Return of the Swift Boaters

The Nation reports:

More than three years after John Kerry's bitter defeat, at the dawn of what looks like a far more promising campaign cycle for the Democrats, the party is still haunted by the specter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Once upon a time, "Swift boat" denoted an obscure military vessel, but thanks to the activities of this group it has come to represent movement conservatism's penchant for ruthlessly (and effectively) smearing any and all political opponents, from a sitting senator and war hero to an 11-year-old boy with a cranial fracture.

Research by The Nation into Federal Election Commission records of the group's top twenty donors reveals that they've been remarkably active in this cycle, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to presidential candidates. This does not bode well. During the last presidential campaign, the wealthy backers of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--now rebranded as Swift Vets and POWs for Truth--didn't do their real dirty work until the general election, where as a tax-exempt 527 group they operated outside the restraints of direct campaign contributions. We may wish we were done with the Swift Boaters, but they aren't done with us.

In 2004 the top twenty donors all gave (with one exception) at least $50,000 to the group. The top three--Houston home builder Bob Perry, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and billionaire drugstore impresario and investor Harold Simmons--gave a combined $9.5 million ($4.45 million, $3 million and $2 million, respectively). Calculating the influence of these and the slightly less wealthy Swift Boat donors during this cycle is a touch more complicated than simply adding up their contributions. Each one exerts far more influence as a bundler, given the federal restrictions on individual giving, which limit donors to a maximum of $4,600 per cycle. So The Nation looked not only at the contributions of the donors themselves but also at those of their family members and employees. It's an imperfect method, since some employees are clearly contributing of their own volition (such as one employee of a Simmons company who gave money to Hillary Clinton), but it gives a rough estimate of who's backing whom and to what extent.

The most notable recipient of Swift Boat largesse is John McCain, erstwhile front-runner and Stand Up Guy. When the Swift Boat ads were first unleashed, McCain was alone among his Republican colleagues to condemn them. A fellow Vietnam veteran, a good friend of Kerry's and a former target of smears about his own service, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable," a "cheap stunt," and he urged Bush to condemn them. But in pursuit of the GOP nomination, McCain ditched the mantle of maverick for that of hack, and his once-floundering, possibly rejuvenated campaign has been aided along the way by $61,650 from Swift Boat donors and their associates. "There is such a thing as dirty money," said Senator Kerry in a statement, after The Nation informed him of McCain's FEC records. "I'm surprised that the John McCain I knew who was smeared in 2000 and thought so-called Swift Boating was wrong in 2004 would feel comfortable taking their money after seeing the way it was used to hurt the veterans I know he loves." (McCain's office did not return calls for comment.)

McCain's Swift Boat bounty is exceeded only by that of Mitt Romney, who has raked in $70,550. Romney's success with Swift Boat donors is significant because he has surpassed even McCain in his demonstrated willingness to do or say anything in pursuit of the presidency and because he has emerged as the GOP establishment's favored candidate. Last year, when McCain held that position, the Arizona senator received significant backing from Swift Boat donors. But many have subsequently switched their allegiance. Pickens, who donated to McCain in June 2006, is now an enthusiastic Giuliani donor and fundraiser (Giuliani ranks third in Swift Boat funding, with $47,950). Perry, who also recorded several donations to McCain's PAC in 2005 and 2006, is now a major donor and fundraiser for Romney. If the list of top Swift Boat donors is expanded to fifty, Romney's fundraising edge is even more pronounced. (Neither Romney nor Giuliani's campaign returned calls for comment.)

Also noticeable among the recipients of Swift Boat largesse is one who received only a single donation: Mike Huckabee. Despite meager fundraising and little national name recognition, the former Arkansas governor has experienced a bubble-like expansion of support and media attention, taking the lead in Iowa and approaching a steady lead in national polls. But the lack of Swift Boat contributions lends credence to the claim that Huckabee is viewed warily by the money men who call the shots in the modern GOP. Despite proposing a radically regressive tax change and taking Grover Norquist's antitax pledge, he's been attacked savagely by the Club for Growth and eviscerated by columnist George Will for "comprehensive apostasy against core Republican beliefs," among them "free trade, low taxes, the essential legitimacy of America's corporate entities and the market system allocating wealth and opportunity."

