June 2002

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Control of Senate Could Hinge on Any One of 8 to 15 States 6/30/2002 9:57 PM The battle for control of the Senate is beginning to look like a doozy. At least eight, and as many as 14 or 15, of the 34 Senate campaigns this year are seriously competitive, according to recent polls and party analysts. Given that the current Democratic majority consists of just one seat, that means plenty of chances to shake things up. Recent polls, compiled by the political newsletter the Hotline, indicate that races are within the margin of error in eight states: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Texas. Four of these contests involve threatened Democratic incumbents, three are endangered Republican seats and one of the races -- in Texas -- is to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Phil Gramm (R). In 11 races, the leading candidate is under 50 percent in the polls. Read the article Retiring GOP Senator Thompson Weds 6/30/2002 9:54 PM Sen. Fred Thompson, a star of Hollywood movies and real-life political dramas, played the leading man again on Saturday. This time it was at his own wedding. Taking a big step toward life after politics, the retiring Republican senator married political and media specialist Jeri Kehn in a small, private ceremony in Naperville, Ill. Thompson, 59, has known Kehn, 35, since they met on the Fourth of July in 1996. The couple is departing this weekend for France for a honeymoon. Thompson announced his retirement in March after eight years in the Senate where he became one of the GOP's rising stars and was even mentioned as a possible running mate for President Bush in 2000. Read the article Watts Still In Flux 6/27/2002 12:46 PM Just a week after Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.) publicly equivocated about his intention to run for re-election, names of potential successors for the No. 4 leadership post he currently occupies are already circulating. Watts must make a decision before July 11, Oklahoma's filing deadline. But top House Republicans are leaving nothing to chance, simultaneously lobbying Watts to stay in Congress while courting prime candidates to fill the potential open seat at the leadership table. Since late last week Watts has received a flurry of phone calls urging him not to leave Washington. Everyone from top White House adviser Karl Rove to Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.)and even Majority Whip Tom DeLay (Texas), who Watts once privately sparred with over the scope of his Conference responsibilities, have reached out to Watts, the only black Republican in Congress. Read the article GOP Says Star-Struck Senator out of Step in Montana 6/26/2002 9:50 PM Montana Senator Max Baucus is emerging as the new darling of Hollywood's glitterati, and his Republican challenger says that shows the incumbent is out of touch with the state's conservative voters. Stars like Barbra Streisand, Michael Douglas and Rob Reiner have donated to the campaign of Mr. Baucus, a four-term Democrat up for re-election in Montana, a state where George W. Bush won 58 percent of the vote in 2000. "Max is currently doing his once-every-six-years penance as a moderate," said Bowen Greenwood, communications director for the Republican challenger, state Sen. Mike Taylor. "But Hollywood knows that if they can get [Mr. Baucus] through this election, he'll be right back in line with their agenda. Read the article Poll Finds GOP Voters More Motivated Than Democrats 6/26/2002 9:40 PM President Bush's strong approval ratings have produced an unusual twist in the political environment this year: Republicans appear more motivated to vote in November than Democrats. That was among the findings in the latest installment of the bipartisan Battleground 2002 poll released yesterday by political strategists Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake, who agreed that two key Democratic constituencies -- African Americans and unmarried women -- show little enthusiasm for the midterm elections. "You're already seeing a Bush effect," said Lake, a Democrat. "Republicans are more intense than Democrats." Read the article Coulter and Couric Face Off 6/26/2002 9:35 PM Political commentator and author Ann Coulter and Today show host Katie Couric spiced up morning television Wednesday with a verbal spat. Couric took issue with the characterization of her as the liberal media's version of Hitler mistress Eva Braun and a Ronald Reagan basher in Coulter's new book, Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right. "You used me as an example of liberal bias against Reagan," Couric said. "I'm just curious why you took it so out of context." Coulter countered, "I don't think I did -- you're taking it out of context." Read the article Karl Rove, Adding to His To-Do List 6/25/2002 9:31 AM Karl Rove is putting another notch in his belt. The senior adviser to the president already oversees the White House political office, public liaison office, intergovernmental relations office and the new Office of Strategic Initiatives. With Karen Hughes's departure, Rove, President Bush's top political aide, is expected to expand his influence in the White House's public "message" operation. Now comes word that Rove is making a foray into congressional relations, too. Rove, through his strategic initiatives office, has asked all of the Cabinet agencies for lists of any legislation that will expire before Bush's term ends in January 2005. Such activity is usually the job of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, and it