REPUBLICAN ECONOMIST JUDE WANNISKI ENDORSES KERRY

Jude Wanniski, who coined the phrase “supply-side economics” to champion Republican tax cuts as a way to stimulate growth, endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president, citing President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

“The one big reason why I will vote for Senator Kerry next Tuesday is that he is an internationalist, as am I,” Mr. Wanniski, 68, told clients in a note on his Web site. “Mr. Bush has become an imperialist – one whose decisions as commander-in-chief have made the world a more dangerous place.”

Mr. Wanniski, a political economist who helped design the tax cuts Congress enacted after Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, said his vote for Mr. Kerry will be his first for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, when President Johnson defeated Republican Barry Goldwater.

Mr. Wanniski supported Mr. Bush’s 2003 reductions in tax rates for capital gains and stock dividends. Mr. Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, said he’d use money raised by scrapping Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for families making more than $200,000 a year to help pay for health care and education. A Republican-controlled Congress won’t approve Mr. Kerry’s plan to roll back those tax cuts, Mr. Wanniski said.

“Wall Streeters, who would hold their nose and vote for Bush, should have the luxury of voting” for Mr. Kerry, Mr.Wanniski said in an interview. “The fact is that for Bill Thomas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Kerry plan would be a nonstarter.”

A Bush campaign policy director, Tim Adams, called Mr. Wanniski’s endorsement of Mr. Kerry “the height of irony.” “Senator Kerry has spent his entire career attempting to thwart everything that Jude Wanniski believes in and has attempted to achieve during his career,” said Mr. Adams, a former chief of staff for Treasury Secretaries John Snow and Paul O’Neill.

– Bloomberg News

FEC: CANDIDATES CAN RAISE UNLIMITED RECOUNT DONATIONS

Presidential and congressional candidates can raise unlimited donations to finance recounts as President Bush and Vice President Gore did for their high-stakes Florida dispute in 2000.

Four of the Federal Election Commission’s six members said yesterday that the FEC’s long-standing rule on recount fund-raising remains in effect, which means federal candidates can set up separate recount funds and finance them with unlimited donations from individual contributors. Candidates cannot accept corporate, union, or foreign money.

The FEC’s guidance was issued informally in comments by a majority of the commission’s members. The commission stopped short of issuing a formal advisory opinion on the matter after a Senate candidate withdrew his request for one.

At issue was what effect, if any, a 2002 campaign finance law had on recount fund-raising. The law prohibits national party committees and presidential and congressional candidates from raising corporate, union, and unlimited contributions for election costs.

The Bush campaign has argued that nothing in the law affects recount fund-raising. The law’s sponsors and campaign finance watchdogs have told the FEC they believe the new restrictions do apply to recounts, and that candidates should only be able to collect contributions of up to $2,000 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees for recount expenses.

Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said that even though the FEC didn’t issue a formal opinion on recount fund-raising, it was important for candidates to know where a majority of commissioners stood.

– Associated Press

POST-SURGERY, CLINTON DOESN’T FEEL SAME ‘PASSION’ FOR POLITICS

President Clinton saw “profound images” flashing in his mind before he underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery last month, a combination of “death masks” and light that gave the 58-year-old a new sense of mortality, he told Primetime Live’s Diane Sawyer in an interview that aired last night on ABC.

Recounting his last moments with his family before his successful surgery, he said he told his wife, Senator Clinton, and his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, that he loved them. In the operating room, he saw a series of dark and light images, including his daughter.

Mr. Clinton appeared to be in a buoyant mood while reflecting on his near-death experience with heart disease. Saying he has changed his diet to include lighter foods, Mr. Clinton said, “Maybe if I did not eat as many steaks and hamburger…things would have been different.”

Ms. Clinton told Ms. Sawyer she warned Mr. Clinton to give up his high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet shortly before he was taken to the hospital with chest pains.

Mr. Clinton, who has rejoined Senator Kerry on the campaign trail, told Ms. Sawyer he has lost some of his interest in politics. “I don’t feel a passion about the game that I used to feel.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun