Illegals filing tax forms
February 18, 2008
Boston Globe
More illegal immigrants are rushing to file taxes
Many view move as way to help case for residency
Illegal immigrants are pouring into tax-preparation offices and nonprofit agencies across Massachusetts and the nation to file state and federal income taxes, taking a step that some might deem unthinkable: giving their name, address, and financial information to the government.
In Massachusetts, taxpayers here illegally are lining up from Chelsea to the Berkshires, despite the fear of deportation that is permeating the state after a massive raid in New Bedford last year and smaller raids in Boston-area cities and towns. While typical American taxpayers are wary of the Internal Revenue Service, illegal immigrants see the IRS as a friendly agency that could help in their quest for legal residency.
“It’s catching on that this is one of the things that you do” as a resident of the United States, said Corinn Williams, executive director of the Community Economic Development Center in New Bedford, which is getting 10 calls a day, double the number it got a year ago, from immigrants who want help filing taxes. “If you’re making a case that you want to stay here, without a doubt that’s one of the things that the judge is going to look at.”
The IRS created nine-digit individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, in 1996, to better track the tax returns of those who are ineligible for a Social Security number. Most taxpayers who use ITINs are believed to be illegal immigrants, though some legal residents - foreign investors, for example - also have them.
In Massachusetts 39,221 ITIN holders filed taxes for the 2006 tax year, up 20 percent from the previous year. Nationally, more than 2.1 million such taxpayers filed in the 2005 tax year, the most recent year available, up nearly 37 percent from the year before.
IRS officials warn taxpayers that filing taxes does not affect their immigration status. But a US Senate proposal in 2006 would have required illegal immigrants to pay back taxes as part of their application for legal residency, fueling the hopes of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country.
The rising number of taxpayers parallels the national debate about what to do about illegal immigration. Advocates point to paying taxes as proof that immigrants help the economy. From 1996 to 2003, according to an IRS study, ITIN holders were responsible for paying the government almost $50 billion, most of which was withheld from their paychecks.
But critics of illegal immigration say paying taxes should not help illegal workers become legal residents. The workers, they say, cost taxpayers millions of dollars in healthcare, education, and other services.
“We are not a nation of taxpayers. That is not the standard by which you attain membership in our society,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which urges the IRS to use its records to help deport people. “It doesn’t buy you a ticket in.”
The IRS does not generally share the taxpayers’ information with federal immigration agents, said IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis, and neither does the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, said Commissioner Navjeet Bal. Anyone who earns income here, including illegal immigrants, must pay taxes, state and federal government officials say.
“The tax code, which is enacted by Congress and signed by the president, does not recognize immigration status,” Mathis said. “Anyone who has US-sourced income of a certain amount must pay US taxes.”
The New Bedford raid starkly illustrates the difference between the goals of the IRS and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last March, federal immigration agents raided a leather-goods factory and arrested 361 illegal immigrants - many of whom also filed taxes. So a few weeks after federal immigration agents arrested the illegal immigrants, the IRS sent some of them refund checks.
Immigrants say the hope that they will one day become legal residents, and the fact that the IRS keeps their information private, helps them overcome their fear of filing taxes.
Eoin Reilly, a lawyer and board member of the Irish Immigration Center, said he has used immigrants’ tax records, in part, to persuade immigration judges not to deport them. Paying taxes, he said, shows a judge that they have good moral character, and he believes that it has helped.
“It just kind of makes the scale tip a little bit,” he said.
One rainy day last week, tax season was playing out in Chelsea. Signs in English and Spanish exhorting people to pay taxes were plastered in storefronts and scattered in restaurants.
Taxpayers trooped into the nonprofit Chelsea Restoration Corp., which helps citizens and noncitizens alike file taxes.
Armando, a 47-year-old illegal immigrant from South America who buses tables seven nights a week and earns $34,000 a year, arrived early Tuesday morning to file. He paid $20,000 to smuggle himself and his son across the US-Mexico border in 2005, and has filed taxes ever since.
Now he uses a fake Social Security number at work that he made up himself. But everything on his taxes is true.
“I wanted to stay in this country, so I made the decision, to win or lose,” said Armando, who did not want to use his last name for fear of being deported, later adding that he will give his $300 refund this year to his son for his college studies.