generally looks no more than a year ahead. Rove's request is an effort, as a White House official said, to see "what issues might be driving the congressional agenda" in the future -- and by extension, Bush's political prospects in November 2004. Read the article Armey's Last Act 6/25/2002 9:26 AM For those who have followed House Majority Leader Dick Armey's (R-Texas) nine-term political career from afar, the irony is rife. After 18 years in Congress, Armey will retire at the end of the year. But even when he announced his plans to leave Congress seven months ago, no one could have predicted that the self-declared revolutionary who came to Washington in 1984 railing against big government would spend his last days in Congress happily creating a massive, brand-new government agency. "The urgency and the sheer magnitude of homeland security is so great it crowds out politics and parochial interests -- and you don't see that too often,"he said during an interview last week. "To me, it's a very refreshing point of view." Read the article Sierra Club Targets Republicans 6/25/2002 9:19 AM The Sierra Club is targeting several Republicans in competitive Senate races for their votes on a series of environmental issues and supporting several Democrats for their environmental voting record. The Sierra Club outlined plans Monday to spend several million dollars -- the amount was not disclosed -- this year on political ads and voter education. The first phase of the environmental group's campaign will target television ads at Republican Senate challengers John Thune in South Dakota, Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, Greg Ganske in Iowa and John Sununu in New Hampshire and incumbent Sens. Wayne Allard in Colorado and Gordon Smith in Oregon. The ads also will praise the environmental records of Democratic Sens. Paul Wellstone in Minnesota and Jean Carnahan in Missouri. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine also gets a positive ad from the Sierra Club. The TV ads will run on broadcast stations in those states' major markets, many starting Wednesday and running through July 3. Read the article Bush to Help in Brother's Campaign 6/21/2002 5:14 PM President Bush is shoring up his brother's re-election war chest by raising $2.5 million for the Florida GOP and lifting the total fund-raising take by him and Vice President Dick Cheney above $100 million for this year alone. The Friday dinner at a Universal Studios hotel in Orlando, Fla., was officially for the benefit of the Florida Republican Party. But with party leaders ready to spend heavily to support Gov. Jeb Bush in November, the president's visit was clearly a family affair in support of his younger brother's already well-funded, ahead-in-the-polls campaign. It was the president's fifth visit this year to the state that barely bumped him into the White House after a Supreme Court decision. Florida, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, is Bush's third most-visited state since becoming president, behind Pennsylvania and New York. Read the article Panel Considers Romney Governor Bid 6/19/2002 10:48 PM Two Democratic gubernatorial candidates suggested their party drop the residency challenge to Republican Mitt Romney, the same day attorneys gave closing arguments before the state board that will decide if he is eligible to run. Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich -- who lived in Washington until 1995 and has been questioned by Republicans about his own residency qualifications -- said Wednesday that the debate is drawing attention away from the campaign issues. "We should drop it and allow him on the ballot," Reich said. Steve Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats risk making Romney a hero by challenging him in a courtroom instead of on the campaign trail. Read the article GOP Expects to Raise $28 Million at Dinner 6/18/2002 10:22 PM The last big Republican congressional fund-raiser before a soft money ban takes effect is expected to bring in a record $28 million or more. The event President Bush was to headline Wednesday night for the National Republican Congressional Committee and its Senate counterpart will lift this year's fund-raising total for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to at least $97.9 million. Bush is certain to take it over the $100 million mark at an event Friday for the Florida GOP, which is spending heavily in support of his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush. President Bush has made roughly three dozen campaign stops for Republicans around the country so far this year. Read the article Governor Jesse Ventura Will Not Seek Another Term 6/18/2002 1:54 PM Gov. Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler who stunned the political world when he was elected in 1998, announced Tuesday that one term is enough. "I am not seeking re-election right now," Ventura said in an interview broadcast live on Minnesota Public Radio. "I will not run again." Read the article Tennessee Tussle 6/17/2002 10:53 AM With the high-profile Senate primary between former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander (R) and Rep.Ed Bryant (R) dominating the Volunteer State's political scene, Rep.Bob Clement (D) appears to be running a low-key campaign focused on fundraising. Democrats familiar with the race attribute Clement's approach to the necessity of raising the millions needed for a competitive general election and to the already combative contest between Alexander and Bryant. Read the article Recount Redux in Florida? 