Washed It!

With the 2008 Democratic primary race all but won, Barack Obama appeared at a massive outdoor rally here and delivered a message that was unique by the cutthroat standards of American political campaigns.

“We’re not going to worry about what other folks are doing,” Obama told a crowd of 75,000 at the waterfront event in May 2008. “We’re going to try to focus on what we think we can do for America.”

Obama returned to Portland on Wednesday night and delivered a different sort of speech. His message of national unity and reconciliation had been replaced by a stark warning against cynical Republican tactics, vague threats to America’s political system and the urgent need to keep the GOP marginalized.

There was less hope, more fear.

Obama conveyed much the same message Thursday during a rally in Seattle, and the appeal is not expected to vary significantly as he campaigns in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Minneapolis over the next two days.

Obama in Portland suggested that “foreign-controlled corporations” were bankrolling a “misleading, negative” ad campaign that serves Republicans, but offered no evidence.

“We don’t know,” he said.

Whereas his 2008 speech said that Americans needed to “start trusting each other again, start working together again,” he said at the Oregon Convention Center rally this week that even if Republicans cooperate more with the White House, they would be forced to “sit in the back seat.”

Two years ago, he said Americans are “tired of a politics that’s all about tearing each other down.” On Wednesday, he painted a grim picture of life under Republican leadership: The chronically ill, the unemployed, the student who can’t afford college tuition — all would be cut “loose to fend for themselves.”

The shift in tone reflects the realities of Obama’s political predicament. With Democrats facing the likelihood of major losses in the midterm election, Obama wants to fire up his base and make sure voters go to the polls. Instead of letting the campaign become a referendum on his first term at a time when the unemployment rate is nearly 10%, Obama is instead framing the election as a clear choice.

David Axelrod, a senior White House advisor who helps craft Obama’s speeches, said the aim was to lay out the stakes in the Nov. 2 election.

“Everything looks different through the gauzy recollections of the past,” said Axelrod when asked how Obama’s message has changed in the last two years. “We offered a fairly strong critique of the Republican policies of 2008…. Every election is a choice. People need to understand what the contrast is.”

Obama has been delivering a similar version of the Portland speech recently. Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, earlier in the week, he imputed a motive to lawmakers who’ve resisted his agenda: Republicans opposed his proposals because they want him to founder, cynically positioning themselves to pick up seats in the upcoming election at the nation’s expense.

Appearing in Boston last week, he told the crowd that with the country facing an historic economic downturn, Republicans “didn’t lift a finger to help.”

The darker message may be rooted in Obama’s experience as president. Nearly two years into the job, the partisan divisions are not going away.

“As a candidate in 2008, Obama made an appealing but naive promise to bring Republicans and Democrats together in Washington and end the bitter partisan standoff,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies and writes about governance. “He learned that was easier said than done.

“He is now giving voice to a reality that he was hesitant to accept.”

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

cparsons@latimes.com
In two years, a fearful turn in Obama’s speeches

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The military is accepting openly gay recruits for the first time in the nation’s history, even as it tries in the courts to slow the movement to abolish its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

At least two service members discharged for being gay began the process to re-enlist after the Pentagon’s Tuesday announcement.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in California who overturned the 17-year policy last week was likely to reject the government’s latest effort to halt her order telling the military to stop enforcing the law.

The Justice Department will likely appeal if she does not suspend her order.

The Defense Department has said it would comply with U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ order and had frozen any discharge cases. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said recruiters had been given top-level guidance to accept applicants who say they are gay.

Recruiters also have been told to inform potential recruits that the moratorium on enforcement of the policy could be reversed at any time, if the ruling is appealed or the court grants a stay, she said.

Gay rights groups were continuing to tell service members to avoid revealing that they are gay, fearing they could find themselves in trouble should the law be reinstated.

“What people aren’t really getting is that the discretion and caution that gay troops are showing now is exactly the same standard of conduct that they will adhere to when the ban is lifted permanently,” said Aaron Belkin, executive director of the Palm Center, a think tank on gays and the military at the University of California Santa Barbara. “Yes, a few will try to become celebrities.”

