California salmon faces ‘collapse’

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — The number of chinook salmon returning to California’s Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an unprecedented collapse that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators.

The sharp drop in chinook, or king, salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries last fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West.

The population dropped more than 88 percent from its all-time high five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press.

Regulators are still trying to understand the reasons for the shrinking number of spawners; some scientists believe it could be related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming.

Some fishermen and environmentalists believe the sharp decline is related to increased water exports from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. It supplies drinking water to millions of people in dry Southern California, as well as irrigation for America’s most fertile farming region.

It’s time to reduce pumping of delta waters before we destroy the fish and wildlife species we appreciate so much in California, said Mike Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice.

Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, the memo said. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago.

In an e-mail to council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency’s executive director, said he wanted to give them an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley … fall Chinook salmon stocks.

The magnitude of the low abundance … is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned, he said.

It’s only the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the agency’s conservation goal of 122,000 to 180,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries.

More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks — used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season — returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or jacks, return each year.

Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast’s commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fishermen from Southern California to British Columbia.

Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on, said Chuck Tracy, the council’s salmon management officer.

Not long ago, salmon restoration efforts in the Sacramento watershed were being touted as a wildlife management success story. But recent years have seen populations dwindle in many Western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why.

The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that begins in May. Final decisions will be made in April.

Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman who is on a team that advises the fishery council, said he’s bracing for hard times.

It’s probably going to be worse than anything we’ve experienced before, said MacLean, 58, who relies on salmon fishing for as much as 70 percent of his income. It’s going to put a lot of us out of business. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

California salmon faces ‘collapse’ – found here.

McCain wins Florida, Giuliani expected to drop out

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain claimed victory in Florida’s Republican primary, and Sen. Hillary Clinton took the state’s Democratic contest Tuesday night.

The results in the Republican race might have delivered a fatal blow to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a distant third as results came in Tuesday night.

Two GOP sources with direct knowledge of Giuliani’s plans said he will drop out of the race and endorse McCain at an event in California on Wednesday.

While Giuliani didn’t say he was withdrawing from the race, he did speak of his campaign in the past tense at one point.

I’m proud I ran a positive campaign, he told supporters. I ran a campaign that was uplifting. Watch how Giuliani reacted to the results

With 97 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36-31 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Giuliani had 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 14 percent. See what the results mean

A top campaign official from McCain’s camp has been in ongoing discussions with Giuliani’s campaign about endorsing McCain’s candidacy, a GOP official familiar with talks told CNN Tuesday. Watch what happened to Giuliani’s campaign

A source close to Giuliani confirmed that discussions were taking place and said there is talk among the staff that an endorsement could come Wednesday in California. The source said McCain and Giuliani need to talk, but we are working to make it happen.

Tonight, my friends, we celebrate. Tomorrow, it’s back to work, McCain said as he claimed victory. We have a ways to go, but we’re getting close, and for that, you all have my profound thanks. Watch McCain claim victory

A Florida win gives McCain all 57 of the delegates at stake.

Romney took aim at McCain Tuesday night, putting the Arizona senator on the hot seat for failures in Washington, his criticisms of President Bush and for going from the military directly into Congress.

Washington is fundamentally broken, Romney said. We’re not going to change Washington just by sending the same people back just to sit in different chairs. Watch Romney thank his supporters

McCain, who cultivates an image as a maverick, has been in the senate for four terms after two terms as a U.S. congressman.

Huckabee told his supporters he was playing all nine innings of this ball game. Audio slideshow: Candidates react to the Florida results

Even the Cardinals occasionally have a rough inning, but they know how to win championships, he told a crowd in Missouri. Watch Huckabee say he’s just getting started

With about 97 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Clinton had 50 percent of the vote. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was in second with 33 percent, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was in third with 14 percent.

The Democratic vote may have little impact on the presidential race, however, because the party’s national leadership said it would not allow Florida’s delegates to participate in the national convention because of a squabble over scheduling.

Republicans penalized the state as well, but took away only half of their 114 delegates.

CNN political analyst Bill Schneider said earlier a Florida victory for McCain would be significant because it would be a way for him to prove he has the support of his party’s base.

Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party’s primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests.

Clinton claimed victory despite party sanctions stripping the state of its convention delegates, thanking supporters even though she and other candidates did not campaign there.

