would end the practice of giving tax breaks to companies that move jobs overseas, and urge voters to "give voice to your values" while showing pictures of Mr. Edwards. Federal records show money for the spots came from the union's general fund.

Mr. Edwards is also benefiting from more than $1.5 million from the Alliance for a New America, which has primarily been running a radio campaign in Iowa. While most of the money has come from service union locals, one big donation of $495,000 that came in last Friday was given by a longtime Edwards supporter.

The name of the donating entity is Oak Spring Farms, which lists its address as Central Park South in New York. The entity is a partnership between Rachel L. Mellon, the 96-year-old widow of Paul Mellon, and her lawyer, Alexander D. Forger. Oak Spring Farms had previously given $250,000 to Mr. Edwards's One America committee, a 527 committee he set up to fight poverty.

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You used to have to go back door through the press releases to get to it, I don't know if there is a front door link to it. But here it is, it is mostly workplace initiatives.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/ada/

From Mary L. McGeeChair, Disability Caucus, State Central Committee, Iowa Democratic Party

Hillary does have a plan for PWDs. Pester your campaign manager for your state and make the campaign produce it. I did in Iowa. I have some info. If anyone wants it, let me know on this list and I'll see what I can do. As far as past achievements are concerned, note that, as a young attorney, Hillary went door to door and found numerous children with disabilities who were missing out on an education because schools wouldn't accommodate them and this experience led to the ultimate passage of IDEA. No other candidate can claim to have accomplished anything remotely close to that regarding PWDs. I'm a precinct captain for her in Iowa and we're down to three days now till our caucuses! Tonight I'm attending the Bill and Hillary New Year's celebration for change. So, those of you in the rest of the U.S., get out there and campaign for Hillary!

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by State Committeewoman Trudy L. Mason

Lexington Club members can be proud of our part in the petitioning process that got Hillary Clinton and her pledged 14th Congressional District delegates on the ballot for the February 5 New York Presidential Primary. Now, before we focus on that all important contest, the campaign needs us all to make a difference and help make history by ensuring her success in the first two all important contests: the January 3 Iowa Caucus and the January 8 New Hampshire Primary.

You can do this by participating in grassroots outreach to Iowa and New Hampshire -- one-on-one direct contact with voters telling them why you, as a New Yorker knowing Hillary as your Senator, are supporting her campaign and vision for change. And you can do this by traveling to those states (see below for more information) or right here at the Manhattan headquarters or even from your own home.

Phone banking and mailings, as well as other important volunteer activities, are taking place at campaign headquarters, 420 Lexington Avenue (at 43rd Street, the Graybar Building) Suite 3030. You first need to participate in a brief volunteer orientation (Monday-Friday 10am, 2pm & 6pm, Saturday 11am & 2pm, Sunday 12pm & 4pm.) and then you can begin helping Hillary. And if your cell-phone or land-line has unlimited long-distance, you don't even have to go to headquarters to call early states' voters. Just go to www.HillaryClinton.com/MakeCalls or http://HillaryClinton.com/calling/ on your computer for instructions & calling lists.

If you would like to travel, a New Hampshire GOTV bus trip will be leaving Manhattan Friday Jan 4 & returning Sunday Jan 6 or (for those who can stay thru the Primary) Wednesday Jan 9. Travel, food, accommodations (likely in a supporter's home or at the local Y) and other necessities, as well as as canvassing training, will be provided by the campaign. [If enough people are interested, there may also be a similar weekend bus trip December 28th-30th.] For more information or to sign up, contact Dan Benjoya (212-213-3717 or dbenjoya @ hillaryclinton.com.) If you would like information about going to Iowa--you'll have to make your own arrangements and fund travel and accommodations--contact Mary deBree (212-213-3717 or mdebree @ hillaryclinton.com.)

Finally, if you are volunteering--or need more information--please let me know (TLMpr @ aol.com or 212-744-8841 or 917-443-3315) so we can give you a Lexington Democratic Club tee shirt to proudly wear while you volunteer for Hillary.

