Al Gore will endorse Howard Dean tomorrow.

Update: Joe Lieberman has issued this statement regarding Gore's upcoming Dean endorsement:

I was proud to have been chosen by Al Gore in 2000 to be a heartbeat away from the presidency -- and am determined to fight for what’s right, win this nomination, and defeat George W. Bush next year.

“I have a lot of respect for Al Gore -- that is why I kept my promise not to run if he did. Ultimately, the voters will make the determination and I will continue to make my case about taking our party and nation forward.”

Josh Marshall at Talking Points thinks Lieberman is slamming Gore with the "that's why I kept my promise" language. Atrios agrees.

We don't see it that way. We rank Lieberman at the bottom of our list of favored Democratic contenders, so our view is not an endorsement of him by any means, but we think it's a classy statement, free of criticism. He says he kept his promise because he respects Al Gore.

Maybe Lieberman is trying to say that his late entry into the race (out of deference to Al Gore's possible run) resulted in his campaign failing to take off. In which case, we think it's so subtle a criticism that the voters won't even pick up on it. We also think he'd be wrong to think that. Lieberman is the past. He wouldn't have made it no matter what.

Tim Russert thinks Al Gore is endorsing Dean in order to be in a position to run in 2008 if Dean loses. If he goes to bat for Dean and Dean loses, Russert says the Dems will owe him.

We do agree with just about everyone that Dean seems to have the nomination sewn up. As to whether he can beat Bush, we think he needs a very strong vice presidential candidate with a lot of foreign policy experience. And it's not Bob Graham.

Florida's Secretary of State Glenda Hood does not favor paper trails for touch screen voters and even though they may be available, says they will be optional only.

Paper trails are essential as a safeguard to the system. As EFF says, your vote counts, but only if its counted.

Check out this New York Times editorial today on the subject:

Too many elections teeter on a few hundred votes, and candidates rightly expect human beings to be able to double-check the results. America's election apparatus needs to move firmly and quickly into the computer age. But the public must feel secure that each vote is really counted. At this stage, a voter-verified paper trail offers the public that necessary security .

Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo critics' concerns. Here are some links to get you up to speed on the issue.

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf

The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in Beverly Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which can be downloaded free of charge here [thanks to Eric Smith, a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo, for the links].

No one is counting Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez out of the San Francisco mayor's race. Two good articles in the weekend news on the candidates: San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times.

Gavin Newsom, businessman and candidate for mayor, lives in a large house in the city's fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood. He is the son of a retired state appeals court judge and owns a wine shop and several other businesses, many of them with the financial backing of a family friend, Gordon P. Getty.

Matt Gonzalez, lawyer and candidate for mayor, shares a rented apartment with a roommate in the city's offbeat Western Addition neighborhood. He boasts in his campaign literature that he was twice jailed for contempt of court when working as a public defender. His father, who sold dental equipment in Texas, never went to college.

Could the coverage sink any lower than this?

A recent article in The San Francisco Chronicle characterized the race as a "babe competition" and described both men as "major hotties." The newspaper whittled the choice to this: Dapper Dan vs. the Socialist Stud.

We asked a couple of male S.F.'s 60's lefties this weekend who they were voting for: They were unenthusiastic but probably going for Newsom. Then we asked a couple of 30-somethings: Definitely Matt Gonzalez.

How different are they?

"It is amazing," Mr. Newsom said. "Only in San Francisco you can be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-death penalty, pro-gun control, pro-rent control and be considered a conservative or moderate. I would be left on any national scale."

Though the mayor's election is nonpartisan, the Democratic Party has pumped money and big-name resources into the race. The state party expects to spend at least $120,000 on Mr. Newsom's behalf, even though he has spent $4 million so far, compared with about $400,000 by Mr. Gonzalez.

If the underdog voters come out, Gonzalez stands a real chance. The election is Tuesday, stay tuned.

In what is being reported as an unprecedented action by a presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry used the "f" word in attacking Bush's war policy in an interview with Rolling Stone:

"I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f - - - it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did," Kerry told the youth-oriented magazine.

Brookings Institution presidential scholar Stephen Hess said he can't recall another candidate attacking a president with X-rated language in a public interview.

Kerry was accurately quoted in Rolling Stone, said spokesman David Wade, adding the X-rated language reflects the fact that Bush's Iraq policy "makes John Kerry's blood boil."

Good for Kerry. Better late than never. [link via Instapundit.]

Update: Bush's chief of staff says Kerry was out of line.

Judicial Watch has sued Howard Dean.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it filed a lawsuit in Vermont to gain access to hundreds of thousands of documents concerning the administration of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. In addition to Dean, the lawsuit names the State of Vermont, the Vermont Secretary of State, and Vermont’s State Archivist as defendants. Judicial Watch had sought and was repeatedly denied access to Governor Dean’s records from his tenure as governor.

He's back. The Nader 2004 Presidential Exploratory Committee website is up and running. It went up October 24.

Politics1 says Ralph will try again. He may run as an Independent as opposed to a Green, although it reports the Green nomination is his if he wants it. [link via Political Wire.]

This is music to our ears. Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry outlined a new terrorism plan Monday:

Democrat John Kerry said Monday he will end the "era of John Ashcroft" if elected president, stepping up efforts to protect civil liberties while strengthening the war on terrorism.

"In my first 100 days, I will restore our commitment to civil rights and individual rights," Kerry said in remarks to be delivered at Iowa State University. That will begin with the appointment of "an attorney general who knows he can fight the war on terrorism without attacking America's freedoms. ... an attorney general whose name is not John Ashcroft."