This all supports the notion that the people behind the Swift Boat operation are chiefly concerned with the continued upward redistribution of wealth that is, more or less, the contemporary GOP's raison d'être. In 2006 Perry ponied up $5 million to start the Economic Freedom Fund, a 527 group devoted to attacking Democratic incumbents, and landed a large donation from prominent Swift Boat donor Carl Lindner. All of which is to say that the Swift Boaters aren't some kind of side show, a coterie of vicious mudslingers operating at the edges of respectability. They are the show. They are modern conservatism's core funders and beneficiaries. With conservatives staring straight into the abyss, their activities in this election cycle could very well make the Swift Boat smears look tame by comparison.

Romney and Huckabee's Religious Intolerance

Nonbelievers have long been more tolerant of believers in office than the other way around.

At Salon.com, Joe Conason writes:

Distasteful as all the Bible thumping and ostentatious piety of the Republican presidential aspirants certainly are, the time may have come to address their religious pretensions directly, instead of turning away in mild disgust. For the truth is that no matter how often candidates like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee promise to uphold the Constitution and protect religious freedom, they are clearly seeking to impose the restrictive tests of faith that the nation's founders abhorred.

The most egregious offender against basic American civics today is Huckabee, who told a group of students at Liberty University, the center of higher learning founded by the late Jerry Falwell, that his sudden rise in the Iowa polls is an act of God. He compared the improvement in his political fortunes to the New Testament miracle of the loaves and fishes. He wasn't joking, as both his demeanor and his words demonstrated.

The Rev. Huckabee has proved willing to risk his oversold reputation as the "nice" evangelical with a primary strategy that draws attention to his qualifications as a "Christian leader," in contrast to the suspect Mormonism of Romney. Huckabee was honest enough not to deny that he believes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult -- and in fact, many if not most of his fellow Southern Baptists regard the LDS church as a satanic cult.

In response, Romney delivered an address that simultaneously pleaded for religious tolerance and urged intolerance of what he termed the "religion of secularism." The former Massachusetts governor at once declined to discuss the specific dogmas of his own faith while seeking to convince the bigots in his political party that, like them, he accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God and his Savior. (Actually, Mormon beliefs about Jesus, which Romney insists he will not abandon, are considerably more complicated than his speech implied and bear little resemblance to the theology of orthodox Christianity.)

Whatever bland assurances they may offer to the contrary, both Romney and Huckabee have implicitly endorsed religious tests for a presidential candidacy. Both suggest that only leaders who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are qualified to lead. Huckabee says that we should choose a president who speaks "the language of Zion," meaning a fundamentalist Christian like himself. Romney says that among the questions that may appropriately be asked of aspiring presidential candidates is what they believe about Jesus Christ, a question he endeavored to answer in a way that would assuage suspicions about his own religion.

So if these two worthy gentlemen seek to exploit or extol their own faith, why should we bar ourselves from exploring the subject more deeply? They have invited a discussion of the sublime and the absurd in their religious doctrines, and of how those doctrines would influence them in office. We have already seen the destruction inflicted on America and the world by a dogmatic chief executive who believes that God urged him to wage war. (And let's not forget that Rudolph Giuliani, among others, has echoed the notion that President Bush was divinely chosen and inspired.)

We can begin with Romney's speech Thursday, in which he declared, as Joan Walsh noted with alarm, that there can be no liberty without faith. "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom ... Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

This statement is so patently false that it scarcely deserves refutation. If Romney has studied the bloody history of his own church, then he knows that the religious fervor of its adversaries drove them to deprive the Mormons not only of their freedom but their lives, and that the Mormons reacted in kind. If he has studied the bloody history of the world's older religions, then he knows that the most devout Christians of all sects have not hesitated to suppress, torture and murder "heretics" throughout history. Only the strictest separation of church and state has permitted the establishment of societies where freedom of conscience prevails -- and those freedoms are firmly rooted in societies where organized religion has long been in decline.

Surely Romney knows that Mormonism, in particular, was historically hostile to liberty for blacks as well as women. The founders of his church believed that God had cursed the world's dark-skinned people. They rejected abolitionism and later the civil rights movement. And their acceptance of full membership for African-Americans in the LDS church dates back only 30 years.

If Romney is going to attack humanists and secularists as "wrong," then let him explain why they were so far ahead of his church on the greatest moral issues of the past half-century.

As for Huckabee, let him answer a few pertinent questions about his faith, too. Does he actually believe in creationist dogma that insists the planet is less than 10,000 years old, and that humans once walked with dinosaurs? How would that loony idea influence his science policies as president? Is he a believer in "end times" eschatology, which holds that American foreign policy should be shaped by the coming Armageddon in the Middle East? Would he apply the harsh punishments of the Old Testament to biblical sins such as homosexuality and adultery?

