Washed It!

It is generally considered better to smoke an electronic cigarette than igniting a real one. There are many reasons for this, with health issues being top of the list. A tobacco cigarette contains nicotine along with soot, tar, lead, benzene, formaldehyde, and other lethal components.

Except for nicotine, which is present in lower, medium, and higher concentrations, electronic cigarettes are devoid of other harmful chemicals. This makes it preferable among people who want to reduce health risks of smoking but don’t want to quit altogether.

Genesis

The introduction of electronic cigarettes in 2003 created a buzz among smoking communities around the world. It was hailed as a major victory of technology that could help millions of people in getting their daily nicotine fix, with minimal harmful effects.

It was apparently designed by a Chinese pharmacist, Hon Lik, who wanted to use technology to address smoking. Initial electronic cigarettes came with lower volumes of nicotine, in a liquid form that was encased in an absorbent material. This used filtering technology, with the users inhaling water vapors with nicotine through these soaked filters.

Electronic cigarettes have become increasingly popular ever since, with many varieties now coming in all shapes and sizes. They are also hailed as safe for passive smokers given the lack of smoke.

Impact on health

Electronic cigarettes are often compared with their regular counterparts to draw parallels and to find social and health benefits of using the electronic variety. The major benefit of using an electronic cigarette is the lack of smoke and dangerous chemicals.

There is no combustion involved in the process of smoking, and users inhale water vapors with varying quantities of nicotine. They exhale oxygen thus making it less harmful to those around them.

Passive smokers, who do not smoke cigarettes but live around smokers, are now free from the harmful effects. The only smoke an electronic cigarette emits is a harmless water vapor, that isn’t always present anyway.

It is the nicotine content that makes electronic cigarettes worth considering. A tobacco cigarette can contain higher amounts of nicotine, and combines it with other chemicals.

Electronic cigarettes also contains nicotine which makes them a viable tool for giving up tobacco, or smoking altogether. The obvious health benefits, with the negating of risk to passive-smokers make them ideal for sociable people fed up with being ostracized by their non-smoking friends.

Price factor

Electronic cigarettes are mainly reusable and come with rechargeable batteries. The average life expectancy is equivalent to 100 ordinary cigarettes. Some newer varieties can last even longer than that, for a time equivalent to 500 normal cigarettes.

Overall electronic cigarettes are far more economical than tobacco cigarettes, and this is another great advantage of their use. Even if you ignore the health benefits, the social benefits and the fact you can potentially get your nicotine fix while not being sent outside, the fact that they are cheaper and last longer should help.

A plume of chromium-tainted groundwater is once again bearing down on residents of Hinkley, Calif., where more than a decade ago an underdog battle with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spawned a multimillion-dollar settlement and the Oscar-winning film “Erin Brockovich.”

The border of the plume has shifted 1,800 feet beyond a containment boundary set by PG&E in 2008, spreading higher levels of hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing heavy metal isotope linked to stomach cancers and other health hazards, according to state water officials. The isotope also has been discovered in a lower aquifer that, until recently, PG&E believed was protected from contaminated groundwater above it by a thick layer of clay, the officials added.

In 1997, PG&E paid 660 Hinkley residents $333 million to settle lawsuits alleging injuries including intestinal tumors and breast cancer from chromium-laced waste water that had seeped from the utility’s disposal ponds between 1951 and 1966, winding its way into the community’s drinking wells.

PG&E’s handling and reporting of the migrating plume is under investigation by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state regulatory agency responsible for protecting the area’s water.

“We definitely know there are violations, and that what PG&E is doing right now to contain the plume is not enough,” said Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer for the water board. “We have the authority to impose fines of up to $5,000 per day for each day the plume exists outside of the boundary set in 2008.”

Kemper said the water board has retained a state water attorney to help prepare a legal case against the utility, a process that could take six months.