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Disabled Voter's Committee
of the Iowa Democratic Party's
Disabilities Caucus

November 15, 2007

Purpose: The following collection of candidates' statements is hereby provided so that Iowa voters who have disabilities can use the information in making their choice of the next President of the United States.

Note: Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich do not have Iowa campaign offices. Senator Barack Obama is the only candidate who specifically addressed the issues listed on the Iowa Democratic Party Disability Caucus Issues List. Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, and Edwards and Governor Richardson answered a questionnaire from the A.A.P.D.; all information relating to issues is from that document and the candidates' websites and other published materials. The materials were all used with permission of the candidates' campaigns.

Issues: These are the issues that the Disability Caucus of the Iowa Democratic Party Disabled Voters' Committee chose as the most important because of their significant impact on the live of people who have disabilities. The Committee asked all the Presidential candidates for their positions on these issues.

1. Do you have a comprehensive, universal healthcare plan?

Sen. Joseph Biden supports universal health care to ensure that all Americans, including those with disabilities, have access to affordable, quality health care. He thinks we will get to universal health care by: (1) focusing on reducing the cost of health care; (2) covering all kids; (3) giving everyone access to, at a minimum, the same health care plans that members of Congress have; and (4) lowering the cost of providing health insurance for employers and providing catastrophic coverage.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control, and consumer choice. It is the American Health Choices Plan, which greatly improves care for Americans with disabilities by guaranteeing them coverage. People with disabilities will have more health insurance options under this plan because they will be able to choose from an array of private health insurance plans that offer benefits like those offered to Members of Congress, as well as a public program similar to Medicare. Insurers will be prohibited from denying coverage or charging higher premiums for individuals with pre-existing conditions and they will be prohibited from charging significantly higher premiums based on medical condition, age, gender, or occupation. The American Health Choices Plan preserves and expands existing critical support programs that fill gaps in private insurance. It will also provide tax credits to assure that no American's health insurance premium exceeds a certain percentage of income and the Best Practices Institute will fund medical research and disseminate this information to health care professionals and patients. The American Health Choices Plan requires coverage of important prevention service to diagnose and treat illnesses before they become serious and require expensive intervention because it involves the use of privacy-protected information technology and the empowerment of physicians to be a part of the quality development process. In addition, since persons with disabilities who have chronic health conditions may often need coordinated care services, the Clinton plan revises reimbursement to health care providers to provide incentives for the development of innovative models of care including "medical homes" and chronic care management.

Sen. Chris Dodd would ensure that all Americans will have quality, affordable health coverage. He will create a health insurance marketplace called Universal HealthMart that is based on, and parallel to, the Federal Employees' Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP). The Dodd plan would include business and individual contributions based on the ability to pay. It will have premiums that are affordable based on leveraged negotiating power, spreading risk, reduced administrative costs, and incentives for technology and prevention care. It will also have portable coverage; insurance purchased at Universal HealthMart will follow individuals.

Sen. John Edwards understands that health case is of special concern to people with disabilities. His plan guarantees universal coverage for everyone in America. Under his plan, families without insurance will receive coverage at an affordable price and families that have insurance will pay less and get more security and choices. Managed care should be a choice for people with disabilities and they need access to specialists that is now artificially limited by narrow definitions of medical necessity.

Mike Gravel proposes a universal healthcare voucher program in which the federal government would issue annual healthcare vouchers to Americans based on their projected needs. All Americans would be fully covered and would be free to use their vouchers to choose their own healthcare professional. No one would ever be denied health insurance because of their health, wealth, or any other reason.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich would streamline national health insurance to create "Enhanced Medicare for Everyone". It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered, and would put patients and doctors back in control of the system. Coverage would be more complete than private insurance plans, encourage prevention, and include prescription drugs, dental care, mental health care, and alternative and complementary medicine.

