Washed It!

Newly elected Assemblyman Jeff Gorell is on a mission, it just wasn’t the one he expected.

In March, the freshman Republican from Camarillo, a Navy reservist, will trade his business suit for combat fatigues and report for a year’s duty in Afghanistan. Never mind that he hasn’t yet hired a staff, opened an office or introduced legislation.

He’s still working out a more basic question: How will he run his office during his 12-month absence?

Gorell briefly considered asking the Legislature to pass an emergency bill allowing him to nominate a temporary replacement. When it became clear that would violate the state’s constitution, he decided instead to take a leave of absence, relying on staff and friendly Republican colleagues to attend to business in his Ventura County district.

The former prosecutor and college lecturer, 40, acknowledges it’s not the ideal way to launch a political career. But he’s accepted his pending deployment with the same earnestness that has made him widely appealing in his conservative-leaning 37th district.

“It’s a misfortune of timing,” said Gorell, a moderate who’s holding office for the first time. He easily defeated Democrat Ferial Masry for the district covering Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Simi Valley. “I’m going to work really hard to prove that I will be the hardest-working legislator in the building. I’ll get as much done in 31/2 months as most do in 12.”

Gorell is the first legislator in California to be deployed for active duty since World War II, though legislators in other states have found themselves in the same predicament 51 times since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the chief clerk of the Assembly’s office.

Army Reservist Tom Umberg was absent from the final months of his 2004 campaign for the Assembly as he helped prosecute terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the Orange County Democrat was back home by the time his Assembly term began.

Federal and state laws mandate that Gorell can return to his job once his tour ends. But states are handling what to do in legislators’ absence in different ways. Texas and five other states allow for a temporary fill-in. Legislator-soldiers in Pennsylvania, on the other hand, have taken leaves of absence.

A California military code written during the Korean War mentions the option of a temporary replacement if the Legislature authorizes it. But the state has never taken that step, Gorell said, and after consulting with lawyers he determined it probably wouldn’t be legal because the state’s constitution says vacancies must be filled by special election.

Assembly Speaker John A. P

After a survey of U.S. troops and their families, a Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to current war efforts, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted two people familiar with a draft of the study, which is to be completed for Defense Secretary Robert Gates by Dec. 1., but with an uncertain public release date.

More than 70% of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians in uniform would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, the sources told the newspaper.

The newspaper said the survey results have led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

The long, detailed and nuanced report will almost certainly be used by opponents and supporters of repeal legislation to bolster their positions in what is likely to be a heated and partisan congressional debate. And it is expected to reveal challenges the services could face in overturning the long-held policy, including overcoming fierce opposition in some parts of the force — primarily in the Army and Marine Corps — even if they represent a minority.

The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, last week said that with forces fighting in Afghanistan and still deployed in Iraq, now was the wrong time to lift the ban.

“This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness,” Amos said.

That brought a mild rebuke from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, who said he was surprised that Amos had spoken publicly. He said the heads of the military services had committed to “look at the data and then make our recommendations privately.”

The Post said Gates, Mullen and uniformed and civilian leaders of the four military branches received copies of the draft report late last week.

The document totaled about 370 pages and is divided into two sections, the newspaper said. The first section explores whether repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” would harm unit readiness or morale. The second part of the report presents a plan for ending enforcement of the ban. It is not meant to serve as the military’s official instruction manual on the issue but could be used if military leaders agreed, one of the sources told the newspaper.

Among other questions, the survey asked whether having an openly gay person in a unit would have an effect in an intense combat situation. Although a majority of respondents signaled no strong objections, a significant minority is opposed to serving alongside openly gay troops. About 40% of the Marine Corps is concerned about lifting the ban, according to one of the people familiar with the report, the Post said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said that of the 400,000 surveys sent randomly to troops, 115,052 responded. An additional 150,000 surveys were sent to spouses with 44,266 completed. Defense officials have said they were pleased with the response rate and believed it was enough to get an accurate sampling of the force.

President Obama has vowed to end the policy. A Democratic proposal to repeal the 1993 law already has passed the House as part of a broader defense policy bill that includes such popular provisions as a pay raise for the troops. But that same legislation sank in the Senate under Republican objections just weeks before the Nov. 2 elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised another vote by year’s end, although the political dynamics in this lame-duck session haven’t changed much. Gates has asked Congress to act before January, but Senate Democrats still hold a shaky majority and they are unlikely to give in to Republican demands for a protracted debate.