Phonies like Huckabee and Romney complain constantly about the supposed religious intolerance of secular liberals. But the truth is that liberals -- including agnostics and atheists -- have long been far more tolerant of religious believers in office than the other way around. They helped elect a Southern Baptist named Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976, and today they support a Mormon named Harry Reid who is the Senate majority leader -- which makes him the highest-ranking Mormon officeholder in American history. Nobody in the Democratic Party has displayed the slightest prejudice about Reid's religion.

Liberals and progressives have no apologies to make, or at least no more than libertarians and conservatives do. Cherishing the freedoms protected by a secular society need not imply any disrespect for religion. But when candidates like Romney and Huckabee press the boundaries of the Constitution to promote themselves as candidates of faith, it is time to push back.

Cheney Heads to Utah for a Private Speech

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Vice President Dick Cheney will speak to a super-secret,conservative policy group in Utah on Friday during his second trip to the state this year.

Cheney will address the fall meeting of the Council for National Policy, a group whose self-described mission is to promote "a free-enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional Western values."

The organization -- made up of few hundred powerful conservative activists -- holds confidential meetings and members are advised not to use the name of the group in communications, according to a New York Times profile of the group.

"The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before [or] after a meeting,'' a list of rules obtained by The Times showed. The group did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Czech Republic President Václav Klaus is also expected to address the Council for National Policy's meeting in downtown Salt Lake City. After his speech, Cheney will meet with Klaus, the vice president's office said Tuesday.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, will also be in Utah on Friday but his campaign did not respond to a question about whether he would talk with the group.

Cheney's visit is expected to be short, only a few hours, according to people familiar with the trip's details. The trip coincides with fundraisers in California, Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming, Cheney's spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.

All of the events on the trip are closed to the public and the news media, McBride said.

Cheney last visited the state April 26 to give the commencement speech at Brigham Young University.

What Was It Like For Romney's Dog?

Scientists weigh in on Mitt Romney's dog's experience of being on roof of car for 12-hour road trip.

ABC News reports:

It may sound like a scene from Chevy Chase's "National Lampoon's Vacation." Mom and Dad pack their five boys into a white Chevy station wagon, load the luggage into the back, strap the dog to the top of the car and begin the annual family road trip from Boston to their summer home in Ontario.

Actually, it's not a movie. It's the true story of Mitt Romney's 1983 family vacation, according to an article in Wednesday's Boston Globe.

The article pegged Romney, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, as a family man, father to five sons, adoring husband and dog's not-so best friend. Using a 1983 family vacation to talk about Romney's family values, a shocking paragraph caught the eye of animal rights groups and angered pet owners across the country.

"Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog," read the article.

Jordan Kaplan, the owner of Petaholics, a dog walking service in New York City, and a lifelong dog owner and dog lover, said Romney's actions were uncalled for.

"It would be one thing if someone put it down or forgot and then drove 50 feet and realized what they did," said Kaplan. "I don't know anyone who would purposefully do that to a dog."

Physicist Dr. W.J. Llope, a senior faculty fellow at Rice University in the department of physics and astronomy, has his theory about the Romney's decision to strap Seamus to the top of the car.

"Seeing the inside of the car is full, Romney absentmindedly says to himself, 'Where am I going to put ole Seamus here?' and hearing his name, the dog says, 'Roof, roof,'" said Llope.

What Happens to a Dog on a Roof Traveling 50 MPH?

All kidding aside, what exactly would be the dangers of strapping the family pet to the roof of a speeding vehicle for 12 hours?

Llope said putting a dog on top of a car is just like putting anything or anyone else on the roof.

"What happens to a dog in this situation is precisely what would happen to any of us in the same situation: Trapped in a box for 12 hours would be no one's idea of comfortable," said Llope.

Dr. Russell Cumming, a professor of aerospace engineering at California Polytechnic State University, got a little more technical.

"At that speed, assuming sea level conditions, the poor little dog would have about 10 pounds per square foot pressing against his head," said Cumming.

And in layman's terms?

"He would constantly feel a little less than 3 pounds pressing on his head for the entire trip," he added. "The windshield would help, but boy that would get tired."

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Douglas Osheroff of physics at Stanford University said the dog crate on top of the car would change the air flow around the vehicle.

"Beyond a certain velocity, the air flow becomes turbulent," said Osheroff. "The airflow isn't going to be laminar," which means it won't have a uniform distribution.

Cumming said that's bad news for Seamus.