Sen. Barack Obama is committed to ensuring that all Americans have health care coverage by the end of his first term in office. He recognizes that people with disabilities experience difficulties gaining access to quality health care. As president, Sen. Obama will require all health care providers to collect, analyze, and report data on the quality of health care given to vulnerable populations, including those with disabilities. This will improve care and health outcomes. His plan will also help people with disabilities by emphasizing care coordination and integration, which can dramatically improve care for patients with multiple conditions and doctors. Sen. Obama also supports additional training of health care workers so that they are better able to address the needs of the disabled populations.

Gov. Bill Richardson's plan for universal coverage would ensure that Americans with or without disabilities would have access to affordable, guaranteed coverage.

2. What is your plan for total consumer control of prescription drug programs?

Sen. Joseph Biden will work to expand access to Medicare Part D for people with disabilities. He supports allowing the Federal Government to directly negotiate for better drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies which would lower the cost to consumers. He will also close the "doughnut hole" gap in coverage that occurs once someone hits $2,250 in coverage.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has been actively involved with ensuring fair and equal access to Medicare Part D prescription drugs. She introduced legislation in the Senate to help the most vulnerable seniors and disabled Americans transition to new Medicare plans. As president, she will continue to fight for fair access to Medicare Part D prescriptions and to ensure that policies do not undermine continuity of care for any population served. Sen. Clinton also believes that we need to have a better understanding of the best pharmaceutical treatment options for all patients. Thus, she proposes establishing an independent public-private Best Practices Institute, which would be a partnership between the public and private sector that would let doctors, nurses, and other health professionals know what drugs, devices, surgeries, and treatments work best.

Sen. Chris Dodd will assure that people with disabilities have fair access to Medicare Part D by requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices and immediately eliminating the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare Part D drug plans.

Sen. John Edwards believes that the federal government must ensure that Medicare Part D participants are able to access the prescription drugs they need to maintain their health and independence. As president, he will rewrite the drug bill to put patients and people above drug companies and HMO's, empower the government to negotiate better drug prices, and allow the safe reimprtation of drugs from other countries.

Sen. Barack Obama worked with Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) to urge the Department of Health and Human Services to provide clear and reliable information on the Medicare prescription drug benefit and to ensure that the Medicare recipients were protected from fraudulent claims by marketers and drug plan agents.

Gov. Bill Richardson will establish programs in each state to ensure that people with disabilities are made aware of all options available to them under Medicare Part D.

3. How will you adequately fund Medicaid waivers and other programs that facilitate independent living?

Sen. Joseph Biden was an original cosponsor of the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA), which would provide a variety of personal assistance services under the Medicaid program to enable disabled individuals to live at home rather than in institutions. He cosponsored the Family Opportunity Act to allow low-income families with disabled children to buy into the Medicaid program. He cosponsored the Lifespan Respite Care Act, which would facilitate the provision of temporary rest breaks (respite care) for caregivers who take care of a chronically ill or disabled individual. Sen. Biden sponsored legislation to protect children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities by providing non-profit groups that work with or care for such individuals with easy access to thorough, efficient criminal background checks through a national center on volunteer and provider screening.

Sen. Hillary Clinton understands that people with disabilities need assurance that individuals who provide direct-care services in home- and community-based settings are in sufficient supply and are well-trained. Therefore, addressing the shortage of health-care professionals and increasing choice of providers is critical to improving access to care for community-based services. The American Health Choices Plan addresses this issue by providing funding to schools of nursing to recruit and train faculty. Sen. Clinton believes that the Medicare homebound rule has been enforced in a far too restrictive manner and, as President, she will embrace a fair modification of Medicare rules so that Americans with disabilities are able to live their lives fully, without fear of losing their Medicare benefits. Sen. Clinton co-sponsored the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act, which provides individuals with disabilities and older Americans with equal access to community-based attendant services and supports. She believes the Olmstead opinion was a tremendously important moment in the disability movement and will support efforts to help states comply with it.

