I don’t know whether Hewlett-Packard used its office in Dubai to transship items to Iran that could be used to build weapons of mass destruction. Point is, neither does the National Jewish Democratic Council. But that didn’t stop them from e-mailing me a press release that attempts to smear Republican presidential candidate John McCain through his chief economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, who headed HP 1999-2005. Here’s the release:

Senator John McCain’s Chief Economic Adviser, Carly Fiorina, was CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) when the company surreptitiously avoided the trade boycott of Iran. McCain, who recently urged further divestment from Iran, picked Fiorina to be his top adviser on the economy while she is also serving as head of the Republican National Committee Victory Fund. It was under Fiorina’s leadership as CEO that, according to an April 19, 2004, Forbes article titled “Trading With The Enemy,” HP traded with the Iranians.

Just don’t confuse me with the facts, please.

If you want to get around export controls, just sell the product to a front company in Dubai. The middlemen will take it from there … Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft, among many other U.S. companies, keep Dubai offices and are favorites these days among Iranian traders in Dubai. (Forbes, 4/19/04)

“The National Jewish Council (NJDC) has been arguing that we should judge candidates based on their voting records and public statements,” said Ira N. Forman, Executive Director of NJDC “However, McCain and his allies insist on using guilt by association when looking at Democratic candidates. If this is their standard, then we call on them to explain why McCain’s Chief Economic Adviser oversaw the evasion of the American laws prohibiting Iranian trade in her tenure as CEO of HP.”

The only mention of Hewlett-Packard in the article was excerpted above. Here’s the entire paragraph:

Halliburton is far from the only brand that shows up in Tehran. Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft, among many other U.S. companies, keep Dubai offices and are favorites these days among Iranian traders in Dubai. Reason? Strong demand for “anything high tech for military or oil services,” says Bolurfrushan of the Iranian Business Council. “In compliance with U.S. trade laws, it is Microsoft’s policy to not sell products to Iran from any of its offices,” says a spokeswoman for the software colossus. (Dell says it follows export controls, too.) To curtail the proliferations, the Department of Commerce is strengthening its regulation that punishes U.S. companies that send goods and know — or have reason to know — those goods could contribute to weapons of mass destruction.

The article insinuates a lot, but, like the NJDC press release, doesn’t prove a thing. But did that stop National Jewish Democratic Council’s Ira Forman from calling on McCain to explain something that is merely an allegation or just an insinuation or maybe not even that?

Where did this swiftboat distortion come from? Virtually the exact quote from the Forbes article can be found on McCainSource.com, run by Progressive Media USA, which was described this way in a story about 527 political influence groups on National Public Radio:

… a 501(c)4 called Progressive Media USA initially said it would spend $40 million bashing McCain on television. But now, a well-connected Democratic strategist says the group can’t raise enough money. Progressive Media’s head, David Brock, didn’t respond to NPR’s interview requests over several weeks.

Now I’m not a fan of John McCain, and I don’t want to see him become president, but I’m even less of a fan of swiftboating, regardless of the target, and this is just another example of that. Nowhere in the Forbes article did it say that Hewlett-Packard definitely traded with Iran, but how many people are going to read the whole four-year-old article to come to that conclusion?

Right, it’s much easier to read the National Jewish Democratic Council’s three-paragraph press release and let them draw your conclusions for you. Just don’t confuse me with the facts, please.

If this is an attempt to swiftboat John McCain, it’s a lame one indeed. But it’s relatively early in the campaign still, and maybe these 527 organizations are just testing the water, experimenting with malicious messages to track how much penetration they can get before they unleash a really significant — or more likely salacious — pack of partial truths or outright lies.

Hey, and let’s see if both John McCain and Barack Obama stick by what they’ve said and actively discourage the 527s from running negative campaigns.

Yeah, right, tell that one to Ira Forman, he’ll believe anything.