6/17/2002 10:49 AM When Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney (R) announced his campaign for Congress at the start of June, he did not shy away from the prominent role he played in the state's contentious 2000 presidential recount. Feeney led a drive in the state House to name electors for then-candidate George W. Bush before the soon-to-be president was officially certified the winner over Al Gore. And he believes such a move is likely to ignite his conservative base in his House campaign for Florida's 24th district. Read the article House GOP Gets Behind Intraparty Challenge 6/17/2002 10:47 AM Rep. John Sununu (R-N.H), who is challenging incumbent GOP Sen. Bob Smith, will receive a major boost this week when the entire House Republican leadership team hosts a fundraiser benefiting the three-term lawmaker. The event, scheduled for tomorrow at the Capitol Hill Club, will include Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)and the rest of the elected leadership. The fundraiser is important symbolically, demonstrating Sununu's support from the Republican establishment despite the fact that he's taking on a sitting Senator from his own party, a move considered heresy in some GOP circles. "A lot of people are taking a pass [on Sununu] because he's challenging an incumbent,"said a top House Republican staffer. "But this was an opportunity for us to be supportive of Sununu, and we felt we had to demonstrate our commitment to him." Read the article White House Defends Rove Political Presentation 6/16/2002 6:40 PM With Democrats crying foul after learning about a detailed computer presentation on the outlook for the GOP in 2002 by the White House, President Bush's spokesman shot back, with sarcasm, saying it is a "shocking development" to learn the administration's political office would put such a presentation together. "I am shocked," Fleischer told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Columbus, Ohio, Friday where Bush gave a commencement address to Ohio State University graduates. "Shocked that the director of the White House Office of Political Affairs would be concerned in any way with political affairs. This is a shocking development." Read the article Democrats Plan for GOP Arkansas Visits 6/16/2002 6:32 PM Democrat Mark Pryor's U.S. Senate campaign says it expects a parade of big-name Republicans to visit the state after learning the White House is worried he may take incumbent Sen. Tim Hutchinson's seat. Arkansas was one of two states marked in a presentation by White House campaign advisers as having a "strong chance" for Democratic pickup. New Hampshire was the other. The presentation was on a computer disk that had been lost and then found on the street near the White House. Contents of the disk began circulating in Washington within the past week. Read the article Moderate California Republicans Look Ahead to Boxer 6/14/2002 2:36 PM With most of the California political world focused on Bill Simon's (R) heated challenge to Gov. Gray Davis (D), many GOP operatives in the Golden State are watching Simon's campaign for clues about how the next race against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) may play out in 2004. Both of those races will be on the minds of moderate California Republicans as they gather June 21-23 at former state Assemblyman Brooks Firestone's (R) ranch north of Santa Barbara. Among the speakers at the meeting of the California Republican Party Convention Alumni Association, which Firestone has convened each of the past four years at his vineyard in Los Olivos, will be at least three potential 2004 GOP Senate candidates - Reps. Mary Bono and Doug Ose as well as state Assemblyman Abel Maldonado. Read the article GOP Eyes $25 Million Dinner Tab 6/14/2002 2:35 PM GOP Congressional leaders, with help from President Bush and his Cabinet, plan to raise $25 million or more at a joint House- Senate dinner next Wednesday at the Washington Convention Center, the second massive Republican fundraiser to be held at that venue during the past month. The event could be one of the last huge fundraising bashes in Washington at which soft-money donations can be accepted by national parties. Such unlimited, largely unregulated donations will be banned after this year's election under the campaign finance reform legislation signed into law by Bush earlier this year, although legal challenges to the legislation have only begun to work their way through the courts. Read the article Senate Limits Draw Ire 6/14/2002 2:32 PM Top Republicans on Senate committees have begun a counterattack against efforts to enforce strict limits on their tenure, circulating internal Conference memos accusing one of their leaders of hypocrisy. The so-called "Old Bulls," veteran Senators currently serving as ranking members, have lashed out at Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.) for pushing a clarification in the rules governing term limits on serving as the chairman or ranking member of a committee. The increasingly tense debate over the top committee spots has split the Republican leadership team, revealing a chasm in what had previously been, at least in public, a united front aimed at taking back the majority this fall. Read the article Minnesota GOP Convention May Move Toward Center 6/14/2002 2:02 PM Minnesota's Republican convention is a good place to look for evidence that the state party's core activists are much more conservative than the state's Republican voters in general. In 1994, for example, the state GOP convention endorsed a social-issues conservative over the popular, moderate incumbent governor, Arne