THE NOTE: PART ONE
Madison Dines Alone
Mr. Rove Leaves Washington
By Mark Halperin, Marc Ambinder, David Chalian & Brooke Brower.
[ABCNEWS.com]
Watch for the Italics. Rove has the Key!
W A S H I N G T O N May 5
Attention must be paid to the biggest political event of this presidential campaign so far. We are speaking, of course, about this Wednesday's expected trip of Karl Rove for a day of events in New Hampshire.
Saturday's Democratic presidential campaign debate is still getting a lot of attention, and leaves any sensible person truly not knowing who the Democratic nominee is going to be, or, even, who the frontrunners for the nomination are.
But it seems all but certain that George W. Bush will be both HIS party's nominee AND the frontrunner for the Big Enchilda of the White House, and, as even the French know, that has at least a little something to do with Karl Rove.
On Wednesday, Rove is expected in the Granite State to speak at the St. Anselm College's Institute of Politics, with a "Politics and Eggs Forum," and then a New Hampshire Republican Party "Grassroots Connection" workshop that is (for now) closed to the media.
A lot of national and New Hampshire press will hang on his every word.
Which is not to say that the Democrats who want to replace Bush and Rove won't be busy seeking attention this week, pushing off the debate and trying (still) to make the bad economy a big issue.
Busy, busy, busy:
The candidate who got the best debate reviews hands down ? Senator Lieberman ? has two campaign stops in Cleveland today.
Representative Kucinich is in Davenport, Iowa. Reverend Al Sharpton is also there. The two are speaking to a state letter carriers convention.
Senator Kerry is in Illinois.
Tomorrow, Howard Dean chats with senior citizens in Hanover, New Hampshire, and then stops at Dartmouth.
And Senator Bob Graham announces his presidential candidacy from the Shula Hotel in Miami Lakes. His schedule for the rest of the week is TBD, but we're told it probably will include a trip to Iowa (May 9 and 10) and New Hampshire, as well as a tour of his own state.
On Wednesday, Senator Lieberman will give what's billed as a "major" energy policy speech, and the first of several topical addresses. Dean travels to Concord.
On Thursday, Senator Kerry meets students at Manchester Central High in New Hampshire and then does some taping at WMUR. Friday night, Senator Kerry attends the Story County Big Band Swing Fling.
Hadassah Lieberman is scheduled to campaign in South Carolina.
On Saturday, presidential candidates TBD are slated to attend the Polk County Democratic Party Dinner in Des Moines.
Senator Edwards keynotes the Human Rights Campaign dinner that evening.
Most of the president's re-election effort, as we have said before, will take place (read: "is taking place") below the radar, with the Democrats, for their good and their ill, getting much more attention, because they have a contested nomination fight.
But the president, qua president, will get a lot of ink and television time, of course.
As will, naturally, Mr. Rove.
In fact, Dean Nick Lemann has a longish New Yorker story on Mr. Rove, who seems to have decided that Lemann was a worthy intellectual sparring partner during the "three long interviews ? in his office in the West Wing ? "
It's a fair, balanced look at Rove's thinking, practice, and life, we think; The Note will be interested to see if Lemann gets a long e-mail or letter from Rove correcting any errors of fact, judgment, or interpretation.
As many strengths as Lemann has, writing this kind of profile might be the thing at which he is third best (parenting and making The Note feel dumb are easy Numbers 1 and 2).
So of course it is a must-read, even though tracking down the New Yorker in DC and elsewhere is not as easy as it should be.
Too many highlights to list here, but the highlights of the highlights are:
a. more on Karl's family situation than most of you know
b. more on the College Republicans than most of you know
c. this line: "Rove has an omnipresent quality. Everybody seems to have just heard from him ? "
d. this one: " ? Rove's pride in his knowledge of politics is so great that he as an evidently irresistible impulse to dispute, correct, or improve upon virtually anything anybody says on the subject ? ." (Never noticed that one ? .)
e. the brilliant metaphor comparing the Rove Texas operation to a Hollywood studio
f. John Deardourff on the record outing Karl (Stand by for the fallout ? )
g. Lemann's saying '02 was more about the Blaising 72-Hour Task Force than a referendum on terrorism
h. Karl's aversion to criticism
i. this: "One of Rove's signature moves is to be unusually nonconfrontational, for a Republican, on some things ? no Draconian budget cuts in programs for the poor in this Administration ? so as to be better positioned to accomplish a much more important thing: fundamentally changing the social compact in order to enthrone the Republican Party as firmly as possible for as long as possible."
j. And the last, long, brilliant paragraph about the Democratic party, trial lawyers, unions, Jews, Social Security, Medicare, and public education
If you read NOTHING else Notable today, read that paragraph.
