THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008
NEWS
ELECTION
3A
Voters focus on McCain's personality,not the issues
Arizona Senator further to the right than citizens perceive
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The independent label sticks to John McCain because he antagonizes fellow Republicans and likes to work with Democrats.
The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on
But a different label applies to his actual record: conservative.
issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party's social conservatives.
The four-term Arizona senator, a longtime member of the Armed
rape or incest.
Abortion: McCain promises to appoint judges who, in the mold of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, are likely to limit the reach of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. McCain's record is not spotless on abortion: He said once, in 1999, that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.
Services Committee, criticized the earlier handling of the war but has been a crucial ally in President Bush's effort to increase and maintain U.S. forces in Iraq.
Besides the war, McCain agrees broadly with Bush and other conservatives on:
But that was an aberration in an otherwise unbroken record of opposing abortion rights for women. McCain voted repeatedly to ban federal funding for abortion; he once voted against Medicaid funds for abortion even in cases of
"I am pro-life and an advocate for the rights of man everywhere in the world."
He voted to require parental consent for abortion and voted to criminalize anyone but a parent crossing state lines with a minor to help get an abortion. McCain also supported a ban preventing women in the military from getting abortions with their own money at overseas military hospitals.
"I am pro-life and an advocate for the rights of man everywhere in the world," McCain told the
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHN MCCAIN Presidential nominee
Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters during a news conference at Dallas Love Field Friday, April 11, in Dallas, Texas. McCain has leaned to the right on issue after issue, but many voters still view McCain as a centrist. Votes place McCain in the middle along with themselves and would be likely to vote for him if their candidate is not chosen.
Conservative Political Action Conference in February. "Because to be denied liberty is an offense to nature and nature's Creator"
- G a y
r i g h t s :
M c C a i n
Gun control: McCain voted against a ban on assault-style weapons and for shielding gun-makers and dealers from civil suits. He did vote in favor of requiring
"I'm proud to have led an effort in my home state to change our state constitution and to protect the sanctity of marriage as between a man and woman," he told CNN in March. "I will continue to advocate for those fundamental principals of our party and our faith."
opposes gay marriage. True, he does not support a federal ban on gay marriage on grounds the issue traditionally has been decided by states. But McCain worked to ban gay marriage in Arizona. He also supports the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and he opposed legislation to protect gay people from job discrimination or hate crimes.
background checks at gun shows, but in general he sides with the National Rifle Association in favor of gun rights.
When the Supreme Court held arguments last month on Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban, McCain said it was "a landmark case for all Americans who believe, as I do, that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms."
His conservatism could be a problem for McCain — particularly if this November's contest is as close as recent presidential elections, which were decided by independent-minded voters in the center of the political spectrum.
But he might avoid this problem to the extent people know him as an independent-minded politician. And many do view him that way.
"People see him as a centrist. They don't see him as a conservative," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
"In fact, they put him pretty close to themselves, in terms of ideology, and put President Bush way to the right of themselves," Kohut said.
And voters who back Clinton and Obama are open to McCain.
In a national Pew survey earlier this year, voters placed McCain in the middle, where they placed themselves, when asked to judge the ideology of Bush and the presidential candidates. They placed Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama far to the left.
Nearly a third of Clinton supporters said they would back McCain if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, and more than a quarter of Obama supporters said they would back McCain over Clinton, according to Associated Press-Ipsos polling
released Thursday.
Democrats are trying to change the perception of McCain. The Democratic National Committee insists that McCain's election would amount to a third term for Bush
and Vice President
D i c k
Cheney.
"All he offers is four more years of the failed Bush economy,an endless war in Iraq and shameless hypocrisy
its leaders. He called televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance" and has often worked against them.
"All he offers is four more years of failed Bush economy, an endless war in Iraq and shameless hypocrisy on ethics reform."
He splits from the right over research which extracts stem cells
on ethics reform," DNC Chairman Howard Dean said last month.