An Air Force officer and co-founder of a gay service member support group called OutServe said financial considerations are playing a big role in gay service members staying quiet.

“The military has financially trapped us,” he said, noting that he could owe the military about $200,000 if he were to be dismissed.

The officer, who asked not to be identified for fear of being discharged, said he’s hearing increasingly about heterosexual service members approaching gay colleagues and telling them they can come out now.

He also said more gay service members are coming out to their peers who are friends, while keeping their orientation secret from leadership. He said he has come out to two peers in the last few days.

“People are coming out informally in their units,” the officer said. “Discussions are happening right now.”

An opponent of the judge’s ruling said confusion that has come up is exactly what Pentagon officials feared and shows the need for her to immediately freeze her order while the government appeals.

“It’s only logical that a stay should be granted to avoid the confusion that is already occurring with reports that the Pentagon is telling recruiters to begin accepting homosexual applicants,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington that supports the policy.

The uncertain status of the law has caused much confusion within an institution that has historically discriminated against gays.

Before the 1993 law, the military banned gays entirely and declared them incompatible with military service. There have been instances in which gays have served, with the knowledge of their colleagues.

Twenty-nine nations, including Israel, Canada, Germany and Sweden, allow openly gay troops, according to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group and plaintiff in the lawsuit before Phillips.

The Pentagon guidance to recruiters comes after Dan Woods, the group’s attorney, sent a letter last week warning the Justice Department that Army recruiters who turned away Omar Lopez in Austin, Texas may have caused the government to violate Phillips’ injunction. Woods wrote that the government could be subject to a citation for contempt.

Military recruiters told to accept gay applicants, as gov’t appeals court decision

President Obama laid out a broad case Saturday for rejecting Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, accusing his political opponents of cynically refusing to cooperate in difficult times while accepting help from secretive special-interest groups pumping millions of dollars into various campaigns.

Obama spoke at a rally for a longtime political ally and friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is locked in a tough reelection campaign against Republican Charlie Baker. The president also spent part of his quick trip to Boston at a fundraising event for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. A Democratic official said people paid up to $30,400 apiece to attend a VIP reception and have their picture taken with the president.

With unemployment at nearly 10% and people anxious about job security, Obama has struggled to articulate a single compelling message for keeping Democrats in power. At the Patrick event, he rolled out a range of arguments for voting against Republicans on Nov. 2.

While he and fellow Democrats labored to fix the economy, he said, the Republican leadership watched from a safe distance, hoping they would founder.

Speaking to more than 15,000 people at the Hynes Convention Center, Obama said that Democrats were enmeshed in the “grinding, frustrating work of delivering change inch by inch, day by day.”

Republicans, in turn, made the “tactical decision” that if they stay “on the sidelines and don’t lift a finger to help … they figured they could ride people’s anger and frustration all the way to the ballot box,” Obama said.

Obama reverted to a favorite metaphor, saying he and other Democrats had been down in the ditch trying to get the battered car going while Republicans fanned themselves and enjoyed Slurpees.

Now that the metaphorical car’ is on the mend, “they can get in and ride with us if they want, but they’ve got to get in the back seat,” Obama said.

The president’s speech was interrupted by hecklers who shouted their disapproval over his AIDS funding policies. That touched off a counter-chant of “four more years” from supporters of Obama and Patrick.

Obama, wearing a jacket but no tie, stared at the demonstrators, who held up a sign that read, “Keep the promise.”

“Take a look at what the Republican leadership has to say about AIDS funding,” the president challenged.

Obama renewed a charge that special-interest groups aligned with the Republicans were spending huge sums of money in the campaign without revealing their donors. Because the source of funds is unknown, “foreign-controlled corporations” could be underwriting the TV ad buys, Obama said.

“They don’t even have the courage to stand up and disclose their identity,” he said. “They could be insurance companies, they could be banks, they could even be foreign-controlled corporations — we will never know.”

The White House has faced a backlash over such attacks. Critics have said that Democrats have yet to produce concrete evidence that foreign money is fueling campaign attack ads.

They’ve also said that with the economy in such wretched shape, Obama is distracting voters from deeper problems by focusing on campaign finance disclosure.

Obama’s visit to Boston testifies to his special connection to the Massachusetts governor.

Patrick worked in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, yet when it came time to endorse a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008, he chose Obama over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A recent poll by Suffolk University showed Patrick leading Baker by 7 points.

Partisan emotions were strong at the rally. Before Obama spoke, the audience heard from Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Markey, in a reference to Delaware Senate Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell, said, “We have gone from Democrats who say, ‘Yes we can!’ to Republicans who say, ‘Yes, wiccan.’”

O’Donnell has said that when she was young, she “dabbled” in witchcraft.

With election day about two weeks away, Obama is stepping up his campaign travel, flying across the country to raise money and stump for Democratic candidates. On Sunday he and First Lady Michelle Obama are attending a rally at Ohio State University in what will be the president’s 11th visit to the perennial swing state since he took office.

On Wednesday he leaves the White House for a three-day Western swing that includes stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Portland, Ore.

peter.nicholas@latimes.com
Obama says GOP accepts special-interest money while refusing to cooperate in government

A trio of economics scholars, including an MIT professor whose nomination to the Federal Reserve board has been held up in the Senate, won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday for their studies of markets and how mismatches between buyers and sellers can contribute to such problems as high unemployment.

Peter A. Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and fellow American Dale T. Mortensen, a professor at Northwestern University, will share the $1.5 million award with Christopher A. Pissarides, a British and Cypriot citizen who teaches at the London School of Economics.

The three men pioneered and developed models that help explain, among other things, why there are so many jobless people even as there are a large number of job openings — a problem that is particularly relevant today as the United States and other developed countries grapple with stubbornly high unemployment.

The U.S. jobless figure for September was reported Friday at 9.6%.

“The laureates’ models help us understand the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the prize.

“This may refer to benefit levels in unemployment insurance or rules in regard to hiring and firing,” the statement said. “One conclusion is that more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times.”

The idea that more-generous jobless benefits can provide a disincentive for workers to seek or take jobs has been hotly debated in the U.S. as policymakers have continued to face pressure to extend unemployment checks for millions of people.

Mortensen, in a conference call from Denmark, where he is currently a visiting professor at Aarhus University, said his models do show a negative effect of higher jobless benefits.

But he dismissed that as a major factor in the high unemployment, saying instead that the current job troubles are a function of the impaired financial markets.

“I really don’t think this is the time to worry about that,” Mortensen, 71, said of unemployment benefits.

The works of Diamond, who first developed a theoretical framework on “search markets” in the early 1970s, and Mortensen and Pissarides also offer insights into another ongoing debate among economists — whether the high unemployment today reflects structural deficiencies such as mismatches in skills or problems that are more cyclical in nature because of weak demand.

Some economists have argued the troubles are structural, suggesting that unemployment won’t be going back to the normal range of 5%, while others have emphasized that the terrible labor situation demands more substantial government stimulus to bolster demand for goods and services.

Diamond acknowledged that the process of improving the job market “is going to be slow and painful” for the whole economy and people looking for work. But he didn’t view it as a structural problem, suggesting more optimism for the future.

“I think the economy is very adaptive,” he said. “Workers and employers will adapt.”

Diamond, 70, who received his Ph.D. from MIT and has been a professor there since 1966, is considered by peers as a brilliant theorist whose works on social security systems are highly regarded.

Last spring he was nominated by President Obama to fill one of three vacancies on the Fed’s board. But while two other nominees to the Fed board were cleared recently, Diamond’s confirmation was effectively blocked by Senate Republicans.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, questioned whether the MIT professor had enough practical experience to serve as a Fed governor.

Asked about the Fed nomination during a news conference at MIT, Diamond said he would not withdraw his candidacy but declined to comment further.

don.lee@latimes.com
Three share Nobel Prize in economics

The highest-ranking North Korean official to defect from the isolationist regime was found dead from a suspected heart attack here Sunday — his death from apparent natural causes coming despite numerous assassination attempts from Pyongyang, officials here said. He was 87.