I am thrilled to have had this vote of confidence that you have given me today, Clinton told supporters. I promise you I will do everything I can to make sure not only are Florida’s Democratic delegates seated, but Florida is in the winning column for the Democrats in 2008. Watch how Clinton won in Florida

Clinton has called on the Democratic Party to formally lift sanctions on the state.

Robert Gibbs, communications director for Obama campaign, downplayed the Florida results and got a dig in at Clinton.

Mike Gravel is going to get the same number of delegates as Clinton, Gibbs said, referring to the former Alaska senator who has yet to earn a single percentage point in earlier contests.

Gibbs said he thought the results would have little effect on the race heading into Super Tuesday.

You can’t gain momentum in a state that everyone but Hillary Clinton pledged not to campaign in, Gibbs said.

Turnout was high for the Democratic race even though no delegates were at stake. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said about 2.5 million voters cast ballots, and nearly 400,000 people cast early or absentee ballots ahead of the primary. See scenes from Florida’s Republican race

Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore’s presidential bid, said many Democrats were likely to turn out to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would limit property tax increases and expand homestead exemptions.

People are very afraid this will cut public services, cut back education, said Brazile, a CNN analyst. So the Florida Education Association and all of the unions are spending millions of dollars to get voters to turn out.

The economy is overwhelmingly the top issue for voters in Florida’s primary, according to early exit polls.

Among Republicans and Democrats, the economy dwarfed other issues affecting their vote. Forty-seven percent of Republicans said the economy is the most pressing issue, as did 55 percent of Democrats.

The primary calendar played in Florida’s favor. Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday.

McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida on Thursday night. But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment. Watch scenes from the 2008 battle for the White House

And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media.

It’s also raging in paid advertising on TV and radio. Romney has spent $30 million on TV ads in Florida this year, said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash. That’s five times as much as the McCain campaign, which is now using less expensive radio commercials to directly question Romney’s credibility on the economy.

Huckabee has campaigned in Florida, but he’s also spent time stumping in some of the Southern states that will vote on Super Tuesday.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also concentrating on the February 5 states.
McCain wins Florida, Giuliani expected to drop out – found here.

California salmon faces ‘collapse’

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — The number of chinook salmon returning to California’s Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an unprecedented collapse that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators.

The sharp drop in chinook, or king, salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries last fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West.

The population dropped more than 88 percent from its all-time high five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press.

Regulators are still trying to understand the reasons for the shrinking number of spawners; some scientists believe it could be related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming.

Some fishermen and environmentalists believe the sharp decline is related to increased water exports from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. It supplies drinking water to millions of people in dry Southern California, as well as irrigation for America’s most fertile farming region.

It’s time to reduce pumping of delta waters before we destroy the fish and wildlife species we appreciate so much in California, said Mike Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice.

Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, the memo said. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago.

In an e-mail to council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency’s executive director, said he wanted to give them an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley … fall Chinook salmon stocks.

The magnitude of the low abundance … is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned, he said.

It’s only the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the agency’s conservation goal of 122,000 to 180,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries.

More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks — used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season — returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or jacks, return each year.

Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast’s commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fishermen from Southern California to British Columbia.

Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on, said Chuck Tracy, the council’s salmon management officer.

Not long ago, salmon restoration efforts in the Sacramento watershed were being touted as a wildlife management success story. But recent years have seen populations dwindle in many Western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why.

The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that begins in May. Final decisions will be made in April.

Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman who is on a team that advises the fishery council, said he’s bracing for hard times.

It’s probably going to be worse than anything we’ve experienced before, said MacLean, 58, who relies on salmon fishing for as much as 70 percent of his income. It’s going to put a lot of us out of business. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

California salmon faces ‘collapse’ – found here.

California salmon faces ‘collapse’

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — The number of chinook salmon returning to California’s Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an unprecedented collapse that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators.

The sharp drop in chinook, or king, salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries last fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West.

The population dropped more than 88 percent from its all-time high five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press.

Regulators are still trying to understand the reasons for the shrinking number of spawners; some scientists believe it could be related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming.

Some fishermen and environmentalists believe the sharp decline is related to increased water exports from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. It supplies drinking water to millions of people in dry Southern California, as well as irrigation for America’s most fertile farming region.

It’s time to reduce pumping of delta waters before we destroy the fish and wildlife species we appreciate so much in California, said Mike Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice.

Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, the memo said. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago.

In an e-mail to council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency’s executive director, said he wanted to give them an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley … fall Chinook salmon stocks.

The magnitude of the low abundance … is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned, he said.

It’s only the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the agency’s conservation goal of 122,000 to 180,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries.

More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks — used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season — returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or jacks, return each year.

Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast’s commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fishermen from Southern California to British Columbia.

Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on, said Chuck Tracy, the council’s salmon management officer.

Not long ago, salmon restoration efforts in the Sacramento watershed were being touted as a wildlife management success story. But recent years have seen populations dwindle in many Western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why.

The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that begins in May. Final decisions will be made in April.

Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman who is on a team that advises the fishery council, said he’s bracing for hard times.

It’s probably going to be worse than anything we’ve experienced before, said MacLean, 58, who relies on salmon fishing for as much as 70 percent of his income. It’s going to put a lot of us out of business. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

California salmon faces ‘collapse’ – found here.

Clay Aiken meets Monty Python

NEW YORK (AP) — Clay Aiken is trying to become the next American Idle.

The singer, who burst to fame during the second season of American Idol, has made his Broadway debut in Monty Python’s Spamalot — in creator Eric Idle’s old role.

There’s a lot of pressure, Aiken says. To think about how many people dream of doing something like this and to have the opportunity is pretty humbling.

Humbling, and possibly a little bit puzzling: What’s a nice North Carolina boy with scant theater background and a penchant for pop lite doing in a scatological English stage comedy?

Exactly.

One of the reasons that it intrigued me was that it was so different. Nobody I think would have expected me to show up in ‘Spamalot,’ he says, laughing.

It’s very irreverent. … I mean, my character soils his pants on stage multiple times.

This also is different territory for Aiken, who hasn’t really acted much and was even cut from his high school’s production of Guys and Dolls. Just nailing the stage lingo has him rattled.

I’m having to learn a whole new language. Upstage, downstage. I’m like, ‘Upstage? What’s that mean? Behind? Oh, got it. Why didn’t you just say behind? …’ It makes me crazier than I already am.

Aiken, 29, has taken over the role of Sir Robin, the cowardly knight that Idle once played on film and David Hyde Pierce originated when the Tony Award-winning musical debuted in 2005.

I think I’m probably just like the character — kind of chicken, afraid of everything and likes to sing. This particular character becomes a knight because he really just wants to sing and dance. He’s so surprised when he finds out there’s fighting involved. That kind of silly stupidity? — yeah, that’s me.

Aiken, a performer who has sold 6 million CDs and continues to draw fans to his concerts, confesses to being sore and exhausted as he prepares for his debut. Aiken’s first performance was Friday.

Probably more preparation has gone into this than anything I’ve ever done, he says. It’s not just learning music and lines and even steps. It’s mentally preparing yourself to do all of it at once.

Associate director Peter Lawrence says Aiken has been no idle diva; the singer asked to be treated like any other company member and has been surprisingly fearless.

Clay really surprised me. When you meet him, he’s this sweet kid from North Carolina with an accent. And you think there’s no way he can do Cambridge material. And then he does, says Lawrence.

It’s been a total delight and a surprise for me and everyone in the company to work with Clay because he can do things you’d never imagine he could do.

The show is based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which came out in 1975. The film, in turn, grew out of the success of the cult BBC comedy series.

Aiken, it turns out, was a stranger to both.

Until three months ago, I thought Monty Python was a person, he says, sheepishly.

Not surprisingly, the Python-Aiken partnership started poorly. After being courted by Spamalot producers a year ago, Aiken went to see the show and left befuddled.

And why not? He was expecting something like The Phantom of the Opera and instead saw characters slapped with fish, dancing plague corpses, a killer rabbit and cow tossing.

It was, in my opinion, the stupidest thing ever produced, he recalls. There’s no plot.

Persuaded over the summer to return, Aiken finally got it. It’s just completely off-base. So I went in and realized that. You have to go understanding that they even advertise it as being the silliest thing ever. It really is.

That’s something Python purists will be happy to hear. Even so, Aiken is bracing for criticism from die-hard fans who can be more caustic than Simon, Randy and Paula.

I’m anticipating and expecting some sort of fallout. I think it’s a little bit different when someone who’s never done Broadway before, who may be more well known in the pop world, comes in to Broadway, he says.