A 57-year-old Argentine woman with a mop of copper-colored hair filed for the first time in eight years last spring, hoping that Congress would pass a bill to overhaul immigration laws. The measure failed, but she enjoyed the experience. She just received a letter of apology from the IRS saying she had paid $30 too much last year.
“Seriously?” the woman, arms thrown wide, asked Marilyn Garcia, the assistant director of Chelsea Restoration Corp., who translated the letter. “I can’t believe the government owes me money!”
In general, though, illegal immigrants get fewer tax breaks. They cannot claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which can be $4,700 for a family of four earning less than $12,000, and they cannot claim a new tax rebate just approved by President Bush. Missouri and Kansas also refuse to give state refunds to taxpayers without a Social Security number.
Pasquale Casella, a senior tax adviser at H & R Block based in Pittsfield, said immigrants are eager to follow the law. He visits English classes and ethnic festivals and has increased the number of ITIN filers he handles from a handful five years ago to more than 60 last year. He charges about $80 to prepare a simple return.
“These people have dreams,” he said. “They want a good life for the family.”
But critics say the illegal immigrants should not have been hired in the first place. Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said businesses should use a federal database to screen for illegal workers.
“We don’t think that those that are being paid on the books or are paying taxes are doing so for charitable reasons,” said Kropper. “It’s a condition of employment.”
The Argentine woman, who works odd jobs caring for sick people, acknowledged she was breaking the law by working in the United States. But she said she was glad to pay her share. The government helped her recently, she said, by paying for an operation when she fell ill.
“I hope that if someday the government offered me legal documents, they will see that I have been complying with the taxes,” she said. “With taxes, at least.”
Dollar rises, analysts say rally only temporary
February 18, 2008
LONDON, Feb 18, 2008 (AFP) — The dollar rallied against other leading currencies on Monday but was expected to struggle to keep its gains against the euro and yen because of concerns about the weak US economy, analysts said.
US markets were closed on Monday owing to a public holiday in the United States.
In European trading, the euro fell to 1.4636 dollars from 1.4683 in New York late on Friday.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar rose to 108.24 yen from 107.72.
“Today’s President’s day holiday in the US could result in thin trading conditions and in turn exaggerated markets moves,” said Calyon economist Mitul Kotecha.
The dollar was rising after falling throughout last week when Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke kept the door open for further cuts to US interest rates owing to continuing signs of trouble in the American economy.
“We expect the dollar to remain under pressure and to be unable to post gains on a sustainable basis in the coming weeks, as the slowing economy means that US fundamental data will come in much weaker in the first quarter as already seen,” said analyst Gavin Friend at Commerzbank.
A flurry of soft US economic data released last week, including figures on consumer sentiment and regional manufacturing activity, continued to weigh on investor confidence, analysts said.
“These weak US economic reports served to reverse the more optimistic attitude towards the economy which had been triggered by stronger-than-expected retail sales earlier in the week,” noted NAB Capital strategist John Kyriakopoulos.
Bernanke said last week that there were strong “downside risks” to US economic growth and that the Fed was ready to respond as necessary, which was seen as a hint that further interest rates cuts might be in the pipeline.
“There is more uncertainty now on how deep the economic slowdown will be. The inclination is to sell the dollar as the Fed lowers interest rates,” said David Cohen, a director of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics.
In Europe on Monday, the euro changed hands at 1.4636 dollars against 1.4683 late on Friday, at 158.42 yen (158.18), 0.7502 pounds (0.7484) and 1.6113 Swiss francs (1.6049).
The dollar stood at 108.24 yen (107.72) and 1.1008 Swiss francs (1.0927).
The pound was at 1.9512 dollars (1.9612).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold dropped to 903.75 dollars an ounce from 912.50 dollars late on Friday.
AZ crackdown on illegal immigration causes problems in UT
February 18, 2008
By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
TEMPE, Ariz. - As Utah debates how to treat undocumented immigrants, Arizona is watching new laws and an economic downturn drive away those workers, likely sending many to Utah.
No one knows how many people have left Arizona since that state’s latest immigration law, which penalizes employers for hiring undocumented workers, became effective Jan. 1. But with Arizona once having an undocumented immigrant population estimated at 400,000 or more, Utah stands to receive at least some of those who are now fleeing the state.
