Census tracks 'major waves'
By Paul Overberg and Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
The nation's two largest minority groups are following strikingly different paths: Hispanics are moving to areas with few from their ethnic group; African-Americans are moving to suburbs in the South that have large black populations, Census estimates released Thursday show. (Graphic: Minority populations rise)

Why No Tea and Sympathy? - New York Times: "W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq. There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here? Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq. And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called 'Sweet Neo Con,' chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. 'You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite,' Mick Jagger sings. The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote 'Monday Night Football.' The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt."

D.A. announces plan to run for senator in N.Y. next year
By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The woman New York Republicans view as their best hope against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2006 Senate race said Monday that she will run.

Jeanine Pirro, 54, the district attorney in Westchester County, outside New York City, told USA TODAY that New Yorkers deserve a full-time senator and will choose "the only woman who really wants the job." Translation: Clinton wants to be president, not senator.
Clinton, 57, has said repeatedly that she is focused on her Senate race. Even so, she leads the presidential field in 2008 primary matchups. Nationwide, four in 10 Democrats and those who lean Democratic in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll say they would support her for their party's nomination. Majorities of 53%-68% of adults in the survey say she is strong, decisive, likable, caring and honest. (Poll results)
In two independent polls last month, New Yorkers gave Clinton approval ratings of 60% or more. "Hillary Clinton is very popular in New York," says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "Clearly, it's an uphill climb" for Pirro.
Howard Wolfson, a Clinton adviser, says the senator's ratings are strong because "she has done an outstanding job delivering for the state." He says she'll continue to work hard for New York while Republicans "sort out" who their candidate will be.
Pirro announced her bid for the Senate — instead of governor or attorney general, races she also considered — after 46 of the state's 62 county GOP chairmen urged her to take on Clinton. Her possible opponents in the state's Republican primary on Sept. 12, 2006, include attorney Edward Cox, the son-in-law of former president Richard Nixon.
A mother of two, Pirro brings to the race a high-profile media presence, upstate roots (she was born in Elmira) and victories in swing suburban areas. She calls herself "a moderate and a compromiser" who supports abortion rights. As a prosecutor and district attorney, she says, she has taken on underage drinking, Internet pedophiles and the Mob, and fought to protect abused women and children.
Pirro is assuming that Clinton will run for the White House. In 2007, she predicts, Clinton will be running in presidential primaries. In 2008, if she wins the nomination, she'll be campaigning for president. (Related story: Poll shows Clinton admired as leader, but divisive)
"Two years without a senator — we lose out," Pirro says. She argues that an absentee senator would hurt New York's ability to get federal money for transportation, homeland security and other needs.
Pirro's husband, lobbyist and GOP fundraiser Albert Pirro, served prison time for tax fraud in 2001 and lost a paternity suit in 1997. Asked Monday how her husband's problems would affect her race, Pirro replied, "There's only one person's name that's going to be on that ballot, and that's mine."
Clinton has had her own tribulations with a husband's infidelity and legal woes. In the USA TODAY Poll, 30% say her marriage to former president Bill Clinton makes them more likely to vote for her; 43% said less likely.
The husbands would be peripheral to a faceoff between the two women, political scientists say. Gerald Benjamin of the State University of New York at New Paltz says both women are affected so "the bad-husband problem gets neutralized. It doesn't get discussed." Jonathan Nagler of New York University says the main issue for voters will be "whether they do or they don't want to keep Hillary Clinton."
Clinton overcame her husband's White House baggage and her own status as a brand-new New Yorker to win her 2000 race. Kieran Mahoney, a Pirro adviser, says his candidate "won't need a bus tour to familiarize herself with New York."
Clinton has toured the state extensively during her term. Today, she was scheduled to meet with western New York dairy farmers, visit a diesel-engine manufacturer and announce a software donation by Microsoft. Benjamin, once an elected Republican official, says Clinton "has really touched the bases around New York."

Adds Miringoff: "The carpetbagger issue has passed."