For more than a decade, since his defection in 1997, Hwang Jang-yop was North Korea’s public enemy No. 1, repeatedly referred to as “human scum” in the regime’s state-controlled media.

Hwang, a former senior member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party who taught ideology to leader Kim Jong Il, was known as the chief architect of North Korea’s guiding “juche” philosophy of self-reliance.

He graduated from Pyongyang’s top Kim Il-sung University, and studied in Moscow in 1949. One of the country’s most powerful officials when he fled during a visit to Beijing, Hwang’s vocal criticism led to numerous threats and assassination attempts by Pyongyang.

In December 2006, Hwang received a package with a picture of him sprayed with red paint and a hatchet. Last April, South Korean authorities arrested two North Korean spies reportedly sent to kill Hwang. They both received 10-year prison sentences.

North Korea denied making any murder attempts, accusing South Korea of staging the arrest to intensify anti-Pyongyang sentiment.

Ironically, Hwang’s death came on the same day that his arch enemy North Korea held a massive military parade to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the foundation of the Workers’ Party. Kim Jong-il and his son, heir apparent Kim Jong Eun, appeared together at the parade broadcast live on North Korean state TV.

Police in Seoul said that while there appeared to be no evidence of foul play, the coincidence of the death meant they would perform an autopsy.

His body was found by a security guard in the bathroom of his home in Seoul, where he lived under tight police protection as he continued to write books and deliver speeches condemning Kim’s government as authoritarian. There was no sign of a break-in, officials said.

A former South Korean intelligence official who met Hwang last week was surprised by the news. “His sudden death is a surprise. His voice was a little frail, but he spoke with great clarity and intelligence,” said the official who asked not to be named.

“Hwang Jang-yop was a symbol of the tragic divide between South and North Korea. It’s hard to imagine the torment he likely felt inside. After defecting, he gave numerous speeches on the harsh reality of North Korea, which was not overlooked by Pyongyang.

“Despite his strong outward appearance, it must have taken a toll on him living in such a constant state of tension,” he added.

john.glionna@latimes.com

Kim is a researcher in the Times’ Seoul bureau.
North Korean defector found dead in Seoul

The increasingly contentious Nevada Senate race between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his ultra-conservative Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, took an ugly turn last week when the candidates accused each other of going easy on child molesters — and campaigning isn’t expected to get any more pleasant between now and election day.

“It’s not much fun to live through,” said political scientist David Damore of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It’s about 95%, if not 100%, negative.”

In a surprise move on Saturday, Angle softened some of her harsh stances on government benefits such as Social Security and unemployment insurance that have led opponents to characterize her as extreme, according to the Associated Press. Her remarks came during an interview before an audience with a conservative radio host in Las Vegas.

While Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14.4%, and the highest foreclosure rate, Reid and Angle concentrated on ratcheting up the fear factor with their new spots, a sign that the race remains uncomfortably tight. Three polls released in the last week showed Angle with a slight lead over Reid, but within the margin of error.

“I would say that the ramping up of the rhetoric indicates that the internal polling of the candidates shows they have no clue who is winning this race,” said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. As a result, the candidates are scrambling to demonize each other.

“Reid’s goal isn’t to get people to like him,” Herzik said, “it’s to scare people about Sharron Angle. He’s got very high unfavorables and he knows he can’t change that, so what can he do? Make people like Sharron Angle even less, or be afraid of her.”

In a 30-second spot, Angle accused the incumbent of voting to allow taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for convicted child molesters and sex offenders. “What else,” it asks, “could you ever need to know about Harry Reid?”

Her charge is rooted in political maneuvering around the healthcare reform bill that became law this year. Reid voted against an amendment that would have barred the use of federal funds to buy Viagra for sex offenders. Democrats opposed the amendment for procedural reasons. Politifact, a website that evaluates claims in political ads, rated Angle’s charge as “barely true.”

Reid blasted Angle for a vote she cast in 1999 while a member of the Nevada Assembly opposing background checks for people who volunteer with youth and church groups. “Sharron Angle voted to protect the privacy of sex offenders,” says the star of the spot, a Las Vegas family therapist who works with abused kids. A rating for Reid’s ad could not be found on Politifact.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the bill, which passed the Assembly, would create a fund to pay for the screening of volunteers. The newspaper quoted minutes from the discussion in committee, which reflected that Angle was concerned with “the possible invasion of privacy and liability issues included in the bill.”

Angle has been dogged by other issues, as well.

Last month, she seemed to suggest in a town hall meeting that Dearborn, Mich., which has a large Arab population, is operating under Islamic law, which drew a denunciation from the mayor of that city.

An account by the online news site, Mesquite Local News, said that in response to a question about whether “Muslims are taking over the U.S.,” Angle replied: “Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas, are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

On Thursday, the Reno News and Review published an interview with Angle’s one-time pastor, an evangelical Christian, in which he slurred Reid’s Mormon faith, calling it a “cult” and “kooky.” The Rev. John Reed of Sonrise Church in Reno said he was alarmed by Reid’s “allegiance to Salt Lake City,” where the Mormon religion is based.

Angle disavowed Reed’s remarks, but it is unclear what effect they will have on the 11% of Nevada’s voters who are Mormon. Some political observers believe the pastor’s remarks could prompt Mormons, who generally vote Republican, to choose “none of the above,” which is an option on the Nevada ballot.

In the last week, Reid has garnered the endorsements of two prominent Nevada Republicans — the state Senate’s Republican leader Bill Raggio and former First Lady Dema Guinn, whose late husband, Kenny Guinn, was governor from 1999 to 2007.

The Courier-Times–Telegraph arrives on driveways in Tyler, Texas, on Sundays with a pleasant thud. It can be thicker than a rib-eye steak and flecked with the sort of small-government red meat that satisfies the palates of its conservative readers.

So the paper startled some readers last weekend when it ran a rare front-page editorial, one that took aim at the state’s Republican governor. The piece urged Rick Perry to reverse his “unacceptable and undeserved silence” to debate his Democratic opponent and to meet with newspaper editorial boards, as he has in years past.

Publisher Nelson Clyde said he’s disturbed by a trend in the current midterm election in which some politicians hide out or speak only through a few friendly news outlets. “For me, from a journalist’s point of view, I think this is really going to polarize us and the media further,” Clyde said in an interview. “It’s a regrettable circumstance.”

Regrettable, but maybe the new normal. Politico has declared this the “Year of the Missing Candidate,” with politicians disdaining debates, appearing rarely in public, declining to release public schedules to reporters and shunning interviews with all but the most compliant journalists.

Many Americans may believe the media are biased. Politicians are wielding that notion, still not true most of the time, to excuse their pronounced absence from the public arena. The ref’s being banished from the ring, while the boxers tell us they wouldn’t think of throwing a sucker punch.

Candidate Barack Obama alienated the national press corps during portions of the 2008 campaign, making himself scarce for questions and shrinking away when reporters pulled out their tape recorders. During one notable period of more than a month before election day, he took few questions and held no formal news conferences.

But Obama’s campaign plane seems like a cozy welcome wagon compared to the chilly vehicles plying the trail in Campaign 2010. The duck-and-dodge has been primarily, but not exclusively, a tactic among Republicans, according to Politico and several other news outlets. But more than one Democrat has gone to lengths to minimize unscripted moments too.

It would be nice to think we’re passing through a brief era of absentee candidates. But don’t count on it. The profusion of news outlets, many calibrated to a particular ideology, enable candidates to shop for preferred messengers. Or they can take to the Internet to cut out media intermediaries altogether.

In Wisconsin, reporters from many media outlets have complained about trying to cover U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson, who won’t put out his daily schedule. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Thursday that a campaign spokeswoman said the Republican Johnson would take his message, “directly to the people.” It’s a little better with incumbent Russ Feingold, the Democrat, who doesn’t give out an advance schedule either, but will at least confirm dates after they have been set.