"Chances are the windshield would only protect the front of the dog, but the air flowing around the windshield would buffet the side of the dog -- that would be tiring," said Cummings. "My wife's a vet, and she would be more worried by the dehydration of the dog's eyes under those conditions."

In addition to dehydration, fatigue and fright, Seamus was strapped on top of a car for 12 hours with limited or no bathroom breaks -- a condition that was highlighted in the Boston Globe article.

"A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours," the article said.

After his son noticed the liquid, Romney pulled the car over and hosed down Seamus at a gas station before putting him back into the crate on top of the car and continuing on with the drive.

Just a Sign of the Times?

The incident happened more than 20 years ago, at a time when Pet Palaces and Doggie Day Cares didn't exist, so were the Romneys just following a trend? Maybe, said Kaplan, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable.

"Certainly, a lot has changed as to how we view our dogs, our pets since 1983. The dogs would stay in the basement with just a bowl of food, and now we have products and services for dogs that didn't exist 20 years ago," said Kaplan. "But I just couldn't imagine anyone would ever do that to a pet. What if they got hit? I would never do that to any animal."

But Osheroff said the inside of a car may not be any safer for the family pooch in the case of an accident.

"In general, if you have a dog in a car, that dog is not wearing a seat belt. And I dare say there were no seat belts for dogs [in 1983], so I don't know if it makes any difference where the dog is," said Osheroff.

He equated it to a dog riding in the back of a pick up truck, a sight commonly seen on America's roadways.

Political Implications: Pet Lovers Protest Romney

Will this nearly quarter-century-old tale affect Romney's presidential bid in 2008? That remains to be seen, but for now pet owners across the country are speaking out in defense of dearly departed Seamus.

Dog lovers certainly aren't happy. Thousands of readers have posted comments on The New York Times Web site attached to a blog discussing the anecdote.

"This can't be real, this has to be a joke, right? Who, in their right mind straps their dog to the roof of the car? I don't care if he's got a windshield on this dog carrier," read one comment.

"I'm also amazed the story didn't end with the death of the dog," read another. "Did he make any trips where he strapped his wife or one of his children up there?"

Others related Romney's actions to the type of president he would be.

"The people who will vote for him are those who think torturing animals, making them suffer is OK. He's a disgusting man, presidential candidate, NOT," wrote one poster.

Yet others seem to think Romney's seemingly lack of concern for Seamus' well-being was a quality that will help him win over voters.

"Mitt Romney will be a great president, he can think dispassionately, with a clear head and objectively," one poster said.

Romney's Dog Story: "Really, He Loved Riding On The Car Roof"

USA Today reports:

Republican Mitt Romney is moving up in the polls, at least when it comes to a story about him and an Irish setter.

Nearly 140 bloggers in the last two days have linked to a Time article on this nugget mined from a seven-part Boston Globe series on the former governor: In 1983, Romney's dog made a 12-hour trip from Boston to Ontario in a kennel lashed to the top of the family station wagon.

Time's discussion of the incident is the third most popular news story this afternoon, topped only by the release of the iPhone and discovery of a car bomb in London.

What happened with the dog?

The Associated Press described it this way: "Seamus expressed his discomfort with a diarrhea attack. When Romney's eldest son, Tagg, and his four brothers complained about the brown runoff down the back windshield, their father quietly pulled the car over, borrowed a gas station hose and sprayed down both the dog and the kennel before returning to the road."

The anecdote was supposed to showcase Romney's cool-headed management skills. But Time headlined its account "Romney's Cruel Canine Vacation" and said what happened might be against the law. Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told the magazine it was "a lesson in cruelty" for Romney's kids.

Needless to say, Democrats and liberals are getting a big kick out of the story. "Romney did what?" says the headline at the North Carolina Democratic Party. Over at Get Down!, it's "Mr. Handsome tortures his dog."

For the record, Romney said Thursday that his dog liked being on the roof. "He scrambled up there every time we went on trips," he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, the AP reported.

Wealth Is A Common Factor Among 2008 Candidates

The NYT reports:
Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who just six years ago told a divorce court he had only $7,000 in assets under his control, has amassed a net worth of more than $30 million, much of it from paid speeches.

Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who has spent the last three years crusading against poverty, also reported about $30 million in assets. His income included nearly half a million dollars for advising an elite investment fund and $40,000 for directing a poverty studies program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Edwards reported their assets in personal financial disclosure forms released Wednesday by the Federal Election Commission. Federal election laws require all the presidential candidates to file the forms. Together, they offer a glimpse of the general affluence of all the primary candidates and the truly extreme wealth of a few.

