NY Post

By Ryan Sager

August 21, 2006 -- JONATHAN Tasini has less than a month to become New York's Ned Lamont. The Democratic primary is on Sept. 12, he's at 13 percent in the polls and he's just had his best fund-raising week ever online.
However, as Primary Day approaches, the "netroots" have yet to make the Tasini campaign a cause célèbre, with all the money and press attention that doing so would mean. This, despite the fact that the centrist, Iraq-War-supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton, presumptive frontrunner for the '08 Democratic presidential nomination, should by all rights be a much juicier target for the "progressive" Left than the washed-up Joe Lieberman ever was or could hope to be.

NY TIMES CALLS FOR CLINTON TO DEBATE TASINI

NEW YORK, NY - Jonathan Tasini, Democratic Senate candidate in New York, today released the following statement on The New York Times editorial (see below) which called on Hillary Clinton to agree to debate Tasini. The New York Times joins The New York Post, The Albany Times Union and Newsday in calling for a debate in the primary:

"Voices from across the spectrum are calling on Hillary Clinton to stop hiding behind her political machine and come out and debate the issues. Voters in New York have many questions of the incumbent and they deserve to have answers before they cast a vote on September 12th. Voters want to know who would best represent them on matters of security, the economy and civil rights. I am ready to debate my opponent any time and any place and as many times as we can agree on from now through September 12th. The Republicans have debated, the Democrats in the governor's and attorney general's race have debated. What is my opponent afraid of?"

Editorial
Hillary Clinton’s Low Profile

Published: August 21, 2006

With only a few weeks until New York’s Sept. 12 primary elections, many people are probably still unaware that Senator Hillary Clinton is facing a challenge for the Democratic nomination. Her opponent, Jonathan Tasini, is low on almost everything, from funds to name recognition. Mrs. Clinton has successfully ignored Mr. Tasini all summer, and now it seems clear that she has no intention of responding to his demands that she meet him in a debate.

She should change her mind. In a year when New York has very few competitive elections, voters are going to get very little chance to hear serious discussions from the candidates. Since Mr. Tasini is running an antiwar campaign, it would be very useful for New Yorkers to have a chance to hear the two Democratic candidates debate that one issue.

New York voters have been exposed to all the political drama in Connecticut over Senator Joseph Lieberman, who like Mrs. Clinton supported the invasion of Iraq. She has been far more critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war — a point the Clinton campaign makes pains to point out. But she has not been forced to discuss in great detail exactly what she thinks should be done now that things have gone so far awry in the Middle East.

Presuming she wins the primary, Mrs. Clinton will go up against a weak Republican candidate this fall. Anything can happen in an election, but there is a very good chance she could coast all the way to November without being tested on any important issue. Right now is a good time to make sure that does not happen.

NY1 Dismisses Calls for Tasini-Clinton Debate

On August 4, FAIR issued an action alert calling for New York cable news channel NY1 to allow Democratic antiwar candidate Jonathan Tasini to debate incumbent Sen. Hillary Clinton as part of its series of televised primary debates. NY1, which is owned by Time Warner, had created rules for participation that required candidates to not only stand at 5 percent in polls (Tasini has reached 13 percent) but to have raised or spent at least $500,000.

NY1 senior vice president Steve Paulus has responded (Associated Press, 8/15/06) that while $500,000 "seems like a lot of money" to many, "there are 5.5 million registered Democrats in New York. All Tasini would need is for each one to send him a dollar. Right now, with the money he's raised, he does not represent the party he claims to represent."

Paulus' suggestion that the amount of money a candidate raises defines whether he or she represents the party is absurd and dangerous; much of Clinton's campaign chest has come not from one dollar donations from registered New York Democrats but from wealthy corporate employees and their employers—like Time Warner, which according to FEC.gov has donated thousands of dollars to Clinton's campaign through its Political Action Committee. Clinton also received money from a July 16 fundraiser held for her by Rupert Murdoch, a conservative media mogul not known for supporting the Democratic Party or its interests. It would seem that voter signatures to put a candidate on the ballot (Tasini collected 40,000, well above the required 15,000) would be a better measure of that candidate's legitimacy within the party than an arbitrary amount of funds raised from such sources—or from any source.

Moreover, as an antiwar candidate challenging Clinton's pro-war record, Tasini would appear to represent the Democratic Party even better than Clinton on that central issue: A recent poll showed that 78 percent of Democrats want candidates who oppose the Iraq War (Zogby, 8/9/06).

An article in today's NYTimes reported the calculation of the non-partisan Congressional research branch of the monthly cost of maintaining military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. They estimated the cost at $8 billion a month, which comes out to roughly $260 million a day. Unbelievable.

An old man came up to me yesterday when I was out campaigning with Jonathan and said, "You'll regret this."

"Regret what?" I asked.

"Bringing our troops home from Iraq," he said. "You don't understand that we need to protect America." And he walked off.

I don’t think I’ll regret this. These wars aren’t protecting America and the cost is just too high. What I do regret is that for my generation the majority of our taxes will go to paying the debts from this war. At some point in my life, I had hoped to see the establishment of universal health care coverage, large public investment in green energy technologies, and functional public financing of elections. With each day this war continues, the possibility of witnessing any of those reforms realized becomes a more distant fantasy.