“We have received anecdotal information where people are being invited to go to Utah, specifically Ogden and some of the communities outside of Salt Lake City,” said Edmundo Hidalgo, president of Chicanos Por La Causa, which promotes education and economic development in Arizona. “The primary attraction is quality of life. People view those communities as having high family values.”
Reza Athari, an immigration attorney who practices in Utah and Nevada, said people leaving Arizona have come to him asking about their legal options. Some people have had to close businesses in Arizona, he said, and some “were concerned with being profiled as undocumented even though they were documented.”
Economics make Utah the most attractive local choice. Arizona’s unemployment rate in December was 4.7 percent. Utah’s was 3.3 percent, by far the lowest among states bordering Arizona.
The employer law’s chief supporter, Russell Pearce, a state representative from Mesa, Ariz., said legislators discussed whether the law would push undocumented immigrants to Arizona’s neighbors. But Russell said lawmakers were looking out for Arizona.
“We certainly don’t apologize,” Pearce said. “Arizona is not going to be a sanctuary state for illegal employers or illegal aliens,” he said.
The employer law was the latest Arizona effort to curb illegal immigration. In 2006, Arizona voted to outlaw in-state tuition or financial aid to undocumented immigrants attending college. The sheriff in metropolitan Phoenix has made national headlines by policing illegal immigration and groups opposed to illegal immigration have begun protesting centers for day laborers.
Besides driving undocumented immigrants to other states, the laws are one of the reasons more people are returning to their home countries, said Estheban Vargas. Vargas works at a migrant shelter in Agua Prieta, Mexico, adjacent to Douglas, Ariz., and keeps statistics on the people who stay there.
“We’re seeing less people coming on their way up [north] and more people on their way back,” Vargas said.
Hidalgo said undocumented immigrants are wary of more than Arizona’s laws.
“They’re so frustrated with this particular state,” Hidalgo said. “They’re frustrated by the attacks. They’re frustrated by the lack of appreciation.”
It’s not clear what an increased undocumented immigrant population would mean for Utah from a tax revenue standpoint. Studies in Texas and Arizona found undocumented immigrants there provided net increases to tax revenues. No similar study has been done in Utah.
Ken Jameson, a University of Utah economics professor, said the migration from Arizona likely will hurt its economy. He said high rates of migration to Arizona coincided with high economic performance there from 1999 to 2005.
“If you reverse the role of migrants it’s entirely possible you’ll reverse the pattern of economic performance,” Jameson said.
Ann Seiden, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said some businesses are reconsidering whether they want to expand in Arizona.
“I think there’s no question Utah will see an in-migration of residents from Arizona,” Seiden said. “Arizona is a state that has historically been built on growth.”
Arizona’s employer law offers lessons for Utah, she said. Seiden said the state must make safeguards so businesses are not prosecuted if they unwittingly hire an undocumented immigrant.
“Overall, the law just makes Arizona an uncertain place to do business,” Seiden said.
ncarlisle@sltrib.com
NJ following AZ’s lead?
February 18, 2008
Senator vows to target N.J. businesses hiring illegal immigrants
By TOM HESTER Jr.
Associated Press Writer
10:56 AM EST, February 18, 2008
TRENTON, N.J.
A
Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney said his decision comes after a federal judge upheld an
“Companies that knowingly hire illegals are destroying job opportunities for the working men and women of New Jersey,” said Sweeney, D-
The Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003 estimated that New Jersey had 221,000 illegal immigrants, though the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tighter border security and immigration laws, estimates the state has 490,000.
New Jersey has about 8.7 million residents and 4.1 million workers.
Under Sweeney’s measure, which he said he will introduce next week, first-time offenders would have their business licenses suspended for 10 days.
Second offenses would bring permanent revocations, Sweeney said.
In approved, the law would take effect at the end of the year and require employers to verify the legal status of their work forces.
“New Jersey should welcome legal immigrants with open arms, but we need to put up a stop sign for illegals who undermine family, educational and health care support systems,” Sweeney said.
The proposal worries businesses, said Jim Leonard, a vice president with the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
“We feel immigration is an issue best handled on the federal level,” Leonard said. “Creating a patchwork of laws on this issue throughout the nation makes it even more difficult to run a business.”
John Rogers, a vice president with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said employers are prohibited from asking certain information about an employee’s background while hiring and are legally required to take Social Security cards that appear valid.