Poll Tracker:

North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole may be hearing foot steps behind her as two polls show her Democratic challenger, Kay Hagan, a five term member of the state senate, closing the gap between them. Public Policy Polling has Dole ahead by 48 percent to 43 percent compared to the 17 point lead she had in February. The survey was conducted May 8-9 and has a margin of error of 4 percent. Rasmussen Reports yesterday released a poll conducted May 8 that showed Hagan ahead of Dole, although by a statistically insignificant 48 percent to 47 percent. A month earlier, Dole had a 13 point lead in this poll.

Hagan scored a runaway victory in the state’s May 6 primary for the right to challenge Dole, and PPP says the visibility she built up during that campaign may have helped. Now it remains to be seen if she can raise the $10 million she says she needs to compete with Dole. As of now, CQ Politics rates the race as “Republican favored” although we note that Dole is vulnerable, in part because her ties to President Bush. Rasmussen noted that Hagan has tried hard to make that connection by noting that Dole votes with Bush 92 percent of the time.

“I went in there thinking I was going to vote for Hillary. I just started thinking about the electability issue. I think he can actually pull it off.”

– Rob Carr, 50, Charlotte, friend of Pensito Review — speaking to reporter doing exit polling for the Charlotte Observer.

Happy birthday, Rob!

Sen. Elizabeth Dole is up for reelection this year, and the combination of her underwhelming performance over the past six years and the general bad odor emanating from the Republican Party of late makes her particularly vulnerable. (A longtime resident of the Watergate apartments in Washington, D.C., Dole has also irked many of her constituents by failing to spend much time on the ground in North Carolina. She grew up in Salisbury but has not been a full-time resident of the state since the 1960s.)
Dole has also irked many of her constituents by failing to spend much time on the ground in North Carolina. She grew up in Salisbury but has not been a full-time resident of the state since the 1960s.
After a lot of debating about holding a debate, the five Democrats running to square off against Dole met in Greensboro last week. The candidate with the lead in the polls is Kay Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro. Her most competitive challenger is Jim Neal, a corporate financial adviser from Chapel Hill.

Hagan … said she believes any Democrat has a good chance of defeating Dole in the November election. But she vowed to be that candidate, contrasting herself with Dole on issues such as the minimum wage, financial aid for students and veterans benefits.

Neal repeatedly tried to engage Hagan during the hour-long debate moderated by students on the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Spartan TV. And while Hagan tried to focus her responses on Dole, she also contrasted herself with her Democratic competitors, including Lumber-ton attorney Marcus Williams and Moncure podiatrist Howard Staley. [Duskin Lassiter, a Lexington trucker, did not participate.]

Hagan, contrary to the other three candidates on stage, would not dismiss the possibility of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a way to soften soaring gas prices — an idea often proposed by Republicans but rejected by congressional Democrats.

“I think that’s an issue of a cost-benefit ratio,” Hagan said. “You’ve got to look at how much oil is there, how long it will last and what is the risk from an environmental standpoint. I will really study the cost-benefit analysis.”

The veteran lawmaker said the more urgent priority was finding alternative sources of energy. She also advocated eliminating incentives for oil companies.

Neal … immediately said he opposes drilling in Alaska, suggesting the nation should tap into the nation’s large strategic petroleum reserve first. President Bush favors continuing pumping oil into the reserve in case of an international disruption in oil markets.

“I don’t believe we can begin talking about plundering our natural environment in order to generate more oil on the marketplace,” said Neal, an entrepreneur.

Williams cited data indicating the oil in the wildlife refuge would take years to develop and do little to influence gas prices. Staley said drilling for oil and would only continue a cycle of President Bush’s energy policy, which he dubbed “Drill until you’re sick. Get all the oil out of the earth you can.”

“It’s only led to more consumption and more pollution,” Staley said.

But do the Democrats have a chance of taking Dole’s seat this year? Despite the fact that Dole occupies the seat once held by Sen. Jesse Helms, and Republican Richard Burr won the other seat when Democrat John Edwards decided not to run for reelection in 2004 when he was John Kerry’s running mate, the answer is yes.