A Republican gay rights group, the Log Cabin Republicans, has challenged the constitutionality of the policy in court. The Obama administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to keep the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place while a federal appeals court considers the issue.

The administration filed court papers in defense of an appeals court order that allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to go back into effect after a federal judge declared it unconstitutional and barred its enforcement. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is reviewing the administration’s appeal.

The Log Cabin Republicans asked the Supreme Court to step into the case to reverse the appeals court decision that has allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to remain in effect despite the order by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips.

Among several recommendations, the Pentagon report urges an end to the military ban on sodomy between consenting adults, regardless of what Congress or the federal courts might do about “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the source told the Post.

The report also concludes that gay troops should not be put into a special class for equal employment or discrimination purposes, that person said. The recommendation is based on feedback the study group obtained from gay troops and same-sex partners who said they do not want a special classification, according to the source.

The report recommends few, if any, changes to policy covering military housing and benefits because the military must abide by the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex marriage.
Pentagon draft study shows low risk to ending ‘don’t ask’ policy

In a sharp setback, the United States and South Korea failed to reach agreement on an elusive free-trade deal but will continue pressing for an accord in the weeks ahead, President Obama said Thursday.

Obama had hoped to announce a deal on the long-stalled pact while in South Korea for meetings of the Group of 20 economic powers, but instead he will return home empty-handed.

“We have asked our teams to work tirelessly in the coming days and weeks to get this completed,” Obama said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

“We don’t want months to pass before we get this done,” Obama said. “We want this to be done in a matter of weeks.”

Prospects for reaching a deal seemed unlikely before Obama’s meeting and subsequent appearance with his South Korean counterpart.

At issue is a pact to slash tariffs and other barriers to trade, one that was signed in 2007 when previous administrations were in power. It remains unratified by lawmakers in both countries, and trade between the nations has slipped. The U.S. wants the deal to address a trade imbalance and beef access to South Korea’s market before submitting it to Congress.

Earlier in the day in a speech marking America’s Veterans Day, Obama condemned North Korea for continuing on “a path of confrontation and provocation” that he says deepens its isolation from the world and worsens the poverty of its people.

Obama said the reclusive communist nation must show a “seriousness of purpose” before the U.S. will restart six-party talks aimed at curbing the country’s drive to become a nuclear power.

He saluted the bravery of U.S. troops who defended South Korea during its war with North Korea.

Speaking at an Army garrison in a country where the U.S. keeps more than 28,000 troops, Obama said North Korea knows the path to prosperity and suggested its leaders take it.

“Because the Korean War ended where it began geographically, some used the phrase ‘Die for a Tie’ to describe the sacrifice of those who fought here,” Obama said. “But as we look around at this thriving democracy and its grateful, hopeful citizens, one thing is clear: This was no tie. This was victory.

“This was a victory then, and it is a victory today,” he said.

In the Veterans Day address, Obama said that, some 60 years after the war, the Korean peninsula provides the world’s clearest contrast between a society that is open and one that is closed, between a dynamic, growing nation like South Korea and a North Korea “that would rather starve its people than change.”

“It’s a contrast that’s so stark you can see it from space, as the brilliant lights of Seoul give way to utter darkness in the North,” he said, describing the difference as a direct result of the road taken by the reclusive, communist North.

Obama said the U.S. “will never waver” in its commitment to South Korea’s security and that North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security. He urged Pyongyang to take another path, a road that he said will offer its people growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty.

The commander in chief spoke inside a packed gymnasium, addressing a uniformed audience of service members from the different branches of the U.S. military. They surrounded him from all sides and many snapped photos as he spoke.

Obama condemned North Korea, saying its circumstances were not “an accident of history” but a direct result of the country choosing “a path of confrontation and provocation.” That path, Obama said, includes its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and the deadly sinking earlier this year of a South Korean warship.

“In the wake of this aggression, Pyongyang should not be mistaken: The United States will never waver in our commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea. We will not waver,” he said. “The alliance between our two nations has never been stronger, and along the with the rest of the world, we have made it clear that North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security.”

Obama said North Korea has another path available to it.

“If they choose to fulfill their international obligations and commitments to the international community, they will have the chance to offer their people lives of growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty — a future of greater security and greater respect; a future that includes the prosperity and opportunity available to citizens on this end of the Korean peninsula,” he said.

After the speech, Obama laid a wreath at a war memorial.
U.S. fails to reach free-trade deal with South Korea

President Obama visited the site of the 2008 terrorist attacks here Saturday, making it the first stop of his two-week trip to Asia in order to convey a message to plotters of that attack and others.