In Delaware, “tea party” favorite Christine O’Donnell has made herself so invisible in the U.S. Senate race that she faced questions about whether she had gone into hiding. A CNN reporter chased after her in one report this week, but O’Donnell slipped out the back door after an event. As an SUV whisked her into the night she promised to answer questions. Some day.

In Colorado, Senate hopeful Ken Buck went nine consecutive days without a public event. But the Republican promised to show his face more this month, now that a crucial fundraising period has passed.

Marco Rubio, the frontrunner for U.S. Senate from Florida, launched a bus tour this week but one group was noticeably not on board: the media. Reporters can chase the bus if they like. But the Republican candidate has a substantial lead. So he’s following a time-honored tradition in both parties of sitting on his advantage and avoiding pesky reporters, who present considerable risk and little potential reward.

In the tight Nevada senate race, reporters can’t get much love from either incumbent Harry Reid, the Democrat, or GOP challenger Sharron Angle. Reid has a history of spouting malaprops, while “tea partyer” Angle has preferred to speak through friendly outlets like Fox News. Veteran political reporter Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun told Politico the scant access to the candidates was “unprecedented.”

All this has not stopped the media from needling, cajoling and pleading for more face time. And shame can still bear its rewards. Witness the fallout from an incident last March in the California gubernatorial race.

The episode began with Republican candidate Meg Whitman inviting reporters to an event at the Port of Oakland. The journalists waited a couple of hours in a holding pen at a Union Pacific rail yard. When the time finally came for questions at the “open press” event, Whitman staffers instead shooed away the reporters. Video of the Whitman’s uneasy silence aired widely on Bay Area television. The candidate called reporters to apologize. She has gotten more accessible since then.

Whitman opponent Jerry Brown could be held up as Exhibit One by nervous campaign managers who want to minimize contact with the media. During an unscripted moment last month, the attorney general managed to raise the adulterous past of Democratic icon Bill Clinton. Caught on a jogging path by a reporter one weekend in June, Brown uncorked a doozy — comparing Whitman to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Those are the kinds of remarks that have candidates apologizing and back-pedaling for days, instead of delivering the message their campaigns want to harp on.

Longtime Republican political strategist Dan Schnur said he doesn’t see any slowing of the trend toward candidates hiding out or facing only friendly media. News outlets will likely enable the process, he said, by hunkering down into increasingly isolated ideological corners.

And the perception of a biased media will give politicians the excuse to shut out even the many reporters who still try to be honest arbiters.

The result will be candidates able to remain, more and more, “on message.” And a public that knows less and less about who the politicians really are.

james.rainey@latimes.com

Twitter: latimesrainey
On the Media: Candidates are MIA during 2010 elections campaign

Democrats and their allies, moving to counter millions of dollars flowing to Republican campaigns from groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have accused the international business organization of using foreign money to influence American elections.

The effort to paint conservative political groups as fronts for multinational corporations and foreign billionaires gathered steam this week after an affiliate of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress charged that the chamber was using funds from foreign corporations to finance its political operations in Washington.

Foreign spending in U.S. elections is against the law. Tita Freeman, vice president of communications at the chamber, called the Center for American Progress report “unfounded and completely erroneous.” The foreign companies cited in the report “pay nominal dues” that “do not support U.S. chamber political activities,” Freeman said.

The liberal group MoveOn.org planned a rally outside the chamber’s Washington headquarters Thursday to bring attention to the charges.

The issue of campaign fundraising is casting a shadow over this year’s races after a Supreme Court ruling in January allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations, labor unions and interest groups — some of which are not required to disclose their funding sources.

Corporations and interest groups, operating outside official political party committees, have provided a potent source of cash for Republicans. Democratic-allied groups have attempted to match the spending but lag far behind.

The liberal organization Think Progress said on its website that an investigation found that dues and fees collected from the chamber’s overseas chapters and foreign business members goes into the same account used to fund its political activities.

