To Robbins, Edwards Is the Star

Thursday, December 13, 2007

A NON-OPRAH FOR A NON-OBAMA

To Robbins, Edwards Is the Star

Actor Tim Robbins, introducing John Edwards on Wednesday in Iowa City, came clean right away.

"I'm not Oprah," Robbins said, drawing a heartening response from a member of the overflow crowd, who shouted, "That's all right, Tim!"

Fortified by enthusiastic Edwards boosters, Robbins went on to say that just as he was not Oprah Winfrey, Edwards is not Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who have a pesky habit of polling slightly better in Iowa than the former senator from North Carolina.

"Now, I like those other two," Robbins said without mentioning them by name. "And should they get the nomination, we all know we're going to band together to get the crooks and the liars to take a vacation from Washington."

Big cheer.

"Perhaps some of their vacations will be spent in the federal penitentiary."

More cheers.

But Robbins said that his heart, and his vote, are with Edwards, who took the microphone and launched into what his campaign is calling his closing argument to Iowa voters, three weeks before the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Edwards continued his attack on corporate influence in Washington, saying that he would be the voice of the voiceless. "So, the question is, when's your voice going to be heard again?" he said.

For Edwards, it was the third day of an eight-day bus tour through the state. Aware that he must overtake Clinton or Obama in Iowa to boost his chances of competing nationally, he is trying to peel away support from his rivals and persuade undecided Iowans to commit to him.

He barely mentioned his opponents by name, but he nipped at them all the same, urging the audience to find two things in a candidate.

"You'd better find somebody who's going to tell you the truth," Edwards said. "You'd better have a fighter."

-- Peter Slevin

'HILLARY: THE MOVIE'

Conservative Group Targets Clinton

Just as the primary campaign has gotten nasty, Hillary Clinton may need to check over her other shoulder for a coming onslaught from Republicans.

Citizens United, a conservative group headed by David Bossie, who became famous for his part in investigations of Whitewater and other matters during the Clinton administration, is preparing for the release of a feature-length documentary called "Hillary: The Movie."

A Web site for the film promises interviews "with many of the people who personally locked horns with the Clintons," including Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Kathleen Willey.

The group wants to start airing television ads for the film right away, and this morning it will announce a lawsuit it is filing against the Federal Election Commission seeking to pave the way for Citizens United to begin running the TV ads without having to run a disclaimer or disclose the name of the people whose donations help finance it.

Citizens United has hired James Bopp, the Indiana lawyer who successfully argued a recent challenge to the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Bopp says the group should not have to adhere to the law's disclosure and disclaimer provisions. The law "identifies it as a political ad when it's not," Bopp said. "These ads are selling a product."

Bossie called the requirements "crazy."

"Right now I'm barred from advertising our film," he said. "I could make a 10-second advertisement but would have to put a 4 1/2 -second disclaimer on it. That's ludicrous."

-- Matthew Mosk

A UNIVERSAL PROPOSAL

Romney Offers Health-Care Plan

JOHNSTON, Iowa -- The latest candidate promising universal health care to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire: Mitt Romney.

While the Democratic candidates have dueled for months over whose plan is most "universal," the GOP candidates have largely stayed away from that fray.

Now, as the caucuses near and Republican voters in the early states keep asking the candidates about their prescription for health care, Romney pledged at a house party Wednesday to get everyone in the country health insurance within four years if Congress passed his plan.

When he announced his health-care plan in August, the former Massachusetts governor didn't emphasize its universality, and experts doubt his proposal would expand health insurance to the 47 million Americans who don't have it because he does not include new monies to finance the program.

Earlier this year, Romney put distance between himself and the 2006 Massachusetts law that seeks to create universal health care in that state. Romney had worked hard on the provision and signed it in a lavish ceremony, but some of the elements, such as requiring people to get insurance or face a fine, are not popular among the conservative activists he has been courting.

But on Wednesday, he returned to that Massachusetts example, bragging that more than two-thirds of the uninsured there are now covered. As president, "I'll battle to get that done in every state in the country," he said.

-- Perry Bacon Jr.