“In our determination to give our people a future of security and prosperity,” he said, “the United States and India stand united.”

Obama spoke with a group of hotel employees and other survivors gathered in a hotel courtyard shortly after checking into the hotel. He is the first foreign head of state to stay at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel since the attacks, an event known in India by the shorthand 26/11.

In a scene some local newscasters compare to President Bush’s bullhorn declaration from the rubble of the World Trade Center, Obama then stood in a hotel plaza overlooking the Arabian Sea to issue his own defiant message.

“By striking the places where our countries and people come together,” he said, “those who perpetrated these horrific attacks hoped to drive us apart . . . (but) today the United States and India are working together more closely than ever to keep our people safe.”

Later the president visited a museum devoted to the life of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. He also plans to meet with some 200 American business leaders who have traveled to India to join Obama at a business roundtable promoting trade between the two nations.

First and foremost, said Obama’s economic point man, the trip is about improving trade relations and creating new opportunities for American jobs.

Nevertheless, as the first event of his four-day stay in India, Obama chose to highlight the terrorist attacks and what he said was a shared commitment to fighting extremists around the world.

During the attacks two years ago, millions watched horrific and vivid images of smoke pouring from the windows of this hotel, in a coordinated attack by a terrorist organization based in Pakistan. More than 170 people died.

Fully renovated since then, the Taj hotel now stands as a symbol of India’s resilience, administration officials say. Obama wanted to recognize India’s rejection of terrorism, according to close advisers.

One of those who met with Obama today was Karambir Singh Kang, the hotel manager. He lost his wife, Niti, and their two sons in the attacks, but then went on to help save others.

“Mumbai is a symbol of the incredible energy and optimism that defines India in the 21st century,” Obama said. “And ever since those horrific days two years ago, the Taj has been the symbol of the strength and the resilience of the Indian people.”
Obama visits site of Mumbai attacks, praises India’s resilience

Aaron Shannon Jr. was a bumblebee last year for Halloween. His family didn’t have much money for a new costume, but his grandfather figured no self-respecting 5-year-old boy could be a bumblebee two years in a row — not this boy, anyway.

Bright and precocious, Aaron was treated like the mayor in his corner of South L.A. He shook so many hands and hugged so many teachers that it could take an hour just to pick him from up from school, where he had been in kindergarten for all of a few months. Adults marveled at his ability to hold his own in grownup conversations. He was an old soul and he was old-school — often coming up with silky dance moves while singing along with the Temptations.

He was not a bumblebee, so his grandfather showed up with a Spider-Man costume on Sunday, Halloween. “I’ve never seen him so excited,” 55-year-old William Shannon said.

Aaron tried it on, flexed his fake muscles and pretended to fire spider webs at his uncle. Then he dashed around the backyard of his house on East 84th Street. His grandfather tried to slow him down, but Aaron took a spill. He popped up, summoning as much bravery as he could, but soon whispered to his grandfather: “I hurt my hand.”

“I told him: ‘You’ll be all right,” William Shannon recalled. “‘Nothing can hurt Spider-Man.”

Twenty minutes later, Aaron was dead.

A bullet fired from the alley behind his house hit Aaron in the head. Aaron’s uncle and grandfather were wounded.

On Friday, authorities announced the arrest of two alleged gang members in connection with the shooting. Marcus Denson, 18, and Leonard Hall Jr., 21 are both suspected members of the Kitchen Crips gang, Deputy Police Chief Pat Gannon said. Denson and Hall were booked on murder charges and were each being held on $1-million bond.

Gannon said the suspects crossed into a rival gang’s territory looking for someone — anyone — to shoot as payback for a shooting earlier this year.

“They were not targeting any one individual,” Gannon said. “These are violent people with no sense of how their violence affects other people, including a young, innocent boy.”

Gannon said tips from the community led to the arrests — including tips from gang members, which is unusual.

“Nobody — absolutely nobody — thinks this is acceptable in any possible way,” Gannon said. Aaron’s family has met his death with immense sadness, but also with another emotion that is all too common in this part of town — a steely resignation that this is the way it’s always been and the way it’s always going to be.

“It’s not going to stop,” said Aaron’s father, 25-year-old Aaron Shannon Sr., who is studying law enforcement at a trade school. “This is the way people were brought up. It’s just their way of life.”

Aaron’s life had not been simple or easy. His mother, his grandfather said, had spent time in prison, and for a time Aaron was in foster care. A few years ago, he was about to move to Texas with his foster family; his family scrambled to intercede.

But in the last year, Aaron’s life had stabilized and he seemed unfazed by any of the turmoil. He split his time between his grandfather’s house in Compton, which was where he went to elementary school, and his great-grandmother’s duplex on East 84th Street in South Los Angeles.

The duplex is cream-colored, with lace curtains hanging on the front windows and a little rock and succulent garden out front. It is around the corner from a carwash, a fish market and a pool hall — and South Central Avenue, the dividing line between the territory claimed by two rival gangs, the Kitchen Crips and the Swan Bloods. It’s a place that suffered decades of declines as jobs disappeared and gangs took root.

“If I could afford to move, I would,” 78-year-old Mary Hall said Friday. She lives around the corner from the duplex where Aaron was shot, in the house she and her husband bought in 1956 after moving from Mississippi. Back then, the neighborhood felt safe. Now, she said, her 6-year-old great-grandson does all of his playing indoors.

Asked about the changes she has seen in the neighborhood, Hall called over her shoulder: “Oh, Lord.”

From the street, many of the little stucco houses in the area, most topped with red-tile roofs and fronted by tidy yards, look deceptively peaceful. It’s in the alleys behind the homes, though, where the gangs thrive.

Aaron’s backyard, which has a clothesline and a lemon tree, has a chain-link fence at the back. Beyond that is a fetid alley full of dark, standing water, a shattered mirror and an old couch. The walls of the alley are coated with graffiti — “playboy,” “scrappy,” “circle city.”

‘Nothing can hurt Spider-Man’ and then a deadly gunshot in South L.A.

In one declarative night, California on Tuesday confirmed its status as a political world unto itself, zigging determinedly Democratic while most of the rest of the country zagged Republican. Voters not only restored the governor’s office to Democratic hands, they may have given Democrats a sweep of statewide offices, though uncounted ballots could still shift one race.

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor’s race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

California Republicans had multiple reasons for head-shaking on Wednesday. For decades, the state party has squabbled over whether success would come more easily to candidates running as conservatives or those who presented a more moderate face to the state’s sizeable bloc of independent, centrist voters. This year they tried both. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina ran a firmly conservative race and Whitman took a more moderate road.

Holding their coastal strength, Democrats ran away with their big counties. Brown carried Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state’s voters, by 31 points, giving him almost 60% of his lead. Republican candidates, including Whitman, did better than Democrats in their traditional interior California strongholds. But the strong Republican counties tend to be heavier on acreage than voters.

On Tuesday each hit a double-digit dead end, as Fiorina lost to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Whitman came in a distant second to Brown.

Democratic successes in the midst of 2010’s national Republican renaissance marked a sharp turnabout from how the state behaved during the last major Republican year, in 1994. That year, as Republicans took back Congress, they won in California as well, picking up five of seven statewide offices, including the governorship, and adding legislative seats. This time, Democrats picked up a legislative seat despite Republican gains nationally, and were waiting for uncounted ballots to see whether they lost a congressional seat or two.

The difference between then and now rests on the changes in the California electorate. Those changes also explain the gulf that now exists between California and the nation. California in 1994 was more white and proportionately less Democratic than it is today, thus more similar to the country today. Nationally, non-whites made up only 22% of the Tuesday electorate; in California they made up 38%. Latinos nationally represented 8% of the national electorate, just shy of a third of their power in California. The California and national exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations, including television news networks and the Associated Press.

Tellingly, Latinos in California had a far more negative view of the GOP than other voters — almost 3 in 4 had an unfavorable impression, to 22% favorable. Among all California voters the view of Republicans was negative, but at a closer 61% negative and 32% positive. Latinos had a strongly positive view of Democrats, 58% to 37%, whereas all voters were closely split, 49% to 45%.

“The brand name is still a tremendous liability,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who runs a nonpartisan election-tracking publication. “People of color are just turned off by the Republican Party.”

Despite their efforts to appeal to Latinos, Whitman and Fiorina came under fire throughout the campaign for their views on illegal immigration. Fiorina supported Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law. Whitman, while opposing that measure, was pressed in her primary into talking about how she would be “tough as nails” toward illegal immigrants. The closing month of the campaign featured a controversy over Whitman’s firing of her illegal immigrant housekeeper; shortly before the election she said she favored the woman’s deportation.

Not surprisingly, Latino voters drawn to the polls because of the governor’s race went lopsidedly for Brown, 73% to 18%.