“I fear that another New Jersey-only bill will unfairly ask the employer community to shoulder increased liability and be responsible for what is a national problem,” Rogers said.
On Feb. 8, a federal judge in Arizona dismissed a lawsuit filed by business groups against Arizona’s law, which was approved last year by the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Arizona business groups argued the law unconstitutionally infringed on federal immigration powers, but the judge ruled there was no conflict because states regulate business licensing.
The Arizona law took effect Jan. 1. An
Earlier rulings on similar measures have been mixed.
In July, a federal judge struck down a Hazleton, Pa., ordinance that would deny business permits for companies that employ illegal immigrants, but another judge upheld a similar measure in Valley Park, Mo., earlier this month.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
It’s official: Bush, 41 endorses McCain
February 18, 2008
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
Former President George H.W. Bush endorsed John McCain on Monday, a nod of approval from the Republican political dynasty’s patriarch that sends a strong signal to a GOP establishment wary of the Arizona senator.
“No one is better prepared to lead our nation at these trying times than Sen. John McCain,” Bush said, standing alongside the Republican nominee-in-waiting in an airport hanger. “His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt. But most importantly, he has the right values and experience to guide our nation forward at this historic moment.”
McCain, in turn, said he was deeply honored by Bush’s support. “I think that our effort to continue to unite the party will be enhanced dramatically by President Bush’s words,” he added.
Since effectively sealing the nomination when chief rival Mitt Romney dropped out, McCain has been working to convince the fickle and influential conservative base of the Republican Party to get behind his candidacy.
He’s seen some progress, with several high profile Republicans from the party’s establishment endorsing McCain in an effort to unite the party while Democrats continue to fight for a nominee. Still, McCain has much work to do to energize the party behind his candidacy to ensure that its people turn out this fall.
President Bush has spoken warmly of McCain, calling him a “true conservative.” But he also has said that McCain might have to work harder to win over the support of the GOP’s more conservative wing. Protocol demands that he not swing explicitly behind the candidate with a race still technically — and only technically — in progress.
His father’s endorsement, which follows one from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is George W. Bush’s brother, is a further nudge by GOP chieftains for conservative activists to get over their distaste for McCain and for rival Mike Huckabee to get out.
Without mentioning McCain’s chief standing rival by name, the elder Bush suggested that he wasn’t sending a signal to Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor. “I had not come here to tell any other candidate what to do,” Bush said.
Still, he recalled his own defeat in the 1980 presidential race, and said: “It can take a while for any candidate to read the handwriting on the wall, and that certainly was true of me.”
Bush also called criticism by the right flank that McCain is not conservative enough absurd and grossly unfair.
“He’s got … a sound conservative record, and yet he’s not above reaching out to the other side,” Bush said.
McCain has drawn the ire of some high-profile conservative pundits and others for what they call infractions against the party. McCain twice voted against Bush’s tax cuts. He pushed a campaign finance overhaul that critics said restricted their free speech rights. And, he has worked across the aisle with Democrats on issues like an eventual path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants — heresy in the eyes of many hard-core Republicans.
As he makes the transition into a general election candidate, McCain not only must rally the party but also must try to determine how to deploy the current president, whose job approval rating is at a low point.
While still popular among Republicans, many moderates and independents have turned from the president, and Democrats already have started casting McCain’s candidacy as a continuation of Bush’s eight years in office.
But McCain shows little willingness to distance himself, saying: “I’d be honored to have President George Bush’s support, his endorsement. And I’d be honored to be anywhere with him under any circumstances.”
However, he added: “Obviously, … any president who follows one has different views on particularly specific issues.”
The Perils of a Weak Dollar
February 18, 2008
THE PERILS OF A WEAK DOLLAR
Boston.com
By Brad Setser
February 16, 2008OVER THE last several months, the US economy has slowed, interest rates have been cut, and global demand for US bonds - setting those from the Treasury aside - has dried up.
Until a few months ago, influential commentators argued that the country’s skill at creating complicated financial securities would help to finance the US trade deficit. But rather than selling the financial equivalent of a Mercedes-Benz, expensive bonds with a reputation for quality engineering, the United States is trying to sell a mix of financial “lemons” and minivans - dolled-up subprime debt and reliable, but boring, Treasury bonds.