Freeman called the allegation “an attempt to silence businesspeople, to silence those who support free enterprise, and an intentional diversion in advance of the midterm elections.”

The chamber and two new groups cofounded by Republican strategist Karl Rove — American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS — are expected to spend more than $100 million on media campaigns in the final month before election day. Allies of Democrats have attempted to counter the overwhelming budgets of right-leaning groups with their own meager but pointed ad buys.

On Wednesday, Campaign Money Watch, a Democratic-leaning group that advocates for public financing of elections, took out a $750,000 ad to oppose the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado. The move came a day after American Crossroads spent about the same on ads opposing the Democratic incumbent.

Also Wednesday, the National Education Assn. committed to spending $15 million this cycle and began airing television ads for Democratic incumbents in Arizona and Ohio.

But with less than one month to go, the big money still trended in Republicans’ favor.

On Tuesday, Crossroads GPS spent more than $1 million on advertising against Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate for President Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Meanwhile, two nonpartisan groups that advocate stricter campaign finance controls urged the Internal Revenue Service this week to investigate Crossroads GPS. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 said the Rove group is organized in a way that “allows its donors to evade the public disclosure requirements” that otherwise would apply if the organization was registered differently.

kim.geiger@latimes.com
Liberal groups say foreign funds aid Republicans

BAGHDAD (AP) — A Muslim cleric who once used a militia to resist the American invasion positioned himself as a big winner in Iraq’s monthslong political deadlock Friday when his party threw its support behind the beleaguered prime minister.

The hard-line Shiite group led by Muqtada al-Sadr called it the start of its ascent to nationwide power — a specter sure to spook the United States.

Washington considers the cleric a threat to Iraq’s shaky security and has long refused to consider his movement a legitimate political entity. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may be unable to govern without him.

March elections failed to produce a clear winner and left the nation in turmoil — a power vacuum that U.S. military officials say has encouraged a spike in attacks by Sunni insurgents.

Final agreement on how to form the new government could still be weeks if not months away, but “the Sadrist acceptance of al-Maliki as prime minister could begin to break the logjam,” said Iraq expert Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.

Allying with al-Maliki poses a political risk for al-Sadr among his followers, many of whom hate the prime minister, and the cleric’s top aides refused Friday to publicly explain why he did it. The most that Sadrist lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie would say is that both camps now seek to “open dialogue with the other winning political groups to form the government.”

But it is clear to Iraqi and U.S. officials that al-Sadr seeks unfettered and increased influence in the next government if al-Maliki comes out on top.

The cleric, whose militia once ran death squads out of the health ministry headquarters in Baghdad to target Sunnis, has been in self-imposed exile in Iran since 2007.

As part of agreeing to back al-Maliki, a leading Sadrist said the movement has demanded key government positions, including deputy parliament speaker and as many as six Cabinet-level ministry posts of the 34 to be filled.

Controlling service agencies like Iraq’s health, oil, construction and electricity ministries would allow Sadrists to hire supporters and boost political loyalty. Sadrists also are clamoring to run the trade ministry, which would carry some sway over foreign policy, and at least one of the agencies tasked with Iraqi security missions — a huge red flag to U.S. officials.

Down the road, after the American military has fully withdrawn in 2011 and U.S. diplomatic influence has waned, Sadrists will make a play for the prime ministers’ post, said a leading party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because al-Sadr has forbidden his aides from discussing the negotiations.

“In the future, the premiership will be for us,” the Sadrist official said. “We will have nominees who will compete when the next elections are held after the departure of the (U.S.) occupation.”

Having a Sadrist in power would endanger if not scuttle hopes of establishing a thriving democracy in Iraq that could be a model in the region. There are worries about how much influence Iran now carries over al-Sadr after offering him refuge for more than three years.

While saying it does not have a favorite candidate among those vying to become prime minister, the Obama administration strongly opposes giving power to al-Sadr and his followers. It is largely a moot wish: Sadrists were the only party to gain seats in parliament in the March 7 vote, winning 39 of the 325 in a signal of their rise.