HOWARD DEAN
DNC Chairman
Whatever the general image of McCain, the Christian right is deeply suspicious of him despite his many conservative positions. McCain has clashed with
from human embryos in an effort to develop treatments for Parkinson's. Alzheimers and a range of other diseases. Conservatives object because human embryos are destroyed; McCain supports the research.
His record offends not only social conservatives but many fiscal conservatives, too. He pushed to limit the influence of money in politics through campaign finance reforms that, critics say, stomp on the constitutional right to free
speech.
On the right and across the political spectrum, McCain's image, rather than his positions on issues, seems to form people's opinion of him. Indeed, in choosing presidents, voters often look past issues to character and personality, and most individual issues are unlikely to mean much.
But one broader issue could figure prominently in November — the tumbling economy and consequent job losses, home foreclosures and soaring energy prices.
Those could prove troublesome for McCain, and not only because he acknowledges he's no economic expert.
"We are also in a deeply unpopular war," Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate, said. "Where there are these differences, and strong differences, they could be in the Democrats' direction."
》 ECONOMICS
Higher food prices require poor families to stretch meals
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Steve Tarpin can bake a graham cracker crust in his sleep, but explaining why the price for his Key lime pies went from $20 to $25 required mastering a thorner topic: global economics.
He recently wrote a letter to his customers and posted it near the cash register listing the factors — dairy prices driven higher by conglomerates buying up milk supplies, heat waves in Europe and California, demand from emerging markets and the weak dollar.
The owner of Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies in Brooklyn said he didn't want customers thinking he was "jacking up prices because I have a unique product."
"I have to justify it," he said.
U. S. food prices rose four percent in 2007, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says 2008 could be worse, with a rise of as much as 4.5 percent.
I have to justify it, he said.
The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it's getting worse. That's putting the squeeze on poor families and forcing bakeries, bagel shops and delis to explain price increases to their customers.
Higher prices for food and energy are again expected to play a leading role in pushing the government's consumer price index higher for March.
Analysts are forecasting that Wednesday's Department of Labor report will show the Consumer Price Index rose at a four percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, up from last year's overall rise of 2.8 percent.
For the U.S. poor, any increase in food costs sets up an either-or equation: Give something up to pay for food.
"I was talking to people who make $9 an hour, talking about how they might save $5 a week."
said Kathleen DiChiara, president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. "They really felt they couldn't. That was before. Now, they have to."
For some, that means adding an extra cup of water to their soup, watering down their milk, or giving their children soda because it's cheaper than milk, DiChiara said.
7. 2 percent in 2006, according to the USDA. By contrast, the figure was 22 percent in Poland and more than 40 percent in Egypt and Vietnam.
Still, the higher U.S. prices seem eye-popping after years of low inflation. Eggs cost 25 percent more in February than they did a year ago, according to the USDA. Milk and other dairy products jumped 13 percent, chicken and other poultry nearly 7 percent.
U. S. households still spend a smaller chunk of their expenses for foods than in any other country
In Bangladesh, economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could be going hungry. Haiti's prime minister was ousted over the weekend following food riots there.
USDA economist Ephraim Leittag explained the jumps in a recent presentation to the Food Marketing Institute, starting with the factors everyone knows about:
sharply higher commodity costs for wheat, corn, soybeans and milk plus higher energy and transportation costs.
The other reasons are more complex. Rapid economic growth in China and India has increased demand for meat there, and exports of U.S. products, such as corn, have set records as the weak dollar has made them cheaper. That's lowered the supply of corn available for sale in the U.S., raising prices here. Ethanol production has also diverted corn from dinner tables and into fuel tanks.
Soybean prices have gone up as farmers switched more of their acreage to corn. Drought in Australia has even affected the price of bread, as it led to tighter global wheat supplies.
The jump has left people in the food business to do their own explaining. Twin Cafe Caterers in lower Manhattan posted a letter on its deli cooler: "Due to the huge increase of the gas, the electricity, the water and all the other utilities, we had to raise the prices a little bit." It went on to say that all its food prices have risen, too.
Wonder Bagels, in Jersey City, N.J., posted a letter from its wheat supplier, A. Oliveri & Sons, saying the recent situation was unprecedented.
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