Carlson, who nonetheless went on to win re-nomination in the primary and re-election in November. Read the article Hoffa Finds Reasons to Support GOP 6/14/2002 2:00 PM Teamsters President James P. Hoffa says that his 1.4-million-member union is giving more financial support to Republican candidates this year. "Don't take us for granted," he says. Mr. Hoffa, whose union is already supporting several Republican gubernatorial candidates, also hinted that the Teamsters might endorse Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's bid for re-election to a second term. He called Mr. Bush's likely Democratic opponent, former Attorney General Janet Reno, "the worst attorney general this country has ever had." Read the article DeLay Sees Progress From CNN 6/6/2002 5:58 PM Believe it or not, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) no longer sees red when he tunes in to CNN. DeLay, who in the past has referred to CNN as the Communist News Network or the Clinton News Network and routinely groused that its coverage was blatantly liberal, had surprisingly kind words for the cable network when new AOL Time Warner Inc. CEO Richard Parsons came calling at the closed-door House Republican leadership meeting Tuesday. With AOL Time Warner stock continuing to slide this week, Parsons visited House and Senate leaders Tuesday to introduce himself to Members and boost the embattled media conglomerate's profile on Capitol Hill. Read the article Senator Tired of Capitol Hill Celebs 6/6/2002 3:37 PM Check out the glitterati who have shown up at congressional hearings recently: Julia Roberts. Christie Brinkley. Michael J. Fox. Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys. At least one senator says enough is enough. Political analysts agree there's a fine line between celebrities with legitimate expertise and those who have been invited to appear before Congress just to draw media attention. Read the article Crook to Run as Independent Against Senator Warner 6/6/2002 9:34 AM Democrats granted Sen. John Warner (R) a free pass for re-election after they voted against nominating a candidate to take on the four-term incumbent. The party's central committee concluded last weekend that Gail Crook, the only Democrat who had expressed interest in a run, lacked the capability to mount a credible challenge. But Crook plans to mount an Independent campaign against Warner, who "needs to be held accountable to Virginians," she told The Washington Post. "It would be very, very hard and very expensive to defeat the Senator," state Democratic Party Chairman Lawrence Framme told The Associated Press after the vote against fielding a candidate. "Unfortunately no Democrat has emerged that has shown any promise of mounting the financial support necessary to run an adequate campaign." Read the article GOP Leaders Seek Post For New Yorker 6/6/2002 9:27 AM With New York's redistricting map finally complete, Hill Republicans are dangling the possibility of a position with the Bush administration in front of Rep. Ben Gilman in hopes of preventing the 15-term lawmaker from challenging fellow Empire State GOP Rep. Sue Kelly. Both chambers of the New York Legislature approved a compromise map yesterday afternoon that carves up Gilman's current territory among several Members, including Kelly, and pushes Democratic Reps. Louise Slaughter and John LaFalce together into one district. Frustrated at the fate of his district, Gilman hinted earlier this week that he might consider state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's (D) suggestion that he switch parties and run against Kelly as a Democrat. Read the article Men in Power Seek Life Balance 6/5/2002 11:20 PM When it comes to power, men and women are worlds apart. Take, for example, Rep. Amo Houghton Jr. If anyone should think he "has it all" in life, it's this white-haired billionaire Republican from New York. With his white-framed rectangular glasses perched on the edge of his nose, he speaks of his love for a second wife of 11 years. At 75, he still has his health (he turns to knock on a wooden armchair), and the company of four children and eight grandchildren. And on most days, he says, he has a job that keeps him sufficiently "anguished" -- and therefore alive. But Houghton, like many lawmakers, doesn't believe his life has reached some nirvana of perfection. Read the article Senator Helms' Condition Improves 6/5/2002 11:10 PM Sen. Jesse Helms' condition continues to improve since his heart surgery in April, and he hopes to be out of the hospital next week, a spokesman said Wednesday. Chief of staff Jimmy Broughton said the 80-year-old senator was breathing without supplemental oxygen when he visited the Republican senator Wednesday at a hospital in Farfax, Va. "He's doing well," Broughton said. Read the article Romney in Residency Flap 6/5/2002 11:09 PM Mitt Romney, the former Salt Lake City Olympics chief now running for Massachusetts governor, paid property taxes on a Utah home as his "primary residence" between 1999 and 2001, and received a $54,000 tax discount as a result, The Boston Globe reported Wednesday. The tax records could add to debate about whether Romney meets Massachusetts' residential requirements to be governor. The state constitution requires a candidate to live in Massachusetts for seven years prior to election. Romney also has a home in Belmont. A Romney spokesman said Romney never sought the "primary residence" designation for his Park City, Utah, home, and both Romney and the county assessor in Summit County, Utah, blamed it on a clerical mistake. Read the article