Sen. Chris Dodd will support creation of additional community-based options for individuals with disabilities because he understands their right to live their lives to the fullest in whatever setting they choose. In a Dodd Administration, Medicaid policy will not be stacked against community living. Sen. Dodd's Living with Dignity Initiative includes specific steps to attract, support, and retain home health aides and attendants; he will provide resources to improve wages, training, and working conditions for aides and will also establish strong workplace safety regulations such as ergonomics regulations.

Sen. John Edwards supports providing choices for people with disabilities to live in the community and will support legislation that strengthens freedom of choice. He has proposed a Living with Dignity Initiative that will fund state efforts to expand home care and reform the long-term care, including tax credits for long-term care, asset and income protection programs that prevent families from spending above their incomes, and experiments with long-term care insurance. He will also support the recruitment and retention of home care workers through better wages, training, and working conditions. His plan guarantees quality, affordable health care for American; it will strengthen Medicaid support for long-term care and emphasize home and community-based care to allow caregivers to keep their family members nearby.

Sen. Edwards believes that people with disabilities should be able to fully enjoy the benefits of living in a home of their choosing and in a community of their choosing. His Living with Dignity Initiative includes specific steps to attract, support, and retain home health aides and attendants.

Sen. Barack Obama believes that individuals who want to remain in the community and can safely do so should be provided the necessary assistance and supports. Therefore, he would increase funding for both HCBS and Independent Living Programs and prioritize efforts to streamline application and administrative requirements for states which choose to implement or expand these initiatives.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports providing choices for people with disabilities to live in the community. He would increase the wages of care attendants.

4. How would you create a standardization of government entitlement programs, e.g., housing, medical care, and income supplementation?

Sen. Barack Obama would standardize and coordinate government entitlement programs to make them more user-friendly. He believes that too many Medicare and Medicaid "dual eligibles" are subject to time-consuming
and complicated administrative processes that delay access to care and can result in lower quality care. He supports streamlining the benefits process for individuals with disabilities so that people receive the care they require in a timely manner. Both programs should give individuals with disabilities more information about the care to which they are entitled to receive under both programs so that decisions about care can be made in a unified manner. He also believes that the demonstrations projects that the Community Choices Act of 2007 seeks to create to improve coordination between benefits received by dual Medicare and Medicaid recipients are an important step to undertake in addressing this problem.

5. Do you support an ADA affirmative action provision like the one in the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Sen. Joseph Biden co-sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act, which extended the civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities. He will ensure that United States Supreme Court and other federal judges follow established precedent and Congressional intent with respect to the ADA and all other civil rights laws, thereby preserving equal rights for people who have disabilities and other minorities. Sen. Biden understands that the greatest barrier to full integration of individuals with Disabilities into mainstream society is not the limitations of their individual disability, but rather, it is the physical and attitudinal barriers imposed by society.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was a co-sponsor of a Senate Resolution that recognized and honored the fifteenth anniversary of the ADA because she is a strong believer in the value of the ADA. As president, she pledges to uphold the values intrinsic in the ADA and she will welcome advocacy groups to meet with her administration and voice their concerns. She will appoint judges who understand and respect the value of civil rights.

Sen. Chris Dodd supports an ADA Restoration Act because of the incremental erosion of the rights guaranteed by the ADA by the courts.

Sen. John Edwards is committed to protecting the civil rights of people with disabilities with full enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. He will ensure that the ADA remains consistent with the original intent of Congress.

Sen. Barack Obama is a former civil rights lawyer. Therefore, he knows firsthand the importance of strong protections for minority communities in our society. He is committed to strengthening and better enforcing the ADA so that future generations of Americans with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities. Sen. Obama believes we must restore the original legislative intent of the ADA in the wake of court decisions that have restricted the interpretation of this landmark legislation. He supports the ADA Restoration Act, a law that would bring us closer to the ADA's ideal of barring discrimination against anyone on the basis of disability.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports an ADA Restoration Act because the ADA has been seriously weakened by Supreme Court decisions.