And then read the Roll Call story that says that Ed Gillespie is about to replace Marc Racicot as RNC chairman (once Karl signs off), and Marc Z. Barabak on the Bush campaign, and then you will have finished your vital Bush campaign reading for a moment. See "CREEP" below for all that.
Okay, the debate. Below you will find the best of the first and second day stories.
Since The Note was a bit tied up helping on the debate production (those of you who watched in the hall know that even the Googling monkeys were involved as ticket takers ? ), we are going to not add much of our own voices to the excellent work of others in deciding Who Won and What It All Means.
So see all of that in the next two sections.
We do need to tell you that our Notepad feature is going into hiatus for a bit after today's edition.
Although it seems to be enormously popular with our readers, and at least one campaign, many of the other campaigns find churning out 200 words a day to reach Note readers to be arduous beyond belief.
We know how you feel. Each day as we write The Note's first 200 words, we get absolutely exhausted. Somehow, we get a second wind and finish, however.
In any event, The Notepad will be back eventually, but/and make sure to read today's key post-debate entries. THE NOTEPAD
In other political news, the McCain-Feingold situation remains a big mess.
Our sense is that today the lawyers whose weekends were ruined reading through the thing will start to brief the political people (Tom Davis' apparent and typical excitability notwithstanding) no one knows what the decision means no one knows when the SCOTUS will take the case, or where the votes are there on all this
Per the AP, President "Bush travels Monday to Arkansas, home state of Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln. She supported Bush on tax cuts two years ago but voted with most other senators in her party in March to halve Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
On Sunday, Senator Jeffords "criticized President Bush's tax cut proposal, saying the debate reminded him of two years ago when he decided to leave the Republican Party," the AP reported. LINK
Tomorrow, President Bush charges up the crowd at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he speaks to their Tax Relief coalition. Also on Thursday, President Bush gathers in the Rose Garden with foreign ministers of several countries in central Europe.
On Friday, President Bush delivers the commencement address at the University of South Carolina. Democrats, who found out about Bush's visit while trying to digest their own nine candidates, vow large protests.
And a hearty and heart-felt thanks to everyone at the University of South Carolina and everyone else in the Palmetto State who made all of us at ABC News so very welcome during our time there.
All y'all were nice, professional, savvy, and creative, and we really appreciate it.
ABC 2004: First In the Nation: The Democratic Debate:
Dan Balz of the Washington Post gives good reviews to Lieberman, and looks at the roots of Edwards v. Gephardt and Kerry v. Dean. LINK
The New York Times ' Adam Nagourney gives Lieberman props as well, and looks at the candidates who are running with the "I can beat Bush" message versus those who are running with more of a nomination message. LINK
Do we even need to tell regular Note readers that Nagourney closes by pointing out that the Clintonian/'92 paradigm would be to fine a way to do both at once ? .? Both Balz and Nagourney couldn't be more must-readable ? ?
As Bill Safire would say, the answers are in the questions.
The Boston Globe 's Wayne Washington opens his debate analysis with: "Divisions among Democrats on display during the first presidential primary debate Saturday night delighted Republicans, who hope the party's internal squabbles on national security, health care, and taxes will hobble its nominee and bolster President Bush's chances for reelection. " LINK
Washington warns about "a year of internal sniping before [the candidates] get a chance to focus on Bush" regarding key issues such as national security, about which they have differing ideas, and the economy.
Bill Safire writes a must-read, and not just because he liked the format. LINK
The Washington Post 's Mark Leibovich sees the South Carolina debate as both a coarse cattle call and an awkward return to high school, as the nine candidates put on their game faces for the voters and grin and gripe with each other behind the scenes. LINK
Leibovich assesses the atmosphere before the debate, moderated by the "calm" George Stephanopoulos: "They are clubby and suspicious, hyper-strivers bonded by a rarefied goal and divided by basic Darwinian math" and checks out the nine (Edwards is doing smiling exercises, Kerry takes on a "Ted Baxter" stance, Gephardt is patting his temples, Kucinich is being made up, Lieberman is rushing in after the end of the Sabbath).
The weekend in South Carolina so far, Leibovich writes, has mirrored the alternating turbulence and calm on his flight down to Columbia (Lieberman and Graham exchange friendly banter, Kerry and Dean an "icy, wordless handshake") and he provides details on some highlights (the lively fish fry; Dr. Dean's Ben and Jerry's house call; the sudden visibility of supporters in the presence of media).