State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said the election results confirmed that party leaders and candidates needed to build stronger relationships with non-whites, and not just before an election.

“The reality is that Democrats have strong relationships with urban and immigration communities that Republicans have not had, and that must change,” he said. “It is not only a matter of politics; it is a matter of mathematics.”

But Nehring stressed that he was not advocating a change in Republican policy. “Republicans have stressed for decades that we support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration,” he said. “Despite saying that, that message has not resonated. It is not only a matter of how we talk about this issue, but how other people hear us.”

Views of the parties appeared strongly entrenched in California, however. Tellingly, the biggest vote-getter among Republicans was attorney general nominee Steve Cooley, who came into the race from a nonpartisan post as Los Angeles County’s district attorney and took pains Tuesday night to de-emphasize his party membership. Even with that, he was narrowly trailing Democrat Kamala Harris in a race so close it may not be decided for many days.

As election day dawned, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California by 2.3 million voters, a gap that has been growing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to pull significantly from Democratic-leaning groups, including independent voters and women, but Tuesday’s candidates were not able to replicate that success.

Brown, for example, drew 600,000 more votes than the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Phil Angelides. But Whitman drew 1.8 million fewer votes than Schwarzenegger had in 2006.

A persistent problem for Republicans in California, but an accelerant for them nationally, were views about Obama. Nationally he had a negative job-approval rating; in California, that flipped to a positive rating by 10 points. The results suggest that while Obama may not throw as large a shadow as he did with his record victory in California in 2008, he remains a formidable candidate in the state for 2012.

Asked whether Tuesday’s results suggested that Republicans would simply cede the state in 2012, Nehring demurred. “I think it is premature to make that determination,” he said.

But other Republicans suggested that their best chance for relevance in two years would be a continuation of the unsettled national environment that did not quite reach the California state line.

“You never say never,” said Hoffenblum. “Who would have predicted two years ago that Barack Obama and the Democrats would have crashed as quickly as they did? The temperature of the times is not normal.”

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
California went its own way

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

Pope Benedict XVI gave Australia its first saint Sunday, canonizing a 19th-century nun and also declaring five other saints in a Mass attended by tens of thousands of people.

Chants of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi” echoed throughout St. Peter’s Square as a raucous crowd of flag-and-balloon-bearing Australians cheered their native Mary MacKillop. In Sydney, huge images of the nun were projected onto the sandstone pylons of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Speaking in Latin on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, Benedict solemnly read out the names of each of the six new saints, declaring each one worthy of veneration in all the Catholic Church. Also among them was Brother Andre Bessette, a Canadian brother known as a “miracle worker” and revered by millions of Canadians and Americans for healing thousands of sick who came to him.

“Let us be drawn by these shining examples, let us be guided by their teachings,” Benedict said in his homily, delivered in English, French, Italian, Polish and Spanish to reflect the languages spoken by the church’s newest saints.

A cheer had broken out in the crowd when MacKillop’s name was announced earlier in the Mass, evidence of the significant turnout of Australians celebrating the humble nun who was briefly excommunicated in part because her religious order exposed a pedophile priest.

Even more MacKillop admirers– an estimated 10,000 — converged Sunday at the Sydney chapel where she is buried and at Sydney’s Catholic cathedral, where a wooden cross made from floorboards taken from the first school that MacKillop established was placed on the steps.

Thousands of others in Australia spent their Sunday evenings watching live broadcasts of the Vatican ceremony on television in homes and on large outdoor screens in Sydney; in Melbourne, where she was born; and in Penola, where she established her first school.

Born in 1842, MacKillop grew up in poverty as the first of eight children of Scottish immigrants. She moved to the sleepy farming town of Penola in southern Australia to become a teacher, inviting the poor and the Aborigines of the area to attend free classes in a six-room stable.

She co-founded her order, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, with the goal of serving the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, particularly through education.

“She supported Aboriginal people because she believed in supporting people who were disadvantaged,” said Melissa Brickell, a pilgrim from Melbourne who was in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the ceremony. “She is a friend of Aboriginal people from the early days.”

As a young nun in 1871, MacKillop and 47 other nuns from her order were briefly dismissed from the Roman Catholic Church in a clash with high clergy. In addition to bitter rivalries among priests, one of the catalysts for the move was that her order had exposed a pedophile priest.

Five months later, the bishop revoked his ruling from his deathbed, restoring MacKillop to her order and paving the way for her decades of work educating the poor across Australia and New Zealand.