Neither Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, nor Mr. Edwards, a Democrat, is the richest of the White House hopefuls. That title belongs to Mitt Romney, a founder of the private equity firm Bain Capital, who has said he expects to report as much as $350 million in assets, including a trust for his heirs. Mr. Romney and Senator John McCain of Arizona, both Republicans, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, have all received extensions of the filing deadline for their forms.

Mr. Giuliani’s $30 million fortune is the most unexpected information to emerge from the disclosure forms so far. During his divorce from Donna Hanover in June 2001, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani said he had only $7,000 in personal money “under his control.” His salary as mayor of New York at the time was about $195,000, and his local financial disclosure forms showed less than $800,000 in deferred compensation, pension, retirement and mutual funds. He had also signed a contract to write two books for an advance of $3 million.

The latest disclosure form suggests that his biggest source of income was speeches, capitalizing on his celebrity after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For the period covered by the form — roughly the calendar year 2006 — Mr. Giuliani reported making 124 speeches for as much as $200,000 each and earning a total of about $11.4 million.

Self-help and motivational rallies were his top audiences. He made about 26 speeches at events staged by Get Motivated Seminars, the company of the impresario Zig Ziglar, and 8 more at major events put on by the executive education group HSM.

Mr. Giuliani put a value of $5 million to $25 million on his stake in his consulting firm, Giuliani & Company, which he said paid him about $4.1 million last year. He said he received about $1.2 million in income from his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani, who opened a New York office for what had been a Texas firm, said the $1.2 million he received reflected a guaranteed payment of $1 million a year from the firm, plus 7.5 percent of the New York office’s revenue.

Mr. Giuliani’s book has apparently sold well enough to earn royalties covering his $3 million advance; he reported $146,092 in book royalties in 2006. In addition, Mr. Giuliani reported $496 in theatrical royalties. A spokesman for his campaign said Mr. Giuliani earned that money for playing himself in the films “Anger Management” and “The Out-of-Towners,” as well as for guest appearances on the television programs “Law & Order” and “Saturday Night Live.”

Mr. Edwards, who earned his millions as a trial lawyer before running for the Senate in 1998, reported assets worth $14.3 million to $44.7 million in 2004. Since leaving office that year, he has devoted most of his energy to promoting efforts to help the poor, but he has recently faced questions about signing on part time in 2005 as an adviser to the hedge fund manager Fortress Investment Group.

Like many hedge funds — loosely regulated investment companies open only to the rich — some Fortress funds are incorporated in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes. Fortress has invested in a firm that lent high-interest rate mortgages to low-income homeowners. A recent wave of foreclosures on such so-called subprime mortgages has elicited accusations from Mr. Edwards and others that some firms had engaged in predatory lending. Mr. Edwards has said he was not involved in any specific Fortress investments in that business.

Mr. Edwards’s financial disclosure form shows that he received $479,512 from Fortress in 2006; the forms did not cover 2005. In addition, the forms show that Mr. Edwards sold several million dollars in other assets to personally invest in Fortress funds. His disclosure form put the value of his holdings in Fortress funds at $11.2 million to $24.7 million.

Mr. Edwards has said he joined Fortress both to make money and to learn about finance.

Mr. Edwards’s campaign said he gave $350,000 to charities in 2006, including $333,334 in book royalties.

Eric Schultz, a spokesman for Mr. Edwards, said: “The bottom line is, if you look at where John Edwards comes from and his record, it’s clear what makes him tick: helping those who haven’t been as blessed as he has been. John Edwards is running for president to give every American the opportunities that he’s had.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, another Democratic candidate, also disclosed an investment of more than $50,000 in the Fortress Investment Group. Mr. Dodd reported total assets of more than $1.5 million and a cottage in County Galway, Ireland, that he valued at $100,000 to $250,000.

Not all the candidates were so flush. Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, reported assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars but also said he owed more than $30,000 in car loans and more than $75,000 in credit card debt. His was the only disclosure form to be filled out in handwriting.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, reported owning more than $100,000 in stock and options worth at least $250,000 in a major oil refiner on whose board he once sat.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican, reported assets valued at less than $700,000, including his retirement benefits as a former Southern Baptist minister. He earned about $150,000 in royalties from his book about his weight loss.

Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a libertarian-minded Republican who often warns that excessive government threatens the economy, has put his pessimism into his portfolio. If the dollar collapses, Mr. Paul will be ready: his favorite investments are real estate, silver and gold.