Utility officials acknowledge that parts of the plume have spread but say it is being controlled by ongoing cleanup efforts. They deny that its spread has violated any legal agreements and said more scientific research is needed to determine whether spikes in concentrations of hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, detected in many local wells could be linked to the plume or to natural occurrences.

“These concentrations remain within the realms of naturally occurring background concentrations,” said Robert C. Doss, PG&E principal engineer. “There is no way to determine whether our plume is having an impact or not.”

A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for May 2011.

Doss said he understands that the situation “represents a worry about the health of Hinkley families and their investments.” But he also suggested that critics have exaggerated the health hazards posed by contamination in the plume’s outer edges and have mistakenly interpreted its constantly changing shape as “overall growth.”

The amoeba-like plume is about 2 1/2 miles long and a mile wide, and advancing west and northwest at a rate of about a foot a day, officials said.

“In some places the plume grows and then shrinks, in others it might sprout a lobe as it responds to hydrological pressures,” Doss said.

As for PG&E’s remediation efforts in Hinkley, Doss said, “It’s fair to say what we are doing now needs to be supplemented to bring it up to a final cleanup. But we take exception to any assertions that the measures we’ve taken have not had a positive effect on the problem.”

Many property owners in this dusty agricultural town about five miles west of Barstow in San Bernardino County are frustrated with PG&E’s efforts to contain the plume and the water board’s apparent hesitation to charge the utility with civil violations.

“Obviously, the community would be happy to see us file civil liability complaints against the company,” Kemper said. “We are considering that internally. But we haven’t yet because we are busy every day trying to stay on top of the situation to ensure they are continuing to clean up this plume.”

“They’ve had 23 years to fix this problem,” said Carmela Gonzalez, 44, a lifelong resident who was not part of the original Hinkley lawsuit. “Instead, they’ve allowed the contamination plume to grow and put fear in the hearts of Hinkley residents that they are still not safe and that their property is worthless.”

Added Gonzalez: “People around here no longer trust the water board to do right by Hinkley. PG&E should be helping residents get out of here if they want to by giving them reasonable compensation for their losses.”

Some of the hundreds of plaintiffs in the earlier case are exploring their options, given that they signed agreements barring them from discussing details of their settlements. Some residents, who were not involved in that case, talk of launching another class-action lawsuit.

Lillie Stone and her husband, Jim, who is disabled, live on fixed incomes and want PG&E to buy their property at a reasonable price, or pay to help them relocate. Neither received any settlement money from the original Hinkley case.

Tainted PG&E groundwater plume again threatens residents of Hinkley, Calif.

With their eyes on the 2012 election, Republicans are preparing to maximize conflict with Democrats over healthcare in the new Congress and minimize potential compromises, according to GOP strategists, lawmakers and lobbyists.

That strategy is setting the stage for a bitter stalemate on Capitol Hill over the next two years as the president and senior congressional Democrats dig in to defend their signature achievement.

But Republican leaders and strategists think a renewed battle over healthcare will help the party expand its electoral gains and drive President Obama from the White House.

“Republicans have successfully challenged the healthcare legislation once,” said GOP strategist Frank Luntz. “They’ll do it again.”

Luntz, a leading architect of the Republicans’ successful campaign to cast the healthcare legislation as a ” Washington takeover,” said Democrats would suffer further if they tried to defend the law. “Democrats have more to lose,” he said.

In practical terms, the GOP approach will probably mean little congressional input over how the law is actually implemented. The Obama administration will retain broad authority to refine the law on its own, working with businesses, consumer groups, healthcare providers and state regulators, healthcare experts say.

While lawmakers deadlock on Capitol Hill, GOP leaders already have a target list of Democratic senators who are up for reelection in two years in traditionally red states including Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Virginia.

“The next couple of years, in some ways, become about the 2012 elections,” Republican healthcare lobbyist Dean Rosen said last week at an Alliance for Health Reform briefing in Washington.

The GOP tactics mirror those deployed by Democrats after their 2006 electoral sweep.

