By TOM HUMPHREY
While Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford Jr. engage in bitter political warfare, their campaign commanders say they continue to be personal friends.
“We agreed when we took these jobs to touch base every now and then, check in with each other as friends from time to time,” said Tom Ingram, Corker’s campaign manager. “We’ve done some of that.”
By Steve Holland and Tabassum Zakaria
President George W. Bush stumped for the Republican candidate for Florida governor on Monday but the candidate himself didn’t show, irritating the White House.
Charlie Crist said on Sunday he would not attend the rally in the party stronghold of northwest Florida after the White House had already announced Crist would be introducing the president.
By BILL MAXWELL
St. Petersburg Times
Once again, we should bring back the draft.
I was inspired to return to this subject because of the furor John Kerry created when, while addressing students in Los Angeles, he lamely joked about President Bush’s incuriosity and intellectual deficits, saying, “Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
The fate of a clutch of endangered Republican incumbents, including some from states that heavily supported President Bush two years ago, will determine who controls the Senate for the rest of the Bush presidency. Both parties are spending millions of dollars in last-ditch efforts to influence those contests.
By contrast, few Democratic incumbents are in danger this year. Nearly every Democratic senator seeking re-election seems assured of another term, polls suggest.
Not so with Republicans.
Running out of time and influence, President Bush faces a rough road in the twilight of his presidency regardless of who controls Congress.
The once-unshakable loyalty of congressional Republicans is weakening. After marching in lockstep with the White House for six years, GOP lawmakers are looking at the political calendar and thinking about their own futures rather than Bush’s legacy in his last two years in office.
By JOHN M. CRISP
One might think that interest in the heritage of the Old South would have a natural half-life and that, as the events of 1861-1865 recede into the past, so would our infatuation with the symbols of that conflict.
Notwithstanding the predictions of pundits and politicians, Election Day will dawn with little certainty about what is about to unfold.
But one thing you can take to the bank: The finger-pointing, name-calling and general ugliness is not going to stop after the returns come in Tuesday. Much as we’d like them all to shut up and go away for two years, the partisans already are gearing up for the first new skirmishes, which will no doubt break out before the polls even close.