There’s always this skepticism that they’ve been brought in for the wrong reasons or they didn’t play their dues or they’re not going to do their part well, he says.

So I even told the choreographer and the director ahead of time, ‘I don’t want you to go easy on me. I want to do everything that everybody else does. Don’t change things and make them easier for me,’ he adds, laughing. I’ve since changed my mind.

Aiken, who got a degree in special education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was teaching grade school kids with autism before he tried out for Idol in Atlanta. He was a former member of the Raleigh Boys Choir, and occasionally sang at weddings and at church.

There’s not really a market in North Carolina to sing for a living. There’s not that career path for people. So I never really assumed or had any dreams or aspirations to sing, he says.

That changed in the seventh grade when his mother took him and a friend to a local production of the musical Big River, starring Martin Moran as Huckleberry Finn.

It was the first time ever that I looked on stage and saw people — you know, adults — singing. And I thought, ‘Wow, wait a second. You can actually sing for a living?’ he recalls. From that point on, I kind of allowed music to be a part of my what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up scenario.

After finishing second to Ruben Studdard on Idol, Aiken went on to release his debut CD Measure of a Man, which went double platinum in 2003. His other albums are Merry Christmas With Love and A Thousand Different Ways. He’s currently working on his fourth CD, due possibly by May.

In one of the weirder twists of Aikens’ Broadway debut, he looked down at the Playbill while catching a Spamalot performance before he officially signed on and saw a familiar name: Martin Moran as Sir Robin.

So I’ll take over Robin from the same person who you could say kind of inspired me to actually make music something that I would do, he says. It’s a very small world — kind of a full-circle thing. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Clay Aiken meets Monty Python – found here.

The Campaign Trail video archive

January 25, 2008

On the trail in South Carolina

Psychology of voters

The truth-o-meter: Week four

January 18, 2008

Campaign moves on

The race about race

The truth-o-meter: Week three

January 11, 2008

Soap opera on the stump

Try a little tenderness

The truth-o-meter: Week two

January 4, 2008

I-o-OUCH!

Who is that Huckabee guy?

The truth-o-meter: Week one

Stay tuned for more Campaign Trail videos as CNN covers the U.S. presidential election all the way to the White House.

And if you have any questions, video, photos or stories, send them to us here. E-mail to a friend

The Campaign Trail video archive – found here.

Afghan aid group appeals for captive’s return

(CNN) — An Afghan aid group is appealing for the safe return of one of its employees, an American worker who was kidnapped from Kandahar province Saturday morning.

Three days have passed since gunmen snatched Cyd Mizell and her Afghan driver from a residential neighborhood in the southern Afghanistan province.

By Tuesday, no one had claimed responsibility for the abductions.

We just want those who have done this to know that she is a loved daughter and a wonderful person who basically is there helping to rebuild a country devastated by war, said Jeff Palmer, director of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation. And she’s doing this out of the good of her heart.

While a spate of kidnappings have gripped Afghanistan recently, including the abduction of 23 South Korean Christian aid workers and a German woman last year, it was the first such abduction for the foundation. Watch what Afghan police are doing to find Mizell

The organization, whose offices are in Thailand and the Philippines, runs several projects in the Kandahar area. It also has a presence in about 12 other Asian countries.

Palmer told CNN Monday that Mizell’s family was doing as well as possible given the circumstances.

Of course, they are waiting to hear something, he said.

Palmer said there has been no word whatsoever. That’s the most frustrating part right now.

Mizell, 49, was born in California and grew up in Washington. She joined the foundation three years ago, and in that time, learned to speak the local language fluently.

She traveled around Kandahar in a burqa — the traditional attire of some Afghan women that covers them from head to toe.

At the time of her abduction, Mizell had been working on projects that help women and families learn to generate income. She also taught English at a high school and embroidery lessons at a girls school, the organization said.

She went to Afghanistan just as a real concern for the people and the turmoil within the country, and just as far as trying to reach out to women, said Tony Rodgers of Acworth, Georgia, who has known Mizell for almost two decades.

The driver who was kidnapped, Muhammad Hadi, has been with the organization for two years. He is the father of five children, all under 15.
Afghan aid group appeals for captive’s return – found here.

Florida critical for GOP contenders

(CNN) — Republicans have battled fiercely for votes in Tuesday’s critical Florida primary, as Democrats have largely ignored the state after national leadership said it would not seat Florida’s delegates because of a squabble over scheduling.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts appear to be neck-and-neck in the Republican primary. If McCain wins in Florida, his status as the national front-runner will be cemented.

If Romney comes out on top, the battle for the GOP presidential nomination will be up in the air.

The primary calendar is playing in Florida’s favor. Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast to coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday.

Romney and McCain are competing in Florida’s crucial Republican primary as very different candidates, on very different core GOP issues. Romney, on the economy, as the multimillionaire businessman who says he knows how to fix it and says Sen. McCain doesn’t get it, said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash.

McCain is playing the war hero, digging away at Romney’s lack of national security experience. McCain calls security and the war on terror the transcendent issue, she added.

McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida Thursday night. But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment. Watch scenes from the 2008 battle for the White House

And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media.

It’s also raging in paid advertising on TV and radio. Romney has spent $30 million on TV ads in Florida this year, said Bash. That’s five times as much as the McCain campaign, which is now using less expensive radio commercials to directly question Romney’s credibility on the economy.

But McCain and Romney aren’t the only candidates with a lot on the line in Florida. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has lived in the state over the past month, bypassing the earlier contests to concentrate all his firepower there.

It was a gamble for Giuliani to count on Florida, and he’s now an underdog, said CNN political reporter Mary Snow. Giuliani’s been hitting two main themes, national security and his days as mayor of New York during 9/11 and economic security touting his plans for tax cuts, she added.

The two other candidates in the Republican field don’t have as much on the line. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has campaigned in Florida, but he’s also spent time stumping in some of the southern states that will vote on Super Tuesday.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also concentrating on the February 5 states.

Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party’s primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests. McCain won’t have that luxury in Florida.

A McCain victory in Florida will be particularly significant because only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. It will be a way for McCain to prove his bona fides with the base, said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. If Mitt Romney wins Florida, it will be a clear signal that the base is not happy with McCain. The Arizona senator could be facing a conservative revolt.

Nearly 1 million Florida voters have already cast their ballots through early voting and absentees — a sign the state will likely experience a record turnout despite the fact party sanctions have rendered the Democratic contest meaningless.

According to the Florida Secretary of State’s office, more than 474,000 Republicans and just over 400,000 Democrats have already voted. Early voting began January 14 and ended Sunday.

The nearly 1 million Floridians who have voted early already rivals the 1.3 million total voters who participated in the state’s 2000 primary — the last time both party’s held a contested primary.

The record-breaking early turnout is likely a result of the highly competitive races on both sides, and Florida’s decision to move its primary from mid-March to late January. But that decision drew strict sanctions from both national parties — the Republicans barred half of Florida’s delegates from the convention while the Democrats stripped the state of its delegates entirely.

The nearly 400,00 Democrats who have already cast ballots is particularly surprising, given the leading presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards — all pledged not to campaign in the state or run television advertising following the party’s sanctions.

But Clinton, who polls show is heavily favored to win the state, has increasingly stressed its importance to the Democratic race. Following her defeat Saturday in South Carolina to Obama, the New York senator said Florida is the next battlefront. Obama has disagreed with her, considering no delegates are at stake.

Clinton has also called on the Democratic Party to formally lift sanctions on the state, and on Sunday, she announced she will be in Florida Tuesday night.
Florida critical for GOP contenders – found here.

Florida critical for GOP contenders

(CNN) — Republicans have battled fiercely for votes in Tuesday’s critical Florida primary, as Democrats have largely ignored the state after national leadership said it would not seat Florida’s delegates because of a squabble over scheduling.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts appear to be neck-and-neck in the Republican primary. If McCain wins in Florida, his status as the national front-runner will be cemented.

If Romney comes out on top, the battle for the GOP presidential nomination will be up in the air.

The primary calendar is playing in Florida’s favor. Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast to coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday.

Romney and McCain are competing in Florida’s crucial Republican primary as very different candidates, on very different core GOP issues. Romney, on the economy, as the multimillionaire businessman who says he knows how to fix it and says Sen. McCain doesn’t get it, said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash.

McCain is playing the war hero, digging away at Romney’s lack of national security experience. McCain calls security and the war on terror the transcendent issue, she added.

McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida Thursday night. But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment. Watch scenes from the 2008 battle for the White House

And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media.