Diebold, manufacturer of electronic voting machinery, announced today it will drop plans to sue websites that have published documents about security leaks.

A Diebold attorney promised in a conference call Monday with U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel that it would not sue dozens of students, computer scientists and ISP operators who received cease-and-desist letters from August to October.

Diebold also promised not to file lawsuits against two Swarthmore College students and a San Francisco-based Internet service provider for copyright infringement, according to a motion that company attorneys filed Nov. 24 in San Jose's federal court.

A big thanks is due the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which represented the students and service provider involved. Plus, EFF is promising to stay on the case:

EFF plans to continue with its case against Diebold, arguing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that Diebold must pay damages for intimidating Internet service providers. The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 9.

Kinky Friedman is interviewed in Guess Who Wants to Be Governor--he's thinking about a 2006 challenge to Texas Governor Rick Perry.

His campaign slogan? "Why the Hell Not?"

Kinky says it's a no-lose proposition. ""I'll either come out of it with a book, a wife or be governor."

Politically and friendship-wise, he sounds a little too close to the Bushes (GW and Laura) for our taste, so from here on out you'll probably have to read about him elsewhere.

Rumors are re-surfacing that Ret. General Wesley Clark played a direct or indirect role in the Waco disaster because his army division supplied some military equipment to the siege effort and his deputy attended a high-level meeting five days prior to the fiery end. Response has been swift that the allegations of his playing a role are not true:

Federal law restricts the role of the military in civilian law enforcement operations and "we weren't involved in the planning or execution of the Waco operation in any way, shape, form or fashion," says retired Army Lt. Gen. Horace Grady "Pete" Taylor, who ran the Fort Hood military base 60 miles from the site of the Waco siege. Waco "was a civilian operation that the military provided some support to" and "any decisions about where the support came from were my decisions, not General Clark's," Taylor said this week.

"Clark's totally innocent in this regardless of what anybody thinks about him," says Taylor, Clark's former commander. "He played no direct role in this activity nor did any of us." Regarding Taylor's comments, Clark campaign spokeswoman Mary Jacoby said "this is exactly what we've said all along; Gen. Clark had no involvement."

Between August 1992 and April 1994, Clark was commander of the 1st Cavalry Division of the Army's III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas. We don't think Clark played a direct role. We say this even though, contrary to the Justice Department's conclusions from its official investigation headed by John Danforth (R-Mo), we don't believe the evidence shows the Branch Davidians started the fire, and we do think it shows the government shot weapons, used pyrotechnics and bad judgment and was otherwise at fault.

We agree with filmmaker Michael McNulty who says there are many unanswered questions about the deaths at Waco. We were fortunate to have worked with him some around that time (1997), and we've seen his award-winning movie, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement." It was very persuasive to us. The film earned an Emmy award for investigative journalism and an Academy Award nomination for best documentary.

In "Waco: A New Revelation", a 1999 film about Waco, McNulty presented evidence that federal agents used an explosive device to blast a huge hole in the roof of a bunker occupied by women and children. McNulty also alleged that on the final day of the siege, government agents fired bullets at the back of Mount Carmel as it burned, making it impossible for the residents to escape. As a result of McNulty finding a spent incendiary device in the Waco evidence room, the FBI and Justice eventually recanted their long-standing claim that only nonincendiary tear gas was used.

Democratic Presidential contender Wesley Clark announced at a New Hampshire campaign stop Wednesday that he would suspend portions of the Patriot Act.

Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark said Wednesday that he would suspend all provisions of the USA Patriot Act dealing with “sneak-and-peek” searches and wiretaps without court orders against suspected terrorists.

“We’re going to suspend that right away. If you want to go do a ‘sneak-and-peak’ search or do a wiretap, go back to the judge and do it the right way, none of this other stuff,” he said.

Clark also said Ashcroft would not get expanded powers if he were President:

Clark said he would oppose the tighter restrictions that Ashcroft has asked Congress to approve. “Number one, no new Patriot Act, forget it, we’re not going to do that,” Clark said to applause.

Where are the other candidates on the Patriot Act?

Among the Democratic candidates, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has offered his support for proposals that would require law enforcement to provide more rationale before doing “sneak-and-peek” searches, which can range from personal financial records to books borrowed from public libraries.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry supports legislation that would limit “sneak and peek” warrants only to when a life is at stake, evidence may be destroyed or there is a risk of flight, a Kerry spokesman said.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich has called for the repeal of the entire act. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman have criticized the act, but have yet to endorse any plan to change it. Edwards, Kerry and Lieberman all voted to put the Patriot Act on the books two years ago.

James Goodno examines the San Francisco mayor's race between Democrat Gavin Newsom and Green Party candidate Matt Gonzales in At Bay.

So, liberal and progressive Democrats hold the key to what could be a competitive race. Gonzalez needs to get people who supported other left-leaning candidates in November to the polls -- and to capture an overwhelming majority of their votes. Newsom recognizes this, and both candidates are working overtime to corral support from unions, gay and lesbian organizations, liberal elected officials and progressive voters. They've each had some success.

This is the pivotal point to us:

Unlike Gonzalez, a former public defender, Newsom has not been a leader on social-justice issues.

This is another important distinction:

A look at the ballot initiatives the two leaders have supported further illuminates the differences between them. Newsom has ridden a pair of Rudolph Giuliani-esque proposals on homelessness to prominence. One would replace the relatively high cash payments certain homeless people receive with a package of services and much smaller cash disbursements. The second initiative would place tough restrictions on "aggressive panhandling." For his part, Gonzalez authored and campaigned for a ballot measure increasing the minimum wage in San Francisco.

Here's our last update on this race.