Giuliani Shifts Stance On Abortion Method

The GOP candidate’s support for a high court ruling contrasts his position in 1997.

The LATimes reports:

The Supreme Court decision Wednesday upholding a ban on a controversial abortion procedure heightens the issue's visibility in the 2008 presidential race and spotlights a shift in position by Republican candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani.

The former New York mayor and other top Republicans vying for the White House welcomed the ruling while leading Democratic contenders said they deplored it.

Giuliani, the only major Republican candidate who supports abortion rights, has tried for months to mollify conservative critics.

On Wednesday, he praised the court for upholding the ban on the midterm procedure. "The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion," Giuliani said in a statement released by his campaign. "I agree with it."

His praise for the ruling contrasts his position while seeking reelection as mayor in 1997. On an abortion rights group's questionnaire, Giuliani circled "yes" next to the question of whether he would oppose "legislation that would make criminals of doctors who perform intact D&X abortions" — the technical term for what critics call "partial-birth" abortions.

Kelli Conlin, president of the abortion rights group, now known as NARAL Pro-Choice New York, accused Giuliani of "flip-flopping." "I am absolutely astounded that Mayor Giuliani would do a 180-degree pivot on his former position," she said.

Asked to explain his change in views, Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella said the 2003 ban upheld Wednesday included "an appropriate exception for threats to the life of the mother."

In addition to supporting abortion rights, Giuliani supports public funding of abortion. But he often says he hates abortion and would advise women not to have one. He has also vowed to appoint "strict constructionists" to the federal bench, a term antiabortion groups often use to refer to judges who would overturn Roe vs. Wade.

But on Saturday, Giuliani irked abortion opponents by telling a group of Iowa Republicans that the party "has to get beyond issues like that."

"That wasn't received very well by the pro-life movement," said Jim Backlin, vice president for legislative affairs at the Christian Coalition of America.

For Republicans, abortion is a key issue in the 2008 race for the White House. Sen. John McCain of Arizona has highlighted his support for outlawing abortion in an effort to mend his own frayed relations with conservatives. Mitt Romney, who supported abortion rights when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002, now describes himself as "pro-life," fueling accusations that he vacillates on core issues for political gain.

Illegal Immigrants Worked For Romney

The Boston Globe reports:

Outside his aqua-colored concrete house here, Rene Alvarez Rosales paused under an almond tree to answer questions about a subject with which he has surprising familiarity: Governor Mitt Romney's Belmont lawn.

For about eight years, Rosales said, he worked on and off landscaping the grounds at Romney's home, occasionally getting a "buenos dias" from Romney or a drink of water from his wife, Ann.

"She is very nice," said Rosales, 49.

About 6 miles away in Copado, a 37-year-old man who recently returned to Guatemala from the United States told a similar story, describing long days tending Romney's 2 1/2-acre grounds.

"They wanted that house to look really nice," said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous. "It took a long time."

As Governor Mitt Romney explores a presidential bid, he has grown outspoken in his criticism of illegal immigration. But, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house on Marsh Street in Belmont.

The Globe recently interviewed four current and former employees of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, the tiny Chelsea-based company that provides upkeep of Romney's property. All but one said they were in the United States illegally.

The employees told the Globe that company owner Ricardo Saenz never asked them to provide documents showing their immigration status and knew they were illegal immigrants.

"He never asked for papers," said Rosales, who said he had paid smugglers about $5,000 to take him across the US-Mexican border and settled in Chelsea.

The workers said they were paid in cash at $9 to $10 an hour and sometimes worked 11-hour days.
Romney never inquired about their status, they said.

In addition to maintaining the governor's property, they also tended to the lawn at the house owned by Romney's son, Taggart, less than a mile away on the same winding street.

Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

Several hours later, his spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, provided the Globe with a statement saying that the governor knows nothing about the immigration status of the landscaping workers, and that his dealings were with Saenz, who is a legal immigrant from Colombia.

Fehrnstrom said that Romney would look into the matter further.

"We'll see what happens from here on out," Fehrnstrom said. "If the Globe has information on people that are in the country illegally, obviously that would have to be verified. . . . We've already taken the first step in that direction by calling Mr. Saenz."

The situation underscores the extent to which illegal immigrants permeate the US economy. Even as Romney travels the country, vowing to curb the flood of low-skilled illegal immigrants into the United States, some of those workers maintain his own yard, cutting grass, pruning shrubs, and mulching trees.