Then, Democratic House and Senate leaders who had won majorities on a promise to challenge President George W. Bush’s Iraq war strategy bullied congressional Republicans by repeatedly forcing them to vote to support the unpopular war.

The Democrats’ legislative campaign ultimately collapsed. Bush used his veto pen to block legislation mandating troop withdrawals. Within a year, the Bush administration’s effort to stabilize Iraq with a troop surge showed signs of success.

Many Democrats think they too will be vindicated as the public sees more of the benefits of the new healthcare law.

Whit Ayres, a longtime GOP pollster, warned that Republicans risked a backlash if voters perceived them as more interested in scoring political points than in responding to voters’ concerns.

“There is no particular love for the Republican Party in the electorate,” he said at a recent Health Affairs forum. “Republicans are going to have to earn [voters'] support and earn their respect, and the way you do that is by governing responsibly.”

Most of the healthcare law’s major benefits — including its guarantee of coverage to all Americans — do not go into effect until 2014. And there are few signs the law is getting more popular.

In the interim, Republicans, who think the law was crucial to their electoral gains, are increasingly confident they can showcase its shortcomings and further weaken already tepid public support for Democrats.

“They are looking for ways to be very aggressive,” said Michael Franc, who works closely with congressional Republicans as head of government relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Republicans provided a preview of their strategy before the midterm election as House GOP leaders forced Democrats to vote in June and September on proposals to repeal provisions of the healthcare law.

GOP leaders have indicated they intend to do more when they control the flow of legislation in the House next year, with likely votes to defund the law and excise controversial parts such as cuts in Medicare spending and a new mandate requiring Americans to get health insurance.

Republicans are spoiling for a healthcare fight

The first great American autobiographies both appeared in the 19th century, were born of conflict and written by public men — “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” and “The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.”

Since then, what we might call the publishing-industrial complex has turned the reminiscences of our public men and women into a never-ending stream. As former President George W. Bush — barely two years out of office — points out in the acknowledgement of his memoir, “Decision Points,” virtually every member of his extended, very political family has published a bestseller, including his parents’ dogs.

Where does Bush’s account of his astonishingly eventful eight years rank in such company? Probably far higher than many of his detractors expected. As Bush writes in “Decision Points,” he enjoys surprising those who underestimate him. As the title suggests, the former chief executive elected to abandon the usual chronological approach to these volumes (except for a brief, obligatory foray into childhood and school years) in favor of his recollection of his presidency’s key choices and the personal decisions that Bush says prepared him to make them.

Foremost among the latter were his conversion to active Christianity, which he attributes to an after-dinner talk that evangelist Billy Graham gave to the extended Bush family at their Maine compound, and to participation in his male friends’ Crawford, Texas Bible study group. According to Bush, he continued to read the Bible every morning of his presidency — like his daily run, a comforting habit. Bush credits his religious awakening, along with a growing sense of obligation to his wife and daughters, with his other foundational personal choice: the decision to quit drinking after a night of boorish overindulgence in celebration of his Laura’s 40th birthday. It’s a change Bush credits with making possible his subsequent public life.

Leaks and an active publicity campaign of television and radio appearances have made many of the substantial points Bush makes rather familiar. Essentially, “Decision Points” confirms many of the better nonfiction accounts of his presidency published while he was in office, particularly Bob Woodward’s four volumes and Robert Draper’s “Dead Certain.” The Bush White House may not have been given to doubts or its chief executive to indecision, but it did have a penchant for ad hoc deliberation, stubborn persistence in the face of failure — as in Iraq up to the surge — excessive personal loyalty and for being “blind-sided” by events beyond the unforeseeable tragedy of 9/11.

Nearly midway through “Decision Points,” Bush writes that, “History can debate the decisions I made, the policies I chose, and the tools I left behind. But there can be no debate about one fact: After the nightmare of September 11, America went seven and a half years without another successful terrorist attack on our soil. If I had to summarize my most meaningful accomplishment as president in one sentence, that would be it.”

