Bush moves to shut down 527 organizations
LAS CRUCES, N.M., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush will pursue court action to shut down 527 political committees including those attacking Sen. John F. Kerry, the White House said.
Spokesman Scott McClellan Thursday told reporters Bush made the commitment in a telephone call to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., while traveling to New Mexico for a series of campaign appearances.
The administration had already contacted the Justice Department to look into the issue, but additional details were not immediately available, he said.
"The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups," McClellan said. "And the president said if the court action doesn't work, then we would be willing to pursue legislative action."
Among the groups that would be shut down are Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is running ads attacking Kerry's combat service record, and MoveOn Voter Fund, a prominent 527 that has been attacking Bush for months.
The 527s can use unregulated soft money to influence voters on issues. For weeks Bush has condemned them but has refused to specifically attack the content of the Swift Boat vets' ads, which have roiled the Kerry campaign and which Kerry accuses of being a Republican tool.
Bush has called on Kerry to join the effort to stop all the groups, but Kerry has so far failed to do so.
RNC chairman says Kerry can't have it both ways
NEW YORK, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A top Republican accused Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry Thursday of trying to have it both ways as GOP leaders gathered in New York.
"Shadow groups formed for the expressed purpose of defeating President Bush and electing John Kerry have spent $63 million attacking the president, while John Kerry remained silent," Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie told members of GOP's national committee.
"But when anti-Kerry groups began to run ads against him," Gillespie said, "(Kerry) thunders in righteous indignation."
Kerry's accusation that the White House has been directing the activities of the anti-Kerry group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, does not measure up, he said. The mere fact that people in the Swift Boat group knew White House adviser Karl Rove does not prove illegal activity, he added, as Kerry's former campaign manager is at the helm of three of the anti-Bush groups.
Likewise, Gillespie said, Kerry cannot hold up the fact that attorney Ben Ginsberg gave legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans' group while serving as outside counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "evidence of illegal coordination when Bob Bauer serves as legal counsel to both the Kerry campaign and America Coming Together and Joe Sandler serves as general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and to MoveOn.org and Moving America Forward all at the same time."
"John Kerry can't have it both ways," Gillespie told the committee.
Bush takes first slim lead in LA Times poll
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush has nudged ahead of Democratic challenger John F. Kerry in the Los Angeles Times poll for the first time.
Of 1,597 adults contacted nationwide by telephone Saturday through Tuesday, Bush led Kerry, drawing 49 percent among registered voters, compared with 46 percent for the Massachusetts Democrat.
In a Times poll just before the Democratic convention last month, Kerry held a 2-point advantage over Bush, which is within the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.
However, the poll found the president is still threatened by a current of uneasiness about the nation's direction. A slight majority of voters said they believed the country was on the wrong track, and a majority also said the country was not better off because of his policies and needed to set a new course.
When independent candidate Ralph Nader was added to the mix, Bush's advantage remained 3 percentage points with 47 percent, compared with 44 percent for Kerry and 3 percent for Nader.
Filmmakers allege Rove behind Swift Boat ad
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The makers of a documentary about Karl Rove allege the senior presidential adviser is the force behind the Swift Boat attacks on Democrat John F. Kerry.
But, the New York Post reported Wednesday, the men behind the film "offer no proof Rove" is connected to the attacks on Kerry by the veterans' group.
"Bush's Brain," based on a book by two Texas reporters, alleges Rove orchestrated similar attacks against former Bush rivals Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ann Richards, the Democrat whom Bush beat to win the Texas governorship in 1994.
The Swift Boat Veterans effort, film co-director Michael Shoob said, again without proof, is "a third-party attack that was hatched by Karl Rove."
The film also tries to advance the idea, popular with Bush haters, that Rove was behind the effort to finger the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson as a covert CIA employee -- a charge first made by Wilson himself.
Rove has repeatedly denied being the source of the leak, which is under investigation by a U.S. special prosecutor. Asked for a comment, a presidential spokesman told the Post, "We simply don't offer film reviews from the White House."
Swift boaters launch third ad
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A third Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad was launched Thursday, disputing John Kerry's claim he secretly and illegally entered Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
The latest ad, which debuted on the Internet, features Navy veteran Steve Gardner, a gunner's mate on the Swift boat commanded by the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate. Gardner denies the incident Kerry described in some detail on U.S. Senate floor in 1986 ever happened.
Gardner also says the boat never undertook an illegal mission to Cambodia.
In the 1986 speech, Kerry said, "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."
"I spent more time on John Kerry's boat than any other crew member," Gardner says. "John Kerry claims that he spent Christmas of 1968 in Cambodia and that is categorically a lie. Not in December, not in January. We were never in Cambodia on a secret mission, ever."
The ad can be viewed on the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth Web site at swiftvets.com.
New Hispanic, American Indian voters sought
DALLAS, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Intense campaigns are under way to register new Hispanic and American Indian voters in swing states because organizers say they could decide close races.
Moving America Forward, a group founded in New Mexico by Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, has claimed registration of more than 100,000 new Hispanic and Indian voters in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Florida.
Campaign spokeswoman Kate Chapek said Thursday the group hopes to register 155,000 voters from those groups by October.
Republicans are also waging their own campaign to sign up new voters in the Southwest and the National Congress of American Indians has its own project this year.
Native Vote 2004 hopes to register new Indian voters and get them to the polls Nov. 2. Indians were key in the recent elections of Democratic governors in Arizona and Oklahoma.
Organizers believe higher turnout by Hispanics and Indians could be crucial in a close state presidential race or Senate race, such as Alaska, Oklahoma, Colorado and South Dakota.
CFTC chief to leave agency
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Scott Parsons, chief operating officer at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will leave the agency Aug. 30.
Parsons will become executive vice president for strategic and government affairs for the Managed Funds Association, the CFTC said.
He joined the CFTC in 1998 as policy adviser to then-CFTC Chairman James Newsome.
He became the commission's chief of staff and chief operating officer in December 2001. His duties included personally overseeing the daily operations of the CFTC, which employs more than 500 people in four offices across the country.
Bush proclaims Women's Equality Day
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- President Bush hailed women's struggle for a full role in all aspects of American life and declared Thursday Women's Equality Day.
"Today, American women are leaders in business, government, law, science, medicine, the arts, education, and many other fields," Bush said in a proclamation that noted the struggle for women's rights. "Women-owned businesses account for nearly half of all privately held firms and are opening at twice the rate of male-owned businesses. Through vision, determination, and a strong work ethic, remarkable American women have broadened opportunities for themselves and women around the world."
Bush said the full participation of women in society and "the protection of their rights as citizens are essential for freedom and democracy to flourish."