While North Carolina has been a reliable red state in every presidential elections since 1976, Democrats have historically done well in state races. North Carolina has had a Democratic governor in six out of the last eight terms, and Democrats control both houses of the legislature.

This is the final post from a friend in North Carolina who has been monitoring the buildup to tomorrow’s presidential primary and giving us a Wilmington-eye view on the campaign. Thanks Mike!

With just a few days to go before the North Carolina primary, it’s not surprising that almost everybody here in Wilmington is talking politics. We hear a lot about Democrats bickering, but my guess is a lot of Republicans are bickering too. And it’s not just about McCain being too liberal (though my Republican friends here do view him as such).

As one example, I stopped by an old friend’s house this week. Larry works at the local Goodyear tires. Teresa, his wife, is unemployed, but not looking for a job any more since she has become a grandmother and is busy with the grandkid. She’s bolting the Grand Old Party (literally, this year) to vote for Hillary. Her husband is seething about this: “She [Hillary] talks disrespectfully of President Bush. He’s our president and presidents deserve respect.” He looks at her with intensity when saying this.

But their kid is in the military (in Iraq last year, stationed in Hawaii now), Teresa doesn’t want any chance of him going back to Iraq. Plus, there’s that gender issue: “It’s time we had a woman in charge,” she says.

Larry spits back: “Mrs. Bill Clinton will not be in charge. It’s Bill Clinton’s third presidency!”

“Oh,” I interject innocently, “you’d rather have Obama?”

My son is with me, so Larry tones down his terminology when he replies that “America is not ready to vote for a black man.” He does not use the “N word,” though in other company he would perhaps do so.

The next day I had lunch with Ron, a home repair guy who pretty much says the same thing about Americans never voting for a black man. Maybe blue-collar folk are the true elitists in our country.

Anyhow, as for the campaign itself, I kind of see what Larry means about Mrs. Bill Clinton, just because Mr. Hillary Clinton is so much in evidence, doing a spectacular job of campaigning at the local level. On one day alone he made 12 stops in Carolina towns, with highlights of his address airing on newscasts throughout the state.

His stump speech is about 25 minutes; he takes no questions from the audience or press, but revels in speaking to the common people. They applaud and he moves onto the next town. The crowds are large and enthusiastic — proud that an ex-president has come to their small town.

To me, Bill Clinton conjures images of that old populist William Jennings Bryan, at least as he was portrayed by Fredric March in “Inherit The Wind.” Sounding much like Bryan railing against banks, railroads and Adlai Stevenson (an elitist from Illinois), Bill Clinton criticizes oil companies and elitists (though not mentioning Obama by name).

Following his failed runs for president, Bryan took to going from Southern town to Southern town with lucrative speaking engagements, raising the hopes of people by trashing Darwinism, hailing the of glory of America’s past and praising the common sense of small-town people.

For his part, Bill Clinton essentially calls for a return to the glory days of the ’90s, praising the wisdom of the people in the crowd and emphasizing Hillary’s common sense. “She got that by spending 14 years with the people in Arkansas,” he says with a kind of weird, ingratiating smile. “There’s not much difference between the good people of Arkansas and the good people of Carolina.” Wisely, no mention of Scranton or New York people this time around.

Anyhow, that’s my final Carolina primary update. Packing my bags and heading to Chicago for the summer, so you’ll have to rely on the professionals from now on.

Before leaving, I participated in early voting, expecting long lines, but finding none, just me, some black men (two bringing their kids) and old white women (taking a very long time to vote). I found the low turnout a little surprising because there are only two early voting places in Wilmington: one at the senior center, one at the government center. The latter is conveniently located near both the university and a strip club, so you’d think there’d be greater voter interest. However, as of Thursday morning at 11 a.m., neither of those demographics appeared to see any need to vote early, despite Senator Obama’s exhortations to do so during his rally in the Port City.