For that reason, Bush is singularly unapologetic and clear about the fact that he personally ordered the torture of key Al Qaeda members, who CIA interrogators were convinced held information of other planned terrorist attacks. (Bush also continues to insist that waterboarding is not torture.) When then-CIA Director George Tenet asked whether he had permission to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, Bush replied, “Damn right.” Bush writes that about 100 “terrorists” were placed in the CIA interrogation program and that about a third “were questioned using enhanced interrogation”; three were waterboarded. All, according to Bush, gave up usable intelligence that thwarted other acts of terrorism. Other reports have contradicted that assertion, but Bush is firm on the point.

Similarly, he writes that his stomach still churns over the fact that he and the rest of the country were misled by faulty intelligence concerning Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, but that the nation and world still are better off with the Iraqi dictator deposed. His only real regret, in fact, is that he failed to act more rapidly and decisively when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

Many readers will be surprised by Bush’s warm account of his cooperative relationship with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and his disappointment that they were unable to push through comprehensive immigration reform, which both felt was within a vote or two of their grasp. Given the contentious political use Karl Rove and other Bush aides made of abortion, readers also may be interested in the former president’s unfailingly respectful discussion of the abortion-rights advocates with whom he disagrees. (There’s also something amusing about Bush’s account of urging the late Pope John Paul II not to waver in his pro-life convictions.)

Actually, one of the impressions that arises repeatedly in “Decision Points” is how much civility and bi-partisan cooperation matter to Bush. “The death spiral of decency during my time in office, exacerbated by the advent of 24-hour cable news and hyper-partisan political blogs, was deeply disappointing,” he writes.

Looking back on his exit from office, Bush recalls, “I reflected on everything we were facing. Over the past few weeks we had seen the failure of America’s two largest mortgage entities, the bankruptcy of a major investment bank, the sale of another, the nationalization of the world’s largest insurance company, and now the most drastic intervention in the free market since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, Russia had invaded and occupied Georgia, Hurricane Ike had hit Texas, and America was fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one ugly way to end the presidency.”

There’s a great deal in that statement of what this unexpectedly engrossing memoir suggests is the essential George W. Bush — a disarming candor, for example, combined with almost alarming off-handedness about the implications of what’s being said. The man and the president portrayed in these pages is, at the same time, passive and strong; intelligent but not curious; a public person apparently at his best in private; willing to admit shortcomings, but not particularly self-critical; unfailingly civil himself, but happily surrounded by bare-knuckle partisans. There is a kind of pragmatic courage that makes a leader fearless of contradictions. Bush, for his part, seems oblivious to them.

Immediately after the admission that his presidency was coming to an “ugly” end, Bush adds, “I didn’t feel sorry for myself. Self-pity is a pathetic quality in a leader…. As well, I was comforted by my conviction that the Good Lord wouldn’t give a believer a burden he couldn’t handle.”

One suspects that Bush hopes to have the way in which he bore his unexpected burdens compared to the service of another wartime president, Lincoln. “Decision Points” records that, during his eight years in the Oval Office, Bush read 14 books on the first Republican commander-in-chief.

Somehow, though, it isn’t the Great Emancipator who comes to mind at the end of this memoir, but Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.”

timothy.rutten@latimes.com
Book review: ‘Decision Points’ by George W. Bush

The political center, where swing voters reside and compromise happens, is suddenly a much smaller part of the Washington landscape.

There were the usual kind words and olive branches extended on Wednesday. But nothing could hide the fact that the two parties have deep and abiding differences on nearly every issue facing Congress. The composition of the House and Senate may have changed, but not Washington: The place may be more polarized than ever.

That could make it exceedingly difficult to accomplish anything of great magnitude between now and the next presidential election in November 2012.