6. Do you support insurance coverage for mental health treatment that is equal to treatment for physical health treatment, i.e. mental health parity?

Sen. Joseph Biden was a cosponsor of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act and remains committed to the goals of that Act as a cosponsor of the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007.

Sen. Hillary Clinton believes that government must ensure parity in health insurance coverage of mental health benefits. She cosponsored the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007, which prohibits employers and health plans from imposing durational treatment limits and financial limitations on coverage for mental illness that do not apply to all other medical conditions.

Sen. Chris Dodd has long supported and will continue to support efforts to ensure mental health parity for all Americans because he believes that it is essential that we require employers and health plans to cover treatment for mental health conditions on the same basis of all other illnesses. A Dodd Administration would not only pass mental health parity legislation, it would strongly enforce it.

Sen. John Edwards believes mental illness and physical illness must get the same insurance coverage. He has long supported mental health parity legislation; he co-sponsored the Wellstone Mental Health Parity Act.

Sen. Barack Obama supports efforts to increase federal support for researching and fighting mental illnesses, as well as legislative efforts to mandate that private insurers cover physical and mental illnesses in a similar manner. He will make combating mental health and substance abuse disorders a higher priority. This is why he supported the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007, which requires employers and insurance companies that offer mental health coverage to provide parity between mental health and physical health coverage.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports mental health parity legislation because he believes it is time for us to treat behavioral health issues the same as we treat other medical disorders.

7. How will you reduce the number of individuals with serious mental illnesses who are in the criminal justice system?

Sen. Barack Obama believes that tackling the problem of the high number of mentally ill prisoners will require a concerted effort to reach out to and provide treatment for the mentally ill before some end up in the criminal justice system. He supports efforts to increase federal support for researching and fighting mental illnesses, as well as legislative efforts to mandate private insurers to cover physical and mental illnesses in a similar manner. He will make combating mental health and substance abuse disorders a higher priority. He supported the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007. Sen. Obama will also help state and local governments improve the availability of mental health services, train their law enforcement personnel to recognize the signs of mental illness in offenders, and give prosecutors more tools to deal appropriately with mentally ill offenders. He is a strong supporter of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004, and, as president, will ensure that it is adequately funded. He also supports improving our background check system to keep guns from ending up in the hands of people who are mentally ill.

8. How do you plan to fully include people who have disabilities in all phases of disaster planning and hazard mitigation?

Sen. Joseph Biden will guarantee that people who have disabilities are fully included by appointing activists with disabilities to the Homeland Security agencies. He will also fully fund Homeland Security.

Sen. Barack Obama passed legislation to require states to properly plan the evacuation of special needs individuals because one of the most devastating aspects of Hurricane Katrina is that most of the stranded victims were society's most vulnerable members—low-income families, the elderly, the homeless, and Americans with disabilities. He knows that too many states and cities do not have adequate plans in place to care for special-needs populations. He believes that the legislation is only the first step in ensuring that the most vulnerable individuals in local and national emergencies are adequately safeguarded.

More Issues: Here are other statements from the Presidential candidates with respect to issues of importance to people who have disabilities.

IDEA

Sen. Joseph Biden has repeatedly voted in favor of the federal government fulfilling its original commitment to pay forty percent of the costs of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Sen. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly called for full funding of IDEA. She also cosponsored the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act, which would significantly improve access to instructional materials for students who are blind or have other print disabilities by creating an efficient system for acquiring and distributing these materials in special formats, including Braille, large print, synthesized speech, digital text, and digital audio. Sen. Clinton also cosponsored the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Improvement Act, which strengthened IDEA by expanding monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and enabling parents and schools to resolve disputes adequately while also improving access to professional development for all teachers.

Sen. Chris Dodd believes that the time has come to fully fund IDEA and his action will reflect his commitment on this issue. He will take a more aggressive approach to enforcement by instructing the Department of Education to establish clear, objective, and publicly available criteria for applying sanctions, funding and directing an immediate review of compliance across the states, and ensuring that sanctions are then fully applied.