Saenz said he met Romney through the Mormon Church and said Romney has used his company's services for a decade. Saenz said Romney never asked him if his workers are legal immigrants.

"He doesn't have to ask," Saenz said. "I'm a company."

Saenz asserted that all the workers he used were in the United States legally. Told by reporters that his employees said they were in this country illegally, Saenz responded: "What you've heard is not my problem."

Saenz said he had never requested any proof from his employees to show they are here legally.

"I don't need to tell them to show me documents," he said. "I know who they are, and they are legal."

Federal law calls for employers to examine the documents, such as green cards or Social Security cards, that establish an employee's identity and eligibility to work in the United States.

The Globe received a tip in July alleging that Romney was using illegal immigrants to landscape his property. Reporters then observed the lawn service workers outside Romney's house more than a dozen times, sometimes as frequently as twice a week.

Reporters tracked down four current and former employees of the company at their homes in Chelsea and in Guatemala. All had landscaped Romney's property while working for Community Lawn Service with a Heart, and their tenure ranged from one worker who had joined the company just a month ago to another who had worked there 10 years.
The workers said they found the jobs at the landscaping company through other Guatemalan immigrants after arriving in Chelsea.

Of the four interviewed, only one said he was in the United States legally, showing a reporter his Social Security card and a Massachusetts driver's license, which the reporter checked against public databases to verify its authenticity. The other workers acknowledged they had no genuine documents, though some said they purchased fake documents, and described harrowing trips to the United States, eluding authorities and paying thousands for their passage. The interviews were conducted in Spanish.

The undocumented workers appear to be a significant presence at the tiny company. Reporters who observed the company in recent months never saw more than three people working at any time. Typically two men were working on any given day.

Community Lawn Service also provides landscaping for a Massachusetts Port Authority property in Revere and public school grounds in Chelsea. The Globe reported in June that companies using undocumented workers had received state contracts, triggering intense debate on Beacon Hill. Romney and GOP lawmakers have supported an effort to prohibit the practice.

The workers who had landscaped Romney's property seemed unaware of the governor's support for stricter controls on illegal immigration. Several described casual encounters with Romney over the years and said he had never expressed any curiosity about their status.

Rosales recalled Romney sometimes waving as they tended to the grounds, which include a tennis court and swimming pool. Romney occasionally called out, "buenos dias," drawing good-natured laughter from the workers. Ann Romney was friendly, Rosales said, and he said she brought them water on one particularly hot day.

Romney has been critical of illegal immigration as he touts himself to Republican primary voters as a conservative alternative to Senator John McCain, who has teamed up with Senator Edward M. Kennedy to push for a middle ground approach on the issue.

Romney supports construction of a new 700-mile fence along the country's border with Mexico and stationing National Guard troops at the border until it is finished.

He also said that employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants should be penalized. After the Globe's story in June about contractors on public projects using illegal immigrants, the governor announced he would seek an agreement with federal immigration authorities to allow Massachusetts State Police to arrest illegal immigrants for being in this country illegally.

In September, on Fox TV's "The O'Reilly Factor," Romney said the border must be secured and restated his support for the fence along the Mexican border, prompting host Bill O'Reilly to dub it "the Mitt Romney Memorial wall."

The experience of the workers on Romney's property seems far removed from the political rhetoric.

The worker in Copado said a state trooper stationed in Romney's driveway once inquired about his immigration status, about six months ago. Saenz, the company owner, who was at the property at the time, told the trooper that the worker was in the country legally, but had forgotten his papers, the worker told the Globe. The trooper never inquired again, said the worker, who repeatedly returned to the governor's property but avoided the trooper. Saenz told reporters he did not recall the incident.

Both the Copado resident and Rosales said they took the landscaping jobs to earn money for their families back home. After making it to the US-Mexican border, they crossed the Arizona desert on foot. When they finally arrived in Chelsea, where friends and family lived, they did odd jobs and eventually found work at Community Lawn Service with a Heart.

They said they were grateful for the work. About 80 percent of Guatemalans live in poverty, according to the US State Department. The workers said they made far more at Community Lawn Service than they could in their Central American homeland.

"It was a good job," said the worker in Copado, not far from a stream where local women wash their clothes. "I didn't make a lot, but I earned $16,000 working for that company." He said he returned to Guatemala after four years because he missed his wife and daughter and has used his earnings to buy a pickup truck and land on which to build a small house.

Another of the undocumented workers, who has been living in Chelsea for two years and joined the landscaping firm a month ago, is finding life here hard.