In his homily, Benedict praised MacKillop for her “courageous and saintly example of zeal, perseverance and prayer.”

“She dedicated herself as a young woman to the education of the poor in the difficult and demanding terrain of rural Australia, inspiring other women to join her in the first women’s community of religious sisters of that country,” Benedict said in English.

MacKillop became eligible for sainthood after the Vatican approved a second miracle attributed to her intercession, that of Kathleen Evans, who was cured of lung and brain cancer in 1993.

In a statement Sunday, Evans said she was humbled by MacKillop’s example, grateful for her healing and overjoyed that MacKillop’s example will now be known to others.

“I think she would be delighted to see so many people looking at their own lives and considering how they can live better and care more,” said Evans, who brought relics of MacKillop up to the altar during the canonization Mass.

Veronica Hopson, 72, was MacKillop’s first miracle, cured of leukemia in 1961. She broke half a century of silence about her case, telling Australia’s Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program: “How does a miracle feel? I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to live my life, have a family, have grandchildren, so that’s a miracle.”

Hopson was 22 when she was diagnosed with leukemia and given only weeks to live. She said her mother contacted nuns at Saint Joseph’s convent in northern Sydney where Hopson was taught as a schoolgirl and where MacKillop once lived. The nuns brought cloth that MacKillop had worn and prayed for Hopson.

Hopson, who went on to have six children and now has four grandchildren, is recovering from recent bowel cancer. She said her miracle also carried a message for people who did not believe in God.

“I guess they must have some sort of hope, not just give in and just let the illness or sad things that happen in their life take over their life. Just keep hoping that it will get better,” she said.

Quebec’s flag was also out in force in St. Peter’s Square in support of Brother Andre, a Canadian brother who legend says healed thousands of sick who prayed with him at his Montreal oratory.

Born in 1845, Brother Andre was orphaned at the age of 12. After taking his religious vows, he devoted his life to helping others and gained a reputation as a healer. When he died in 1937 at the age of 91, an estimated 1 million people came to pay homage.

Benedict noted that Brother Andre was poorly educated but nevertheless understood what was essential to his faith.

“Doorman at the Notre Dame College in Montreal, he showed boundless charity and did everything possible to soothe the despair of those who confided in him,” Benedict said in French.

“I think all the people from Quebec are happy now,” said Alain Pilote, a 49-year-old pilgrim from Rougemont, near Montreal, who came to Rome for the Mass.

Australia’s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, was in Rome for the canonization, as was Canada’s foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon. The Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, joined thousands of Polish pilgrims to honor that country’s latest saint, Stanislaw Kazimiercyzk.

Also being canonized Sunday were Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola of Spain.
Pope canonizes first Australian saint, 5 others

Soul singer Solomon Burke, who wrote “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” and recorded the hit “Cry to Me” used in the movie “Dirty Dancing,” has died at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. He was 70.

Airport police spokesman Robert van Kapel confirmed the death of the “King of Rock and Soul” on Sunday, and referred further questions to his management.

Dutch national broadcaster NOS said Burke died on a plane early Sunday after arriving on a flight from Los Angeles. The cause of death was not immediately clear.

Burke, who was a Grammy winner and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had been due to perform at a well-known club in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

A Philadelphia native highly acclaimed by music critics, fellow musicians, and many loyal fans, Burke never reached the same level of fame as soul performers like James Brown or Marvin Gaye.

He wrote “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” in 1964 and it was quickly recorded by the Rolling Stones and Wilson Pickett, and later and perhaps most famously by the Blues Brothers.

Legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler once called Burke “the best soul singer of all time.”

Burke joined Atlantic in 1960 and went on to record a string of hits in a decade with the label.

According to his website, Burke was born March 21, 1940, “to the sounds of horns and bass drums” at the United Praying Band The House of God for All People in West Philly.

“From day one, literally God and gospel were the driving forces behind the man and his music,” his website said.

Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and won a Grammy a year later.

Those honors sparked a renewed interest in the singer, and he toured extensively around the world in recent years.

Burke and his band would play without set lists, instead performing whatever the audience wanted to hear.

“It’s like turning back the hands of time instantly,” he said on his website. “We can be in the middle of singing something from my recent ‘Like A Fire’ album, and they’ll call out ‘Stupidity’ from 1957 and we’re back 50 years!”

Burke combined his singing with the role of preacher and patriarch of a huge family of 21 children, 90 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren.

“Loving people,” he said at a recent performance in London, “is what I do.”
Singer Solomon Burke, 70, dies at Amsterdam airport

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