It’s also raging in paid advertising on TV and radio. Romney has spent $30 million on TV ads in Florida this year, said Bash. That’s five times as much as the McCain campaign, which is now using less expensive radio commercials to directly question Romney’s credibility on the economy.

But McCain and Romney aren’t the only candidates with a lot on the line in Florida. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has lived in the state over the past month, bypassing the earlier contests to concentrate all his firepower there.

It was a gamble for Giuliani to count on Florida, and he’s now an underdog, said CNN political reporter Mary Snow. Giuliani’s been hitting two main themes, national security and his days as mayor of New York during 9/11 and economic security touting his plans for tax cuts, she added.

The two other candidates in the Republican field don’t have as much on the line. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has campaigned in Florida, but he’s also spent time stumping in some of the southern states that will vote on Super Tuesday.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also concentrating on the February 5 states.

Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party’s primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests. McCain won’t have that luxury in Florida.

A McCain victory in Florida will be particularly significant because only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. It will be a way for McCain to prove his bona fides with the base, said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. If Mitt Romney wins Florida, it will be a clear signal that the base is not happy with McCain. The Arizona senator could be facing a conservative revolt.

Nearly 1 million Florida voters have already cast their ballots through early voting and absentees — a sign the state will likely experience a record turnout despite the fact party sanctions have rendered the Democratic contest meaningless.

According to the Florida Secretary of State’s office, more than 474,000 Republicans and just over 400,000 Democrats have already voted. Early voting began January 14 and ended Sunday.

The nearly 1 million Floridians who have voted early already rivals the 1.3 million total voters who participated in the state’s 2000 primary — the last time both party’s held a contested primary.

The record-breaking early turnout is likely a result of the highly competitive races on both sides, and Florida’s decision to move its primary from mid-March to late January. But that decision drew strict sanctions from both national parties — the Republicans barred half of Florida’s delegates from the convention while the Democrats stripped the state of its delegates entirely.

The nearly 400,00 Democrats who have already cast ballots is particularly surprising, given the leading presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards — all pledged not to campaign in the state or run television advertising following the party’s sanctions.

But Clinton, who polls show is heavily favored to win the state, has increasingly stressed its importance to the Democratic race. Following her defeat Saturday in South Carolina to Obama, the New York senator said Florida is the next battlefront. Obama has disagreed with her, considering no delegates are at stake.

Clinton has also called on the Democratic Party to formally lift sanctions on the state, and on Sunday, she announced she will be in Florida Tuesday night.
Florida critical for GOP contenders – found here.

Bush focuses on economy in ‘period of uncertainty’

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush used his final State of the Union speech Monday to call for a quick shot in the arm for the economy in a period of uncertainty and touted last year’s progress in the ongoing war in Iraq.

With his approval ratings in the low 30s, an opposition-led Congress and his presidency overshadowed by the race for his successor, Bush offered little new.

But he urged lawmakers to work together to complete unfinished business and called for quick steps to bolster an economy unsettled by a housing and credit crunch.

At kitchen tables across our country, there is concern about our economic future, the president told the nation in his annual address. Interactive: Bush’s message over the years

In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth. But in the short run, we can all see that growth is slowing.

The White House and leaders of the House of Representatives agreed on a $150 billion package of tax rebates and other measures aimed at spurring consumer spending and investment — but the president warned Congress not to load up the bill with other measures.

That would delay it or derail it, and neither option is acceptable. This is a good agreement that will keep our economy growing and our people working, and this Congress must pass it as soon as possible, he said.

Bush said he would cut or eliminate 151 wasteful or bloated government programs in his budget for 2009 — cuts he said would total $18 billion of a budget that amounted to $3 trillion in 2008.

The president demanded Congress rein in pork-barrel spending in next year’s spending bills, vowing to veto any measure that does not cut by half the number and cost of congressional earmarks — spending on special projects often slipped into bills at the last minute.

He said he would order federal agencies to ignore any appropriations that were not directly voted on by Congress, saying that spending undermines the people’s trust in their government.

The plan will not apply to the nearly 12,000 earmarks for fiscal 2008 that passed late last year — and Democrats were quick to point out that roughly half of those earmarks were sponsored by Republicans, some with White House support.

Bush also urged lawmakers to work together despite the upcoming November elections.

