What will lobbyist do at the RNC to earn pay?
The Baltimore Sun
Jules Witcover
Jan 11, 2002
WASHINGTON - Former Montana Gov. Marc
Racicot, slated to be elected chairman of the
Republican National Committee when it meets
in Austin next week, has suddenly experienced
an improvement in his eyesight. He says he
can now see that continuing to be a paid
lobbyist for clients who have business before the federal
government might conceivably be viewed as a conflict of
interest. His solution is to vow that "I will not represent
the interests of clients before the Congress or the
administration."
In other words, Mr. Racicot as the new party chairman
will continue on the payroll of his Texas-based law firm,
but not as a registered lobbyist. It is a posture that will
require the discipline of a kid sent into a candy store
and told to keep his hands off the merchandise.
What, pray tell, having sworn off lobbying, will he do to
earn the reportedly fat law-firm salary he will get? So
asks his prospective Democratic counterpart, Terry
McAuliffe, the master Democratic fund-raiser, who then
adds: "I'll leave it to President Bush to decide who
should be the chair and what appropriate behavior is."
Would you care to bet, though, that the feisty Mr.
McAuliffe will give Mr. Racicot and the GOP a free ride
on this one in a congressional election year?
Even some prominent Republicans, such as Sen. John
McCain, questioned Mr. Racicot's doubling as a lobbyist
from the party chairman's post. The Montanan's
assurance now that he won't be hustling for his clients
while rubbing elbows with the president, key White
House aides and GOP congressional leaders won't end
Democratic suggestions of hanky-panky.
Prior to acceding to the urgings of his good friend
George W. Bush to take the RNC chairmanship, Mr.
Racicot had said he couldn't afford working for the mere
$150,000-a-year the party job pays. After years in the
low-paying Montana governor's chair, he said, he had to
get about the business of caring for his family.
Only when the notion struck that he could have his
cake and eat it too did Mr. Racicot agree to take the
party post. Working both sides of the street is not, after
all, uncharted territory. The late Ron Brown did the
same as Democratic National Chairman while
continuing as a partner in a high-powered Washington
law firm in 1992.
One practical matter may keep much of the anticipated
heat off Mr. Racicot. The national chairman's job seldom
carries great weight when his party holds the Oval
Office. Then, the key political decisions are made in the
White House by the political operatives closest to the
president. In this case, that means KARL ROVE, the main
architect of Mr. Bush's election in 2000 and his
principal political swami ever since.
When the national chairman's party is in power, he is
usually reduced to a hand-holder for petitioners of
administration favors and a servicer of state party
organizations. The real political clout remains with
those who got the president where he finds himself.
The out-of-power party's chairman, by contrast, takes
on a more free-wheeling position, especially when there
is no conspicuous other party leader. That is the
vacuum in which Mr. McAuliffe can operate these days,
with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle clearly the
most visible Democratic leader, yet not quite a
household name. Former Vice President Al Gore, with
or without beard, has been reduced to a quiet-voiced
prospective presidential candidate again.
There have been, to be sure, some powerful and
influential national party chairmen. FDR's main
political man, Jim Farley, immediately springs to mind,
but Farley was also in the Roosevelt Cabinet as
postmaster general when the occupant of that office had
more to do than trying to improve service at the local
Post Office customer counter.
In the Kennedy-Johnson era, Larry O'Brien was the
in-house political operative, and he remained so even
when LBJ appointed him postmaster general as a way
to keep him from fleeing government service. When
Republican Richard Nixon won the White House,
O'Brien was persuaded after a stint in the private sector
to take over as Democratic National Chairman, when
the post did have clout in the out-of-power party.
But Mr. Racicot should have no heavy lifting in the job
with a fellow Republican in the Oval Office. Especially if
he's just minding the RNC store and not, as he
promises, busy lobbying.
Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington
bureau.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
sunspot.net 11, 2002
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