Tom Vilsack

Democratic presidential contender Tom Vilsack offered up a plan Tuesday to wean the nation off of fossil fuels and roll back greenhouse gas emissions to a fraction of current levels. The former Iowa governor said he would force new power plants to emit no carbon dioxide -- one of the greenhouse gases blamed for rising Earth temperatures -- by 2020. Vilsack would cap U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and create a credit-trading program to meet the cap.

Tom Vilsack's abrupt departure from the presidential race Friday underscores the indispensable role of money in the contest, as well as an attention gap between voters and political insiders. Less than three months after becoming the first major Democratic candidate to formally announce his bid, Vilsack reluctantly made his exit at a Des Moines news conference. "It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving," the former Iowa governor said.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who dropped his brief presidential bid last month, endorsed Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy for the White House. "This is the person to be the next president of the United States," Vilsack said at a Des Moines news conference with Clinton (D-N.Y.). "She is tried, she is tested and she is ready."

Shortly after endorsing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack received nearly $90,000 in donations to his defunct presidential campaign from some of Clinton's major backers, campaign finance reports show. The donations, disclosed in Federal Election Commission filings over the weekend, came from Clinton fundraising bastions of New York, California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. None came from Iowa, where Vilsack served two terms as governor.

Re "Return of the liberal hawks," Current, May 28 Jacob Heilbrunn's labeling of defense-oriented Democrats as "liberal hawks" is misleading at best. First, no one of even cursory knowledge would call any member of the Democratic Leadership Council a liberal. They are avowed, militant centrists. Furthermore, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner have almost the same opinion of post-9/11 national security as Howard Dean and Al Gore. All of them supported the 1991 Iraq war and the 2002 Afghanistan war and believe that we should beef up the military to target true anti-American terrorism.

Wasting little time after the Democratdominated elections of 2006, Tom Vilsack, Iowa's Democratic governor, opened his campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination Thursday, asserting that voters "want leaders who will take this country in a new direction." In a field likely to be dominated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York -- and possibly drawing in Sen.

Gov. Tom Vilsack, launching an uphill bid for president, called Thursday for expanded healthcare and educational opportunities at home and a foreign policy aimed at mending alliances and lessening U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Speaking in the small town where he started his political career as mayor, Vilsack, 55, became the first Democrat to formally enter the 2008 race.

Gov. Tom Vilsack said in Des Moines that he would sign an order on the Fourth of July restoring the voting rights of convicted felons who have served their sentences. Currently, felons can apply for the right to vote, but it must be approved by the state's parole board and the governor in a lengthy process. Vilsack, a Democrat, said his executive order would automatically restore felons' voting rights upon completion of their sentences.

Here's the thing about a vice presidential nomination. You're not supposed to look like you're pursuing it. It's considered best to lie low and let the job come to you. So when Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack -- one of the top prospects to join Sen. John F. Kerry on the Democratic ticket -- came to San Francisco last week for a biotechnology conference, he relentlessly maintained just one identity, as governor of a small Midwestern state.

The bases were loaded Sunday afternoon on the small baseball diamond carved out of the rolling corn fields in Dyersville, in eastern Iowa. The batter hit a grounder, and the ball rolled right up to Sen. John F. Kerry, standing halfway between first and second base. Over on first, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack gestured to the senator. But as the young runner neared first base, Kerry hesitated, then turned and threw the ball to second.