Let us show our fellow Americans that we recognize our responsibilities and are determined to meet them, he said. And let us show them that Republicans and Democrats can compete for votes and cooperate for results at the same time.

Democratic congressional leaders said they would work with Bush and with the Republican minority in Congress on a timely, targeted and temporary boost for Americans amid the looming slowdown.

The President’s vision tonight may have been too small for many of the challenges we face, but his pledge to ‘cooperate for results’ is right for the times, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said in a written statement.

In the official Democratic response, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Americans are not nearly as divided as our rancorous politics might suggest.

The new Democratic majority of Congress and the vast majority of Americans are ready — ready to chart a new course, she said.

David Gergen, a former adviser to the Reagan and Clinton administrations, called the address a modest speech with modest goals. He questioned whether the stimulus package Bush wants is big enough to deal with the oncoming slump.

It’s very unclear whether the president has really come to grips with the seriousness of the economic situation, Gergen said. There are many in the financial community and many economists who believe we are in a recession, and it’s deepening rapidly.

On Iraq, having successfully resisted Democratic efforts to bring the nearly five-year-old war to an end, Bush touted what he called the success of his decision to commit an additional 30,000 troops to the fight last year. But while he said those troops had reversed the bloody tide of sectarian warfare, U.S. troops will still be needed to preserve those gains.

Our enemies in Iraq have been hit hard, he said. They are not yet defeated, and we can still expect tough fighting ahead.

Critics said the goal of the U.S. campaign — to get Iraqi leaders to reach political settlement of the conflict — has not borne fruit. But Bush said U.S. officials are seeing some encouraging signs there, including the movement by Sunni Arab leaders to turn against Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda.

Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt: Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated, Bush said.

He said about 20,000 of the additional troops dispatched last year will be coming home in the coming months, but repeated his stance that further withdrawals from the widely unpopular conflict would be based on the recommendations of U.S. commanders.

Meanwhile, Bush again called on neighboring Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program and warned it to avoid interfering with American operations in the Middle East, telling the Islamic Republic that America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.

Most of the goals Bush laid out were modest compared to previous years, when he used the State of the Union to sell big projects such as invading Iraq, partially privatizing Social Security or developing alternative fuels — and many of the concepts Bush included were repackaged.

Bush included a new plug for last year’s proposal for tax breaks for individual health insurance, framing it as an expansion of consumer choice, not government control — an implicit jab at Democratic presidential contenders, all of whom advocate universal health care.

A longtime conservative goal — federally backed vouchers for students to attend private schools — was repackaged as a $300 million Pell Grants for Kids program aimed at keeping religious and parochial schools in inner cities. Watch Bush explain his plans for schools

He threatened to veto any tax increases in his final year and repeated his longstanding call to lawmakers to make permanent the $1.6 billion in tax cuts approved during his presidency. Watch Bush pledge to veto tax increases

He left Congress to deal with two previous goals, an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws and Social Security. White House-backed immigration bills failed in Congress in 2006 and 2007, and Bush’s Social Security plan did not make it into a bill.

Bush said Social Security and the health-care entitlements Medicare and Medicaid are forcing painful choices without long-term changes.

I have laid out proposals to reform these programs, he said. Now I ask members of Congress to offer your proposals and come up with a bipartisan solution to save these vital programs for our children and grandchildren.

Among other proposals in the 53-minute speech, the president:

Announced plans to hold the annual North American Summit of U.S., Canadian and Mexican leaders in New Orleans, still rebuilding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president decided to hold the summit there to send a signal about the city’s redevelopment since the hurricane, which killed more than 1,800 people on the Gulf Coast. The president and top administration officials were widely pilloried for their response to the hurricane, which left more than three-quarters of New Orleans flooded. The government has committed more than $100 billion to reconstruction in the disaster zone, and Bush said, We reaffirm our pledge to help them build stronger and better than before.

Took a swipe at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, urging Congress to pass a trade agreement with Colombia or risk emboldening the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere.

Repeated his goal of reaching a settlement of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the establishment of a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state, by the end of 2008.

Demanded that Congress permanently revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including legal immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with his administration’s controversial no-warrant eavesdropping program. Opposition to that provision has stalled the bill in the Senate, and temporary revisions to the Watergate-era law expire Friday.

Urged Congress to reauthorize his No Child Left Behind education law, which he called a bipartisan achievement.
Bush focuses on economy in ‘period of uncertainty’ – found here.