That has put them in the position of being wooed by other Shiite political leaders for support.

“The Sadrists having a key role in the next government of Iraq was one of the few redlines that the Obama administration had,” said Ken Pollack, an expert at the Brookings Institute think-tank in Washington who was a key Iraq policymaker in the Bush administration.

“They’ve staged this major comeback, and the administration is very, very worried about that,” Pollack said. “This is something Iran has been trying to do for months. Clearly this is a big win for them and really bad for the U.S.”

In Baghdad, U.S. Embassy spokesman David J. Ranz avoided even using the word Sadrist when asked for an official statement Friday about the movement’s partnership with al-Maliki.

Ranz said the embassy welcomed actions that would lead to a new government in Iraq, now stalled for nearly seven months. And he said the U.S. hoped to see “an inclusive and legitimate government, responsive to the needs of the Iraqi people.”

Anti-US Shiite cleric backs al-Maliki for PM in move that could pave way for new government

By announcing major changes in his economic team ahead of the midterm elections, President Obama is hoping to galvanize a listless Democratic base that has been unimpressed with the administration’s efforts to ease unemployment and buoy the still-troubled housing market.

The two key moves — Lawrence Summers’ exit as top economic advisor and Elizabeth Warren’s ascendance as a consumer protection czar — are widely viewed as overtures to liberal Democrats, a voting bloc that must turn out in large numbers if the party is to stave off deep losses in the Nov. 2 congressional elections.

“Larry Summers was never that popular with the base, and this president is desperately trying to mobilize the base between now and November,” said Stephen Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University.

“Elizabeth Warren coming and Larry Summers going, these are moves designed to placate the Democratic base and mobilize it as we approach the election,” Wayne said.

At the same time, administration officials insist Obama does not intend a broad retreat from his economic policies.

“The change in personnel is not going to affect the course that we’re on,” said Jared Bernstein, chief economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. “We’re going to build on the momentum that the policies have helped to create.”

Indeed, there is little else Obama can do to lower the jobless rate, reduce home foreclosures or improve growth before the November elections. The economy moves too slowly for that, and so does Congress.

On Thursday, for example, congressional Democrats indicated that they might put off a crucial decision on whether to extend temporary, Bush-era tax cuts until after the November election.

Obama announced this week that Summers would be leaving at the end of the year, the third member of his economic team to make departure plans public in recent weeks. Summers had long planned to return to Harvard, but announcing the move now is seen as giving Obama a political boost ahead of the elections.

A week ago, Obama appointed Warren to set up the new federal agency charged with protecting consumers from abuses by banks, credit card companies and other financial firms. She also joined the White House economic team.

Both Summers and Warren evoke strong emotions among Democrats.

Summers is loathed by many progressives, who see him as tied to Wall Street interests. At the same time, the left praised the arrival of Warren, hailing the Harvard law professor as a champion of the middle class.

But nothing in the new lineup of advisors suggests Obama is abandoning the path out of the deep recession he has plotted over the past 20 months.

Two pivotal vacancies — budget director and chair of the Council of Economic Advisors — have been filled from within the administration. And although the White House has said Obama might tap a corporate executive to replace Summers, the team’s most senior member will continue to be Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, a chief architect of the administration’s economic policy.

Some economists said that strategy was a mistake given the slowing pace of economic growth and continued deep problems in the housing market. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts a modest 2.1% increase in real economic output next year, far too weak to make much of a dent in 9.6% national jobless rate.

“There’s a distinction between shaking up the team and making shifts in policy,” said Robert Shapiro, an economic official in the Clinton administration.

“The question is how much confidence do they have that, without additional measures, the economy will strengthen on its own,” he said. “I think Larry had confidence in that six months ago … but no one has as much confidence in it today.”

While Obama has one eye on the midterms, he is also focused on his reelection in 2012. The president and his economic team have been adamant that the economy is on the right track and that their policies simply need more time to reverse the effects of the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” Obama said this week during a town hall meeting about the economy.

Obama plays to his base with financial team moves