Sen. John Edwards intends to strengthen federal enforcement of IDEA by the Department of Education so children with disabilities receive the free, appropriate education they deserve and to which they are legally entitled. He will appoint strong enforcement officials, nominate fair judges, provide adequate resources, and exercise leadership to make enforcement of IDEA a priority.

Sen. Barack Obama is a strong supporter of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and has supported increases in funding to truly ensure that no child is left behind.

Gov. Bill Richardson would withhold federal funding for school districts that are out of compliance with IDEA.

Transportation

Sen. Joseph Biden would expand access to affordable, accessible transportation for people with disabilities; he has consistently supported expansion of accessible public transportation options.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is very aware that providing meaningful transportation opportunities to people with disabilities is an invaluable first step in empowering individuals to fulfill their potential and live self-sufficiently. She has consistently supported the Community Service Block Grant Program, which traditionally helps fund and support transportation projects (among other projects). She has also tried to secure funding for agencies that provide transportation services to those individuals who have disabilities.

Sen. Chris Dodd includes as part of his energy plan to increase access to affordable and convenient mass transit systems that are fully accessible to people with disabilities across all regions of the country.

Sen. John Edwards understands that accessible transportation is a critical component of increased work opportunities for people with disabilities because for most jobs, you cannot work if you cannot get from your house to the job site. He supports increasing federal funding for nonprofit groups to meet the transportation need of people with disabilities when public mass transit is not available and he intends to increase funding and enforcement of transportation access requirements under federal law. Sen. Edwards believes that, since the federal government has the power through Section 504, it must enforce the law to ensure that efforts like clearing snow and removing standing water are done because these can be very important in ensuring accessibility.

Sen. Barack Obama believes Congress must enact pending transportation reauthorization legislation without further delay and make provisions for accessible options for individuals with disabilities, including highways, mass transit, commuter rail, and air transportation improvements.

Gov. Bill Richardson will work with the disability community and the National Council of Disability to address the transportation shortages and problems throughout the U.S.

Voting

Sen. Joseph Biden supported the Help America Vote Act and will work to ensure its enforcement, including the requirements that enable people to case their ballot privately and that every polling location be accessible for people with disabilities.

Sen. Hillary Clinton authored legislation, the Count Every Vote Act, which requires that at least one voting machine per precinct allows voters who have disabilities and language minority voters to cast a vote in a private and independent manner.

Sen. Chris Dodd, as the primary author of the Help America Vote Act, worked to ensure that new voting protections for persons with disabilities were included in the final legislation. He is cosponsoring new legislation to provide for a voter-verified paper ballot record while preserving full access for persons with disabilities.

Sen. John Edwards will ensure that voters with disabilities are able to vote privately and independently, consistent with the requirements of HAVA. He will help every precinct provide enough trained poll workers and secure voting machines that are physically accessible to all. He believes that voting rights is an example of an area where the disability community provides the best information about which ballot systems work best and his administration will have an ongoing dialogue with the community to ensure meaningful disability voting rights protections.

Sen. Barack Obama believes that Americans with disabilities would be among the most disenfranchised by recent efforts to require mandatory photo identification at polling places because more than three million Americans with disabilities lack a government-issue form of identification. Therefore, he opposed unreasonable voter identification requirements and believes that the constitutional rights of individuals with disabilities should be safeguarded.

Gov. Bill Richardson made each of New Mexico's 1,200 polling sites HAVA compliant.

International Civil Rights

Sen. Joseph Biden supported the United States signing, and then ratifying, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Sen. Hillary Clinton believes the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was undertaken with the same goals that the U.S. had in enacting the ADA, namely, the goals of empowering individuals with disabilities and integrating these individuals into all aspects of society. She will champion these principles as president.

Sen. Chris Dodd supports U.S. ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because people with disabilities around the world deserve these rights and protections.

Sen. John Edwards supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Sen. Barack Obama supports the United States' ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first human rights treaty to be approved by the UN in the 21st Century.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

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