06/23/99 - CNN TALKBACK LIVE [6/21]   POLITICAL GRAB BAG BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: OK, let's -- let's move along with this grab bag, and we'll talk about politics since a lot of these issues are coming up on the campaign trail.     Al Gore and George W. Bush. Well, I'm not the only person in America that has trouble remembering that name. No, both of those two guys are hitting the campaign trail hard. Report this weekend, John, that Pat Buchanan may threaten to run under the Reform Party. What is that all about? JOHN FUND, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, I think it's very interesting. Pat Buchanan was very popular with Reform Party members in 1996 even though his pro- life views clashed with a lot of the Reform Party constituency. If Pat Buchanan were to take the Reform Party nomination, I think that would siphon off between five and nine percent of their vote in the general election. [WEBNOTE] In '92 Perot "siphoned off" 19% - In 2000 add to that the conservatives, pro-lifers, constitutionalists, second Amendment supporters, illegal immigration activists, Reagan Democrats, etc., who would not have voted for Perot but will vote for Pat Buchanan... and well, you get the picture! That would hurt any Republican candidate against Al Gore. So I think it needs to be taken very seriously. I think it's one reason why the Republicans need to have some debates: so Pat Buchanan doesn't feel if this entire nomination process has been rigged to generate a Bush candidacy without a real contest. BATTISTA: Marilyn? MARILYN GEEWAX, "THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION": That would be good. It will be interesting to see, really, how much traction Pat Buchanan gets this year. I think a lot of the things that he was really appealing to people about in the -- earlier in the '90s -- the peasants with pitchforks and people angry about trade coming into the country. Everyone's prospered so much, I mean, really, even at all levels, in -- of the income. People have seen incomes rise, unemployment is at a 29-year low. I really wonder whether or not his message will carry much when times are as good as they have been. [WEBNOTE] "Everyone's prospered so much..." They still don't get it do they? BATTISTA: Yes, you know -- I saw Barbara yawning there for just a second, wondering if that's foreshadowing the campaign season to come. I mean, that is a problem, I think, for a number of the candidates: Bill Bradley is not known to be a fiery speaker; Al Gore... GEEWAX: They're pretty low-key candidates: Bradley, Gore, Bush. They're not really people you, you know -- they're just not all that personally interesting in some ways. They're pretty low-key, shall we say. BATTISTA: Not that that's a bad thing after what we've been through. GEEWAX: But the people who do have a little drama: Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot. They seem like old news. We've heard their ends before and it's not all that interesting, at this point. And with the latest statistics on home ownership, 66 percent of Americans are having -- own their own homes, we have, what, 4.2 percent unemployment. I think it's going to be tough to get people particularly interested in this Campaign 2000 because times are basically good. [WEBNOTE] Yep, Americans sure have it good. Lots of jobs, so many in fact that many Americans have 2 or 3 of them just to keep up the payments on those new houses you mentioned. 06/23/99 - SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS - MARY ANNE OSTROM   VENTURE CAPITALIST TO HEAD TECH ADVOCACY GROUP Silicon Valley venture capitalist E. Floyd Kvamme will today be named the new chairman of Empower America, signaling that the advocacy group founded by Republican heavyweights Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett intends to become a conservative voice on high-tech issues.     "For better or for worse, we are now being held up as the prime example of what an entrepreneurial society can be," Kvamme said of Silicon Valley. "While I'm sure a lot of people would like government to be less interested in what we're doing, government is involved, and we have to make sure government officials understand how it really works out here"... Empower America, which counts Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as members, also is releasing today its "10 commandments of Internet policy," which advocates, among other items, more school choice and accountability, fast and affordable Internet access, more visas for foreign skilled workers, fewer encryption and export controls, and tort reform in the areas of securities litigation and liability for Y2K computer glitches... A partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Kvamme is a longtime Republican activist in the valley. He most recently spearheaded a campaign among technology executives to encourage the presidential candidacy of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.    Kemp said the group's new focus on technology just as the 2000 presidential race is getting under way is not an attempt to give Republicans a boost among high-tech executives, many of whom in the past have supported Bill Clinton and Al Gore. "We've got adversaries on both the right and the left," said Kemp. "We're not trying to go after Al Gore or Pat Buchanan"... 06/22/99 - LOS ANGELES TIMES - Robert B. Reich   PROTECTING AMERICAN WORKERS WILL HELP FREE TRADE SURVIVE Support for free trade is dropping fast. In a recent poll, 58 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that foreign trade is "bad for the U.S. economy because cheap imports hurt wages." Only 32 percent agreed with the statement that trade is "good for the U.S. economy; it creates foreign demand, economic growth and jobs." Presidential aspirant Pat Buchanan may be the most vocal isolationist, but few other politicians these days dare push for free trade. Until recently, President Clinton was lobbying Congress to allow China into the World Trade Organization and to pass fast-track legislation so that he could get new trade treaties approved without amendment. But now, with an election season looming (and after NATO's accidental bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade), the president has changed his tune. Recently, during a commencement address at the University of Chicago, he said he'd support new trade agreements only if they were linked to strong guarantees on worker rights. "We have to build a system that is both free and fair 9and not just to workers in the United States," he said. Future free-trade agreements have to "lift everybody up, not pull everybody down" ... Why is free trade losing support at a time when the American economy is soaring? Because the vigorous economic expansion of the 1990s hasn't helped all Americans. The share of U.S. income going to the bottom 60 percent of American families has continued to fall, while the share going to the top 5 percent has reached a post-war high. Only workers above the 75th percentile of the wage-and-salary scale -- almost all of them college graduates -- have enjoyed significant real increases in their take-home pay. The higher one goes up the wage distribution ladder, the larger the rise in pay. The rate of corporate layoffs, meanwhile, has steadily increased. There were more layoffs last year than in any year since 1993, when the nation was emerging from recession. And so far this year, the rate is running ahead of last year's. To be sure, with very low unemployment, most people who lose their jobs don't have great difficulty finding new ones. But if they're among the three-quarters of working Americans who lack a university degree, the new job is likely to pay 20 percent less than the old ... 06/21/99 - THE NEW YORK TIMES - Richard L. Berke  GOP SOFTENS STAND ON ABORTION The Republican Party has undergone a fundamental repositioning, and softening, of its stand on abortion, recognizing that a more tolerant position on probably the most divisive issue in American politics is crucial to its hopes of reclaiming the White House.     Several major presidential candidates are barely mentioning abortion on the stump, if at all. Some members of Congress are concentrating on other issues, like taxes and education. Even some leaders of the anti-abortion movement have moderated their positions, all in the name of political pragmatism... Last week, in the most striking example, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the early front-runner for the Republican nomination, said he would not require a Supreme Court nominee to share his anti-abortion position. The governor had already said the nation was not ready to embrace a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion. Elizabeth Dole, whom most polls place second to Bush for the nomination, recently expressed similar positions... Such positions have jolted some conservatives and sharply divided the presidential field ...    "It may be the virus of pragmatism that has entered the bloodstream of the conservative movement in the Republican Party," said Patrick Buchanan, the conservative columnist who is running for president. "I'm frankly astonished that George Bush has put himself outside the mainstream of the party on the issue of life. He's running a general election strategy before there's a general election."     Buchanan added that when candidates cannot commit to court appointees who are anti-abortion, their "pro-life position is utterly hollow." MORE FROM THE INTERNET BRIGADE NEWSWIRE...

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