The clearest indication of the growing partisan gap was Tuesday’s rout of the Blue Dog caucus, a group of moderate and conservative Democrats who urged the party to adopt a more business-friendly and fiscally conservative agenda. Fewer than half of its 54 members will be returning next year after incumbents were ousted in Pennsylvania, Ohio and a few Democratic pockets of the Deep South. Their absence will likely push the 190 or so remaining House Democrats even further left.

On the Republican side, the victory of dozens of insurgents backed by the “tea party” movement means the emboldened GOP majority will be even more conservative and confrontational than the one that harried President Obama over the last two years.

These lawmakers, and the legion of activists who plan to monitor their performance, have called for drastic changes, including eliminating the Department of Education, privatizing parts of Social Security and repealing the healthcare law just now starting to take effect.

After the presidency, the most difficult job in Washington may soon fall to Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader who will likely be the next House speaker. He must balance an agenda that satisfies his fervent tea party caucus without scaring off the voters — politically independent, largely nonideological — who delivered the GOP its big win Tuesday.

It was something Newt Gingrich, the House speaker after the last big GOP landslide in 1994, failed to manage when he led a similar class of zealously partisan freshmen. President Clinton, who had to argue after the so-called Republican Revolution that he was still relevant, romped to reelection just two years later.

Extensive polling, including thousands of voter interviews conducted Tuesday, shows that neither party is well regarded. The election was the third in a row in which 20 or more House seats changed hands, a level of upheaval unseen in more than half a century; these days, voters seem willing to discard unwanted politicians like so much used tissue.

But that hasn’t stopped both sides from claiming to speak for a majority of Americans. A mandate is in the eye of the beholder, and Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, an online conservative network, seemed to speak for many when she suggested compromise was a good thing — so long as others were doing the compromising.

“We hope that rather than having the gridlock, that the House and Senate will work together to find a way to be responsible with our money again and the other side will move to the center,” Martin said. “Because our side is the center.”

Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who may soon be dueling each day on Capitol Hill, said much the same thing. Both nodded toward the notion of compromise, with qualification.

“We hope President Obama will now respect the will of the people, change course and commit to making the changes they are demanding,” Boehner said. “To the extent he is willing to do this, we are ready to work with him.”

Reid, fresh off reelection in Nevada, said “the time for politics is now over.” He then suggested Republicans “must take their responsibility to present bipartisan solutions more seriously. Simply saying ‘no’ will do nothing to create more jobs, support our middle class and strengthen our economy.”

None of which bodes well for a new era of comity and bipartisan cooperation.

“If you’re a betting person, I would bet on less rather than more being accomplished in Washington,” said Geoff Garin, a longtime Democratic strategist.

If politicians look to the people for guidance, as they presumably should, they are likely to come away confused.

Voters say they hate gridlock, but many also seemed to hate the prolific legislative output of the Obama administration and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Asked what lawmakers should make their top priority in the next Congress, nearly 4 in 10 said reducing the federal deficit. A like number said spending money to create jobs, a move that would increase the deficit. (Two in 10 said cutting taxes, which would also increase the debt.)

On a more fundamental level, voters sent similarly contradictory signals. Nearly 8 in 10 said in a Pew Research poll that lawmakers’ unwillingness to work together was a major problem. But in a subsequent survey, nearly half said they admired a politician who sticks to principle rather than compromising.

Clearly, voters are conflicted. More than ever, they have a government in Washington to match their mood.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
Midterm election’s big loser is the political center

With Republicans expected to win control of the House in Tuesday’s election, President Obama scheduled a press conference for Wednesday in what was expected to amount to a mid-course correction to deal with the power shift on Capitol Hill.

Obama is expected to try to reach out to Republicans, who have campaigned against his economic stimulus plan, healthcare overhaul and other policies. But if the GOP gains seats in the House and Senate, as expected, heavy partisan conflict is anticipated, especially as the parties gear up for the 2012 reelection campaign.

