NEWS AND OPINION:
How quickly the tone changes in the nation’s capital. Five days ago, the White House was the epicenter of solemnity and serious talk about the state of national security and America’s place in the world. There has been a quick return to the old norm — that is, a traveling President Obama, who is also doubling as campaigner in chief. Mr. Obama, in fact, attended a Democratic fundraiser in Baltimore just 24 hours after the 9/11 anniversary. So fire up Air Force One; the midterm elections are now 50 days off.
There will be a trio of fundraisers this week; the one redeeming quality they share is that they’re not, say, on the distant West Coast. They’re all in the same place: Washington. Mr. Obama makes an appearance Monday evening at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee event. Then it’s off to Atlanta on Tuesday for a briefing on Ebola and other health threats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mr. Obama then heads to Florida for a briefing Wednesday from U.S. Central Command regarding Middle East matters, then it’s back to the White House for a picnic for members of Congress. Thursday follows with an ambassador credentialing ceremony and a visit from Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko. The tireless Mr. Obama will attend a Democratic National Committee fundraiser later that evening.
On Friday, the President will headline an event with the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum — a bodacious gathering which also hosts Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and innumerable Democratic luminaries and feminist leaders.
IOWA NEWS TO SAVOR
“Even the Secret Service’s bomb-sniffing dogs get fed at the steak fry.”
SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa, teases about 2016 White House ambitions
— From a local account of outgoing Sen. Tom Harkin’s Steak Fry in Iowa on Sunday, as told by the Indianola Record-Herald.
IOWA NEWS TO PONDER
Yes, yes, yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton and spouse former President Bill Clinton went to the aforementioned “Meat and greet” — along with 7,000 spectators and 200 reporters from around the globe. They were billed as the “Comeback Couple” by Mr. Harkin himself. Yeah, well. Mr. Clinton, a vegan, had a veggie burger at the event. And in true heartland attire, he wore a red and white checked shirt and jeans. A few reactions in the aftermath:
“I feel like a tablecloth in a diner,” Mr. Clinton told the Des Moines Register. “Bill Clinton regaled reporters for 15 minutes. Hillary stayed for just a few minutes and left,” observed CNN political reporter Peter Hamby, while Time magazine’s Jay Newton-Small noted, “It’s all red meat for the Ready for Hillary crowd.”
THE ELUSIVE ’PEACE DIVIDEND’
That $500 billion: so close and yet so far, now that those pesky global threats have emerged.
SEE ALSO: Pentagon downplays role in destroying Islamic State: ‘It’s about defeating its ideology’
“Members of Congress and the White House anticipated a peace dividend by winding down America’s foreign wars, closing bases and shedding tens of thousands of troops. But President Obama’s new, open-ended strategy to confront Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria is likely to eat into some of the nearly $500 billion in Pentagon spending cuts that were planned over the next decade,” says W.J. Hennigan, a national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
The price tag so far, according to Pentagon figures: the first five weeks of U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq cost $262.5 million; President Obama, meanwhile, hopes Congress will appropriate a tidy $500 million to help train Syrian rebels.
“While that’s still a pittance compared with the total $496 billion Pentagon budget, or the $1.2 trillion spent for the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the costs of intervention are certain to increase under the plan to step up airstrikes, intensify surveillance and conduct counterterrorism operations against the Sunni extremist force and its leaders,” Mr. Hennigan notes.
And my, how things have changed since the days of the fiscal cliff, the government shutdown and sequestration.
“There are already calls in Congress to eliminate the $45 billion in sequestration spending cuts that are set to hit next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, and to increase the supplemental appropriations used to fund the actual war-fighting, as opposed to other parts of the Pentagon budget,” says Mr. Hennigan.
DOGGED DETERMINATION
Michiganders are standing up for their dogs. Come Wednesday, over a thousand registered voters and a spate of activists, attorneys and animal control officers will descend on the state capital in Lansing seeking to reverse current laws which ban certain dog breeds. Known as “breed specific legislation,” such laws prohibit people from owning, among other dogs, pit bull and Staffordshire terriers, Rottweilers, American bulldogs, mastiffs, Dalmatians, chow chows, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, “or any mix of these breeds — and dogs who simply resemble these breeds,” this according to the ASPCA. The Michigan folks say it discriminates against dog owners, the legislation is currently banned in 19 states.
A K9 performance team will be on hand; the humans, meanwhile, intend to link arms and form a chain across the east steps of the capitol building, to symbolize their solidarity. Things are getting very creature-specific here: The event, was organized by the Michigan Political Action Committee for Animals.
THE HORSE RACE IS AT A CANTER
It’s not quite thundering down the home stretch. The political horse race is more at a canter, and a steady one. The neck-and-neck competition between the Republican and Democratic parties for those elusive voters continues, with the Grand Old Party about a mane ahead. A new Pew Research Center poll says that the GOP bests the Dems among likely voters. But then the Democrats hold a tiny edge over Republicans among registered voters. This is why some political strategists specialize in voter behavior, trying to divine why — or why not — voters go to the polls, and favor a candidate. It is a hair-splitting business. The Pew pollsters, who doggedly follow it all from week to week, are given a nod this time around the Republicans.
“GOP voters continue to be more engaged with the midterm election than Democrats. Republican voters are 15 points more likely than Democrats to say they’ve given a lot of thought to the election, and 12 points more likely to say they definitely will vote,” the Pew poll says. “GOP voters also express more enthusiasm for voting in the upcoming midterm than their Democratic counterparts.”
POLL DU JOUR
• 83 percent of registered U.S. voters cite the economy as a “very important” influence over their midterm vote for Congress; 88 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats agree.
• 77 percent overall cite health care as an important influence; 75 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats agree.
• 75 percent overall cite terrorism; 87 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats agree.
• 65 percent overall cite the budget deficit; 81 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats agree.
• 64 percent overall cite foreign policy; 77 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of Democrats agree.
• 62 percent overall cite immigration; 73 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats agree.
• 52 percent overall cite the environment; 36 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats agree.
• 47 percent cite abortion; 44 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Democrats agree.
Source: A Pew Research Center poll of 2,002 registered U.S. voters conducted Sept. 2-9.
• Doggerel, neighs, nays to jharper@washingtontimes.com.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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