In this context, the fall of the dollar is not a surprise. But even as the dollar has fallen significantly against the euro, the pound, and the Canadian dollar, the world’s rapidly growing emerging economies have resisted market pressure for their currencies to rise against the dollar.
The resulting growth in these economies’ foreign-currency reserves has helped finance the US deficit. Too many countries with strong economies now have weak currencies, which puts strain on the world’s economy and financial system.
It is better to produce goods - or financial assets - that can be sold at a premium in the global market than to produce goods and financial assets that must be sold at a discount. On the other hand, a weak dollar should help spur exports at a time when fewer Americans will be employed building and selling homes.
Europeans will start to find the United States an attractive location for factories, not just shopping excursions. German auto firms already are increasing investment in the United States. The alternative to a weak dollar is a US monetary policy aimed at supporting the dollar rather than stabilizing economic activity in the United States - an even less attractive option.
The United States now trades far more with Asia than with Europe and spends far more on imported oil than on imported European luxury goods. However, the central banks in the large emerging Asian economies and the major oil exporters generally have not allowed their currencies to rise by much against the dollar, even though their economies are growing faster than either the European or US economy.
While a weak currency helps these countries’ exports, it is now contributing to a host of other economic problems. Inflation is rising. Real interest rates - the cost of borrowing less the inflation rate - are often now negative.
The fact that the dollar hasn’t fallen against the parts of the world with the fastest growth has put additional pressure on Europe. Europe would be far better positioned to sustain its expansion - helping to offset the US slowdown - if the euro were strong only relative to the dollar, not strong relative to both the dollar and the currencies of most of Asia.
The unwillingness of many key emerging economies to allow their currencies to appreciate against the dollar at a time when private demand for US assets has waned has another consequence: the United States has become more, not less, dependent on financing from China’s central bank and the investment funds of the large oil-exporting economies as the US economy has slowed.
China’s central bank, its new sovereign wealth fund, and its state banks will probably buy close to a half-trillion dollars in 2007 to keep China’s currency from rising at a faster pace. Russia and the large oil-exporting economies in the Gulf will combine to add almost as much to the coffers of their central banks and sovereign wealth funds. The world’s big creditors are now states - and often not democracies. This credit line helps keep US interest rates low as the dollar falls, but it also distorts the global adjustment to the US slowdown. China’s already large trade surplus increased by close to $85 billion this year, more than the US deficit fell.
Global policy makers should start to think seriously about the best way to exit from a system where a number of countries around the world, in very different economic circumstances than the United States, are importing the consequences of the weak dollar. This above all requires a greater willingness on the part of those countries now intervening most heavily in the foreign exchange market to allow their currencies to appreciate. But it also probably requires far more cooperation among the major economies than has been the case recently.
Brad Setser is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Fareed Zakaria: The End of Conservatism
February 18, 2008
The End of Conservatism
Conservative slogans sound anachronistic in the context of today’s problems, like an old TV show from the 1970s.
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:02 PM ET Feb 16, 2008
Conservatives are a gloomy bunch at the moment. Many believe that their party—the Republican Party—has lost its way and that it has done so by abandoning its principles. Aside from his foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments, conservatives find little to love about George W. Bush. His signature domestic policies include a vast expansion of government-financed health care (prescription-drug benefits), and increased funding for education while halfheartedly promoting vouchers and school choice. Bush also signed into law campaign-finance reform and supported a proposed immigration bill that would have allowed illegal aliens a path to citizenship. The Republican Congress is even worse, having indulged in an orgy of irresponsible spending. And now the party is set to nominate John McCain as its presidential nominee, a man who on several key issues has broken with Republican orthodoxy and voted with Democrats. For conservatives, a return to principles is the only way to be returned to power.
David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, begs to differ. “On the contrary,” Frum writes in his smart new book, “Comeback,” “the evidence suggests that a more consistent, more principled, more conservative administration would have been even more soundly rejected by the public than the unpopular Bush administration ever was.” As Frum documents, every Bush policy that conservatives decry is in fact wildly popular. Public support for prescription-drug benefits ranges from 80 to 90 percent. And every Bush policy conservatives favor is regarded by the public with great suspicion. A majority of Americans regard the Bush tax cuts as “not worth it,” and would prefer increased spending or balancing the budget to cutting taxes. In the one area where Bush remains unfailingly popular with conservatives—foreign policy—public support has also collapsed. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of Americans who believe that military force can reduce the risk of terrorism dropped sharply between 2002 and 2006, from 48 percent to 32 percent.