“This election’s going to be a referendum on Obama’s policies,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Assn., said on MSNBC on Tuesday. “What is the president’s response going to be?”

Citing the GOP’s pledge to cut spending aggressively, Barbour added: “Hopefully, the president is going to be willing to come forward and say, ‘I recognize we have to do that; let’s work together.’ ”

But Democrats question Republicans’ sincerity, noting Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky recently said that his top priority was to make “Obama … a one-term president.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, offered his own advice to the White House. “We’ve got to use the president more. He’s a great communicator,” he told MSNBC. “If tonight turns out to be better than expected for Democrats, it’s because the president got energized in the last month.”

If Republicans win control of the House, Obama will still be setting the agenda, Barbour said. “The Republicans are not going to be running the government, but they will have much more of a say than we’ve had for these two years,” he said on MSNBC.

But signaling the conflict that awaits the administration and the new Congress, Barbour said Republicans were going to try to repeal the healthcare reform bill. “If they can’t repeal it, they’re going to try to change it so that you wouldn’t recognize it,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “They’re going to be faithful to what the voters vote for tonight.”

Fellow Republican Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor, however, told CNBC: “When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal healthcare because President Obama is not going to sign it, and they don’t have enough votes to override a veto. So why push a cart uphill when you know it’s not going to be able to get to the top?”

richard.simon@latimes.com
Obama’s response: President plans post-election press conference

A powerful earthquake triggered a 10-foot (three-meter) tsunami that pounded remote island villages in western Indonesia, killing at least 113 people and leaving scores more missing, an official said Tuesday.

The fault that ruptured Monday on Sumatra island’s coast also caused the 2004 quake amd monster Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

A day after the quake struck 13 miles (20 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor, rescuers were still struggling to get to the Mentawai islands — which are closest to the epicenter — because of strong winds and rough seas on the way to the islands that can only be reached by a 12-hour boat ride.

But reports of the damage and casualities from the 7.7-magnitude temblor were already steadily rising.

Mujiharto, who heads the Health Ministry’s crisis center, said 113 bodies have been recovered so far. The number of missing was between 150 and 500.

“We have 200 body bags on the way, just in case,” he said.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire — a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.
113 dead, scores missing in Indonesia tsunami

President Barack Obama rallied thousands of loyal supporters at the USC campus Friday, urging them to defy skeptics who have predicted losses for Democrats and turn out in force on election day to give his administration more time to turn around the nation’s flailing economy and deliver the change he promised in the 2008 election.

“We need all of you to fight on. We need all of you fired up,” the president told the roaring crowd of students and admirers — 37,500 of them, by USC officials’ estimates — who spilled out across the sun-soaked lawn of Alumni Park and the streets beyond. “We need all of you ready to go, because in just 11 days … you have the chance to set the direction of this state and of this country, not just for the next two years but for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years.”

“Just like you did in 2008,” the president said, “you can defy the conventional wisdom that says young people are apathetic, the conventional wisdom that says you can’t beat the cynicism in politics.”

In the combative tone that has defined his remarks in recent days, Obama offered a sharp rebuke of the Republican agenda, accusing the opposition party of embracing a strategy of “amnesia” after sitting on the sidelines saying “no to everything” while blaming him for the nation’s troubles.

“They figured that y’all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place,” he said. “…But Los Angeles, as I look out on this crowd, this tells me you haven’t forgotten.”

With a new Los Angeles-Times/USC poll showing a narrowing enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, the president’s trip to California served the dual purpose of motivating his troops and raising money for endangered Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and attorney general candidate Kamala Harris. Boxer, Harris and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, all spoke briefly at the event, asking Democrats to match the fervor of Republicans.

Actor Jamie Foxx also underscored the Democrats’ precarious position by alluding to Obama’s encounter with a woman earlier this year who said she was exhausted by defending him — and then prompting the crowd to chant: “We’re not exhausted.”