"The truth is, it's very difficult," the 46-year-old worker said. "One lives day to day."

The one legal Guatemalan immigrant interviewed by the Globe, who has done work at the Romney property numerous times, has been a constant presence at the landscaping company. But he said Saenz regularly hired illegal workers to work alongside him. He said exchanges with the governor on the property are rare.

"The one who talks to us is the wife," said the legal immigrant. "She asks how we are."

The issue of illegal immigrant laborers has been tricky and sometimes damaging to political figures. President Clinton's first two nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, saw their chances dim after it was reported that they had employed illegal immigrants as nannies.

In 1994, Republican Michael Huffington lost his bid for the US Senate after acknowledging he had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny for five years.

Mitt Romney's Summer Home

The AP reports:
Like a lot of Massachusetts residents, Gov. Mitt Romney prefers New Hampshire in the summertime. He spends as many summer weekends as he can at his 11-acre Lake Winnipesaukee estate, which boasts more than 700 feet of waterfront, a six-bedroom mansion, stable, guest quarters and a boathouse, which at 2,700 square feet is bigger than most people's homes.

By all accounts, the Romneys are good neighbors — amiable and low key. And Wolfeboro, an old resort town where locals take pride in not fussing over wealthy and celebrity residents, seems to suit Romney, a Republican who made a fortune as a venture capitalist before becoming governor in 2003. Except for the Massachusetts state trooper discreetly shadowing him, he's just another millionaire browsing the hardware store or eating soft-serve ice cream.

That won't be the case if Romney, whose term expires next year, follows through on signs he will run for president in 2008 — and wins.

"Just wait. It will be a massive change," says Donald Fiske, head selectman in Kennebunkport, Maine, which was President George H.W. Bush's summer White House from 1989-92. "I would say to Wolfeboro, you don't really know what the possibilities are of how your town will be affected."

Wolfeboro, population 6,500, has hosted its share of the rich and famous: Monaco's Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, Drew Barrymore, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and members of the Black & Decker and Marriott hotel clans all have (or had) connections to the area. Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole vacationed in Wolfeboro in 1993. Three years later he lost the New Hampshire primary to Pat Buchanan, though he went on to win the GOP nomination.

But veterans of "Kennebushport," 76 miles to the northeast, say no amount of Hollywood exposure can prepare a town for the crush of security around a summer White House.

George Herbert Walker Bush, known as '41' around Kennebunkport, has spent nearly every summer of his life at his family's oceanfront property there. But the easy familiarity with the boy who played in the summer baseball league was a distant memory by the time he became president, said Fiske, 64.

"Everything ground to a halt if he was going to play golf or if he was on the move to the airport," Fiske said. He remembers the scene: helicopters overhead, Coast Guard cutters offshore, Secret Service snipers watching the town square, media vans everywhere. Locals got used to checklists and traffic stops. Lobstermen, tired of having their boats searched, stopped throwing traps in a cove near Bush's home.

Tourism and businesses benefited, but Kennebunkport also was targeted by activist groups, and it took more than a year for the federal government to reimburse the town for police overtime costs, Fiske said.

He said Kennebunkport gets a reminder of those days whenever '43,' President George W. Bush, pays a visit.

"The town goes into a lockdown form of protectiveness when 43's around," Fiske said. "That is where Wolfeboro will see the major difference. It's going to be the protective walls that are necessary to be around the president of the United States."

The next president won't be sworn in until January 2009, so Wolfeboro officials aren't losing any sleep yet.

"I push it aside, thinking, well, 'I'll wait 'til it happens,'" said Selectwoman Shirley Ganem. "It would be exciting but it would also be a strain — bittersweet."

Police Chief Brian Black said he'll be in touch with Kennebunkport police if Romney becomes a serious candidate.

If he decides to run for president, Romney's Wolfeboro compound would give him a second home in the state with the first-in-the nation presidential primary.

Wolfeboro also is a GOP town: registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats by a ratio of more than 2-to-1. Democrat John Kerry won New Hampshire in last year's general election, but President Bush won Wolfeboro, 2,343-1,798.

"He's a very nice, amiable fellow," said Gordon Hunt, owner of the hardware store where Romney occasionally shops.

Romney earned some gratitude two years ago when he and two of his sons raced to the rescue of six people whose boat sank in the lake. That same summer Massachusetts State Police marked a 250-foot security border in the water around Romney's property. The markers were removed after people complained to New Hampshire authorities.

"The goodwill was a little bit strained," Ganem said