Conservatism grew powerful in the 1970s and 1980s because it proposed solutions appropriate to the problems of the age—a time when socialism was still a serious economic idea, when marginal tax rates reached 70 percent, and when the government regulated the price of oil and natural gas, interest rates on checking accounts and the number of television channels. The culture seemed under attack by a radical fringe. It was an age of stagflation and crime at home, as well as defeat and retreat abroad. Into this landscape came Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, bearing a set of ideas about how to fix the world. Over the next three decades, most of their policies were tried. Many worked. Others didn’t, but in any event, time passed and the world changed profoundly. Today, as Frum writes, “after three decades of tax cutting, most Americans no longer pay very much income tax.” Inflation has been tamed, the economy does not seem overregulated to most, and crime is not at the forefront of people’s consciousness. The culture has proved robust, and has in fact been enriched and broadened by its diversity. Abroad, the cold war is won and America sits atop an increasingly capitalist world. Whatever our problems, an even bigger military and more unilateralism are not seen as the solution.
Today’s world has a different set of problems. A robust economy has not lifted the median wages of Americans by much. Most workers are insecure about health care, and most corporations are unnerved by its rising costs. Globalization is seen as a threat, bringing fierce competition from dozens of countries. The danger of Islamic militancy remains real and lasting, but few Americans believe they understand the phenomenon or know how best to combat it. They see our addiction to oil and the degradation of the environment as real dangers to a stable and successful future. Most crucially, Americans’ views of the state are shifting. They don’t want bigger government—a poll last year found that a majority (57 percent) still believe that government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life—but they do want a smarter government, one that can help them be safe, secure and well prepared for political and economic challenges. In this context, conservative slogans sound weirdly anachronistic, like watching an old TV show from … well, from the 1970s.
“The Emerging Democratic Majority,” written in 2002, makes the case that perhaps for these broad reasons, the conservative tilt in U.S. politics is fast diminishing. It gained a brief respite after 9/11, when raised fears and heightened nationalism played to Republican advantages. But the trends are clear. Authors John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira note that several large groups have begun to vote Democratic consistently—women, college-educated professionals, youth and minorities. With the recent furor over immigration, the battle for Latinos and Asian-Americans is probably lost for the Republicans. Both groups voted solidly Democratic in 2006.
Political ideologies do not exist in a vacuum. They need to meet the problems of the world as it exists. Ordinary conservatives understand this, which may be why—despite the urgings of their ideological gurus—they have voted for McCain. He seems to understand that a new world requires new thinking.
Bill Clinton at it again…
February 18, 2008
What is the role of the former President? Is he going too far in his defense of Hillary?
President Clinton told Ankarlo on Super Tuesday he should be out promoting his wife, not defending her. I guess the heckler got to him in that video.
Listen to Ankarlo interview Bill Clinton here.
NY Times: What does McCain do with Bush?
February 18, 2008
McCain Facing Delicate Choice: A Role for Bush
WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s campaign advisers will ask the White House to deploy President Bush for major Republican fund-raising, but they do not want the president to appear too often at his side, top aides to Mr. McCain said Sunday.
After a weekend of strategy meetings at Mr. McCain’s Arizona ranch — in a sense, the first Sedona summit of the Republican Party’s new leadership — the advisers said that much remains undecided about coordinating the campaign with the White House and the party apparatus until Mr. McCain wins enough delegates to be the official nominee.
But even as the consensus was that Mr. McCain needed to “stand in the sun” on his own, as one adviser put it, without the large shadow cast by Mr. Bush, left unsaid was the difficult calculus the McCain campaign faces: Using Mr. Bush enough to try to make the tough sell of Mr. McCain to conservatives but not so much that he will drive away the independents and some moderate Democrats that Mr. McCain is counting on in November.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been using every opportunity to link Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush, even defining Mr. McCain’s candidacy as part of a “Bush-McCain” ticket that they say will essentially give the president another term.
There is also the matter of Mr. Bush’s unpopularity — polls show that only about 30 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as president.
And though he remains relatively popular among Republicans, even there his approval rating has declined to 66 percent.
Mr. McCain’s advisers rushed to insist that they were not running away from the president, but rather that they would be reluctant to have any sitting president campaign with Mr. McCain.