Boxer, who has been hit with millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups, said the other side has “giant, wealthy, unlimited-spending special interests with them.” But, she said, “We have our own army.”

Unlike on his last visit to Los Angeles, the President sought to avoid the wrath of the city’s commuters by flying from LAX to USC on Marine One for the event organized by the Democratic National Party. He also attended a luncheon fundraiser for Boxer and sat for an interview with Spanish-language radio host Piolin in Glendale. Then he jetted off to Nevada for another Democratic rally and a dinner to benefit Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in an uncomfortably close race of his own.

While some Democratic candidates have kept Obama at arm’s length — distancing themselves from the administration’s controversial healthcare legislation and the $814-million stimulus package — Boxer has welcomed his help in California. In this state, 56% of likely voters said in a recent Times/USC poll that they wanted a senator who supports the president.

Boxer has been an unfailing defender of Obama’s policies, even in the face of relentless criticism of Obama’s policies from her challenger, Republican Carly Fiorina. The White House has rewarded Boxer’s loyalty with multiple trips to California on behalf of the three-term senator, who is clinging to a slim lead over Fiorina.

The president’s visit will be followed next week by a fundraising event for Boxer featuring First Lady Michelle Obama. The efforts will provide a much-needed boost to Boxer’s coffers in the final stretch.

New fundraising reports covering the period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 13 showed Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, raising slightly more than Boxer, though Boxer still had twice as much cash on hand as her opponent. But Fiorina announced a new $1-million loan to her campaign Friday for the final push, in addition to the $5.5 million she gave herself for the primary.

At Friday’s rally, the candidates took care to avoid mentioning the names of their rivals but drew distinctions between themselves and their opponents.

Brown signaled that he would reject what he has criticized as the divisive tactics of his opponent: “We don’t scapegoat anybody, not public workers, not immigrants, not anybody because we’re all Californians together.”

And Obama argued that if Republicans were to regain control, they would cut “middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.”

“Their basic philosophy is — you’re on your own,” he said.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund called Obama’s visit “another rescue mission for Boxer” and said the fact that Boxer did not mention Friday’s new unemployment figures or her specific plans to address them in her short speech proved “just how out of touch she is with the reality that 1 in 8 Californians is without a job.”

Brown’s Republican rival, Meg Whitman, meanwhile, campaigned in San Jose on Friday with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He had held the all-time record for self-funding a campaign until Whitman, who has put $141.5 million into her gubernatorial bid, surpassed him.

The former EBay chief executive said the Obama administration’s efforts to revive the economy had been a failure.

“The progress has been terrible,” Whitman said. “Look at the unemployment rates we face in California and we face in the country.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael J. Mishak in San Jose contributed to this report.
In USC speech, Obama urges 37,500 Democratic voters to ‘fight on’

At the age of 80, Exaltacion Divinagracia thought that life would be easier.

The petite widow still works part time at a nursery school. To keep the house she rented with her late husband, she has taken six roommates, all over 75. After church on Saturdays and Sundays, she drags a beat-up suitcase from one food pantry to the next in search of enough to eat for the coming week.

Divinagracia takes home less than $13,000 a year, including public benefits. But according to the government’s income standards, she is not impoverished. To get that designation a single person must live on $10,830 a year or less.

Experts say the standard — which is used nationwide to assess need, determine eligibility for aid and measure the effectiveness of public programs — has little to do with reality, particularly in places like Los Angeles, where housing costs are high.

A recent UCLA study found that most older Californians, those 65 or older, need at least twice the income calculated by the federal government to make ends meet — $21,763 a year on average for a single person renting a one-bedroom apartment, or $30,634 for a couple.

“There is this whole hidden group of adults in need,” said Susan Smith, program director at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, which commissioned the research.

In California, Smith said, many more people seek help from food pantries and other services than are officially recognized as living in poverty. An earlier UCLA study found that in 2007, 47% of older Californians — about 1.76 million people — did not make enough to cover basic needs, although just 8% fell below the federal poverty level that year.

