Inside Politics

Dean’s tax turnabout

“After months of touting his plan to repeal all of President Bush’s tax cuts, former Vermont governor Howard Dean is moving toward embracing a tax-relief package for middle-income Americans, which would amount to a major revamping of a centerpiece of his Democratic presidential campaign,” the Boston Globe reports.

“Dean’s action comes after his team of economic advisers privately gave him a ’unanimous’ recommendation to back a middle-income tax cut to offset the increases that would come with repealing Bush’s plan, a top campaign official said.

“The economic team has been especially concerned that Dean’s proposed repeal of the Bush cuts has enabled critics to accuse him of supporting what amounts to a $2,000 tax increase on families earning between $73,000 and $145,000,” Globe reporter Michael Kranish writes.

“[Tuesday], Dean signaled that he is heeding his team’s advice to provide some form of middle-class tax relief, saying during an Iowa debate, ’Ultimately, we will have a program of tax fairness for middle-class people.’

“A top Dean official said [Tuesday] that the campaign has made a ’strategic’ decision for Dean to refrain during the primaries from revealing details of a proposal to trim middle-class taxes, preferring to announce it during the general election.”

Mass. backlash

Sixty-nine percent of likely voters in Massachusetts would like to vote on a constitutional amendment to block homosexual “marriage,” according to a Zogby International poll done for the Coalition for Marriage.

Massachusetts lawmakers are scheduled to consider a constitutional amendment on marriage Feb. 11, said Ron Crews, spokesman for the coalition, which is composed of some 17 traditional values, legal, religious and medical groups.

According to the Zogby poll, taken in December of 601 likely voters, 52 percent said only traditional marriages should be legal and 73 percent said if homosexual couples want to provide for each other, they should do so through private arrangements already allowed by law.

Forty-eight percent said a candidate’s position on homosexual “marriage” “made no difference” to them, but 33 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supported homosexual “marriage.”

Nearly two-thirds of the voters also said they would support a constitutional amendment to require that Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges be re-elected. Such an amendment, sponsored by state Sen. Michael Knapik, is also set to be taken up Feb. 11, the group said.

News blackout

“Back in mid-December, the ’CBS Evening News’ twice led with stories about ’war-profiteering’ by Halliburton for the price of gas it sold inside Iraq, with Vice President Cheney’s name linked prominently,” the Media Research Center reports at www.mediaresearch.org.

“But three weeks later, when a January 6 front page Wall Street Journal story revealed that the Army Corps of Engineers had cleared Halliburton of any wrongdoing in its pricing, the ’CBS Evening News,’ which had earlier touted a concern of ’Pentagon auditors,’ ignored the development. But Tuesday’s CBS newscast had time for a full story on how, as anchor John Roberts put it, the Howard Dean campaign ’offers America new love.’ That was a piece on how young people are using Dean’s ’meet-ups’ as an opportunity to find a mate.”

Hart to return?

Former Sen. Gary Hart, Colorado Democrat, is seriously considering a challenge to Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

The two-term senator and two-time presidential candidate recently discussed a potential bid with national and state party leaders who are urging him to jump in, Democratic sources in Washington and Colorado told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s serious enough that he’s pondering the ’how to’ aspect of the campaign,” said one Democratic official. “He thinks if he got in this race, he would win, but he’s got a lot of other factors that weigh into this, and this is obviously a big jump.”

Mr. Hart has declined to comment on his prospects. The former senator finished second in the 1984 Democratic presidential primary and was the front-runner for the nomination in 1988, but dropped out amid charges of marital infidelity bolstered by a June 1987 photo of model Donna Rice on his lap aboard a boat named the Monkey Business.

State vs. library

Arkansas officials have asked a court to throw out a lawsuit filed by the Clinton Presidential Foundation seeking tax breaks for the presidential library project.

In the filing Tuesday, the state Department of Economic Development claims the nonprofit foundation is not entitled to tax breaks under a program designed to promote “business enterprises,” the Associated Press reports.

“The list of ’business enterprises’ does not include libraries, schools, educational facilities or government institutions,” the filing said.

The Clinton Foundation, which is building the $160 million Clinton Presidential Center near downtown Little Rock, applied for $3.5 million in reimbursements for building materials under the program. The foundation sued after the department denied the request in 2002.

Dean’s new aides

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean named a Clinton-era arms-control expert, Leon Fuerth, as his national security adviser yesterday.

“I am pleased to announce that Leon Fuerth will join my campaign as chair of my core group of national-security and foreign-policy advisers,” Mr. Dean said in a statement.

Mr. Fuerth, an authority on arms control and nonproliferation, was national security adviser for eight years to former Vice President Al Gore.

The move came one day after Mr. Dean announced that Roy Neel, who served as a top aide to both Mr. Gore and President Clinton, had joined the campaign as a full-time senior adviser.

No Arizona rematch

Democrat George Cordova, who lost a close race for a newly created Arizona congressional seat in 2002, will not seek a rematch, party leaders said Monday.

Many Democrats believed a rematch between Mr. Cordova and Republican Rick Renzi represented the party’s best chance to take over the seat, United Press International reports. Mr. Renzi narrowly won the 2002 contest in the state’s 1st Congressional District, 49 percent to 46 percent.

Mr. Cordova’s decision clears the way for Coconino County Supervisor Paul Babbitt, brother of former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, to run unopposed for the party’s nomination.

USA Today probe

Reporter Jack Kelley has resigned from USA Today after a company investigation into his stories, according to the newspaper’s editor, Karen Jurgensen.

The editor declined last night to comment on the length of the probe or say what led to the scrutiny. She said the paper does not plan to correct any of his stories at this time.

Mr. Kelley, who resigned Tuesday, was a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist in beat reporting for his series on centers of foreign terrorism. He also co-authored two books with USA Today founder Al Neuharth, both published in 1989.

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.