“What an incumbent president can do is help a new nominee with fund-raisers, maybe with unifying the party, maybe with getting out the vote in Republican areas,” said Charles Black, a top adviser to Mr. McCain and an outside adviser to the White House who has been part of every Republican presidential campaign since 1976. “But the important thing to remember is, the nominee is on their own. And no president, no matter how popular and effective politically, can carry somebody.”
Ed Gillespie, the White House counselor to Mr. Bush and the chairman of the Republican National Committee during Mr. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, echoed Mr. Black. “Senator McCain has his own identity,” Mr. Gillespie said in an interview, “and he’s going to be campaigning as John McCain and the things that John McCain believes in.”
There is a precedent: President Ronald Reagan campaigned only selectively and made only rare appearances at the side of George Bush in the 1988 campaign, even though Mr. Bush was his vice president.
So look for Mr. Bush to make solo appearances on behalf of Mr. McCain before evangelicals and in Republican pockets across the country, and to campaign in places where there are important races for the House and Senate, like Idaho and Kansas, which will not be critical destinations for the Republican nominee.
Definitely look for him on the dais at big Republican fund-raising dinners. In 2004, Mr. Bush led a Republican fund-raising machine that collected $273 million, and his chief fund-raiser, Mercer Reynolds, will be leading Mr. McCain’s effort.
The weekend at the senator’s ranch came as Mr. McCain was about to receive another lift from the Bush family, this one from the former president, who will endorse him Monday in Texas.
Those in the strategy sessions with Mr. McCain in Arizona included the senator’s wife, Cindy; Mr. Black; Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager; Mark Salter, a top McCain adviser; Steve Schmidt, an adviser to Mr. McCain and a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney; and Mark McKinnon, a media adviser to Mr. McCain and a former media adviser to Mr. Bush.
Mr. McKinnon told National Public Radio last week that although he supported Mr. McCain, he would not be part of the senator’s campaign if Senator Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee because he met and likes Mr. Obama and would be uncomfortable in a campaign that would inevitably be attacking him.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. McKinnon declined to talk about conversations he had with Mr. McCain on the matter over the weekend, but said he would still support Mr. McCain “100 percent,” even if he was not working for the campaign in the general election.
Mr. McKinnon, like Mr. Black and Mr. Schmidt, has close ties to the Bush White House, and is part of a continuing conversation between the McCain campaign and the West Wing. There are frequent contacts between Mr. Black and officials at the White House, including Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, and between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Gillespie, who worked together in the summer of 2005 as strategists directing the Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. on Capitol Hill.
Bush and McCain advisers said they planned to institutionalize contacts between the campaign and the White House once Mr. McCain was the nominee, but that the communication was unlikely to be as formal as the daily 8 a.m. conference call between the Bush campaign and the White House during the 2004 re-election campaign.
In that call, White House officials assembled in the office of Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s chief political strategist, and planned the day’s assault with officials in the office of Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager who was at Bush-Cheney headquarters in Arlington, Va.
Despite the shared advisers, there has been plenty of bitterness toward the Bush team among other McCain aides, who accused the Bush campaign of spreading rumors during the 2000 South Carolina primary that Mr. McCain had an illegitimate child. But Mr. McCain, who lost the primary and the nomination that year to Mr. Bush, eventually repaired his relationship with the president and campaigned for him in 2004.
Some of Mr. McCain’s advisers admitted that they were slow to come around. “We were dyspeptic jerks who held grudges,” Mr. Salter said.
One McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could talk freely about internal campaign deliberations, said Sunday that while there were risks for Mr. McCain to appear with Mr. Bush, it would be a bad idea to keep Mr. Bush entirely at arm’s length. The reason, the adviser said, was that “you don’t leave a president who is popular within his own party out of your campaign activities, because then you’re following the campaign strategy of Al Gore.”
The adviser was referring to the distance that Mr. Gore kept from President Bill Clinton when Mr. Gore, then vice president, was campaigning for the White House in 2000. Some Democrats have blamed Mr. Gore’s loss in part on his failure to embrace Mr. Clinton, who even as he was mired in scandal remained popular among Democrats.
Mr. Black also said that much would depend on Mr. Bush. “When the time comes,” he said, “we’ll sit down and see what he’s willing to do.”
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