“One size does not fit all,” said Steven P. Wallace, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and lead author of the two studies. “California’s high costs make a single national income standard … totally inadequate for seniors.”

Divinagracia’s husband, a teacher from the Philippines, was already retired when the couple were offered the opportunity to come to the U.S. and become citizens in the 1990s because he had fought alongside U.S. forces in World War II.

They rented a run-down house in Westlake. But since his death six years ago, Divinagracia has struggled to pay the $1,800-a-month rent. She earns just $215 a month working as a “foster grandparent” and gets the maximum cash aid for elderly and disabled people: $845 a month in Supplemental Security Income.

America “is a nice place for the young,” she said. “But for the old, it is no good.”

Her home has the cramped feel of student digs. The extra bedrooms are occupied by two widows and a couple who also participated in the naturalization program for World War II veterans from the Philippines. Another veteran and another widow are squeezed into the living room, with a curtain between them for privacy.

Each person’s space overflows with bits and pieces collected over a lifetime — part of an old uniform, sheets of scripture, family photographs. None of them takes in enough money to live independently.

In the evenings, the kitchen is so crowded that Esther Neri, 83, prefers to cook fish for her 89-year-old husband, Vance, on a hot plate in their room. She serves the meal on a child-size school desk. The bed is so narrow that they sleep head to toe.

Until a few months ago, they had their own apartment. It came with the job of managing a building. But the building was sold and they were told to leave. They now survive on less than $20,000 a year in Supplemental Security Income and a small pension.

“It’s OK for us,” Esther Neri said, surveying her new surroundings. “We are already poor.”

The government’s official poverty measure has been criticized for years because it is based on spending patterns from the 1950s, when about a third of a family’s income went toward food.

The official threshold was first calculated using the cost of a nutrition plan described by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the bare minimum needed to survive an emergency. It is adjusted annually for inflation. But it does not take into account changing standards of living, regional cost differences or public benefits and tax credits.

“We don’t spend a third of our income on food,” said Gerald McIntyre, a directing attorney at the Los Angeles office of the National Senior Citizens Law Center. “If we did, we’d have no place to live.”

For the elderly, poverty level doesn’t cut it

WASHINGTON — President Obama made a new pitch for his $50-billion “roads, railways and runways” program Monday morning, saying the need to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure capacity is critical and that American competitiveness in the 21st century depends upon swift action.

Clogged roads, airways and other infrastructure chip away at worker productivity, Obama said, and the longer the country waits to fix it, “the deeper our competitive edge erodes.”

Speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden, Obama pitched the plan almost entirely in terms of its benefit to the economy — though he also alluded to the politics of the moment, noting the steadfast Republican opposition to most of his current plans.

In a “season of choices,” Obama said, one of the decisions Americans must make is between “decline and prosperity.”

Earlier Monday, the administration issued a new report estimating the spending program would create a raft of new middle-class jobs in manufacturing, construction and retail and thereby help boost the economy. More than half of the new jobs would come in construction, where unemployment figures are now higher than 17 percent, according to the report.

First unveiled on Labor Day, the plan figures into the election picture for Democrats, who are under pressure to show how the economy will improve under Obama’s continued stewardship and theirs.

Still, to pass the measure, the president needs to win over Republicans, who generally have opposed his suggestions for government spending as a way out of the country’s economic malaise. And a change of heart did not seem imminent on Monday morning.

If the president were serious about passage, said one GOP aide, it would have been easier if he’d held Monday’s event before the Senate left town to campaign for midterm elections.

“Because the November lame-duck session is all booked up, the very earliest the Senate could consider the president’s proposal now would be December,” said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “And that’s assuming that the committees could/would want to act in time — a huge ‘if.’ “

cparsons@tribune.com
Obama renews push for $50-billion ‘roads, railways and runways’ program