The Boston Globe 's Mark Jurkowitz has a nice stylish look at the logistics of doing a nine-candidate debate, and even has some meta-reporting off of C-SPAN, on which he heard one of the network's own planners make a joke about a game show favorite that both the parents and kids can remember. LINK
Newsweek's Howard Fineman says the Democratic debate may not have been the hottest political event of the weekend. LINK
"Most of Gephardt's rivals attacked the plan, with some saying it was too little, some saying it was too much. Gephardt didn't seem to mind the hot seat, as it served to highlight the fact that he is the only candidate who has laid out such a broad proposal." In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, Jeff Zeleny Notes: "Even though the discussion spanned the ideological spectrum for Democrats, there was more agreement than disagreement among the candidates on core issues like free trade, gay rights and gun control. The biggest clashes and differences were in personality, not necessarily in policy." LINK
The State's ever-hospitable Valerie Bauerlein also recaps Sunday's edition of ABCNEWS's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. LINK
Bauerlein Notes: "But even though [the Macker and Senator Lindsey Graham] interrupted each other, they apologized for it and for the most part, minded their manners ? perhaps a hint of Southern influence in the national talk-show fray."
"They also conceded that the debate, while early, was healthy for the state and for the party."
Baurelein also tracks how the candidates' "zigged" and "zagged" on Saturday. LINK
Karen Tumulty calls Stephanopoulos an adept ringmaster, and while we could easily link to dozens of articles praising his performance, we'll just let his job speak for itself. LINK
The AP's Nedra Pickler reports that "Democrats emerged from their first presidential debate united on little except their desire to drive George W. Bush from the White House next year." LINK
In Sunday's edition of The State, Aaron Sheinin writes that "the state of South Carolina also was on stage at the first Democratic presidential debate," and, "[in] many cases, it didn't fare well." LINK
More from Sheinin: "A confrontation between two New Englanders ? U.S. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean ? was expected but mostly dissolved early."
On Sunday, Knight Ridder's Steven Thomma reported, "For half a century, the call to provide health care to all Americans has energized and united Democrats But for half an hour this weekend, leading Democrats were reminded how much the details still divide them." LINK
The Miami Herald 's Tyler Bridges says succinctly: "Graham bombed" at the state Democratic Party convention ? and then improved for the debate. LINK
Slate's William Saletan saw three themes: "Mean Dean," "Smokin' Joe," and "Gephardt Gang Up". LINK
Roger Simon believes Senator Lieberman's good debate pop was well-deserved. LINK
In a statement, Gephardt challenged his opponents to come up with health care plans of their own.
"I understand that this plan will generate controversy and criticism from the status quo defenders, special interest lobbyists, and those who fear bold, innovative thinking."
ABC 2004: CREEP:
Roll Call explodes on impact:
"Former House aide turned mega-lobbyist Ed Gillespie is under serious consideration to be named the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, a move that could occur as early as this month, according to Republican sources close to the White House."
"Gillespie, 41, would replace current RNC Chairman Marc Racicot, who is expected to take a senior position overseeing President Bush's 2004 presidential campaign. "
"White House and RNC officials declined to comment on the story, but several GOP political insiders said on condition of anonymity that a final decision awaits the approval of Karl Rove, the White House's top political adviser. "
"Gillespie himself said he has 'not been offered any position,' but that he has offered to serve in any capacity to re-elect Bush. 'If they wanted me to, I would lick envelopes.'"
"Another Republican close to the situation said: 'This is something that is probably going to happen.' The source added: 'It's a safe assumption that that is correct.'"
Mark Barabak sketches CREEP strategy in the Los Angeles Times : "'It's the campaign that never turns off,' said a Western GOP operative, who participates in one of several weekly strategy calls that originate at party headquarters and tie in dozens of GOP operatives across the country. 'They've been at it ever since they've been inaugurated.'" LINK
"But even before that signal came from the top, Rove ? a lover of history ? and others in the White House began plotting the 2004 strategy, starting with research into past reelection campaigns. Special care was given to study the failed effort of Bush's father, down to his day-to-day schedule in 1992 and the timing of campaign media statements, according to one Republican. But the working model for this Bush's reelection bid has been adapted from the last two presidents to win second terms: Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton."
"Reagan, who was personally popular in the way Bush is today, stayed out of the political mix until well into his reelection year. Clinton, in turn, amassed a huge financial advantage over his opponent and used that to begin a springtime advertising campaign that pounded the GOP nominee, former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, before Dole had the means to adequately respond."
"Bush is expected to enjoy a similar financial edge and emulate Reagan and Clinton by standing aside while aides launch an aggressive assault on whomever the Democrats nominate. That candidate should emerge sometime around March; the White House hope is that he or she too will lack the financial resources to effectively respond until the Democratic National Convention in July ? by which time it may be too late."
"A consultant who has worked closely alongside Rove described his operating style this way: 'In your face. Offense, offense, offense. Attack, attack, attack.'"
"'They want to do whatever they can to put banana peels under every single Democrat running' even before it is clear which of them Bush will face, the GOP strategist said. 'Whoever [the Democrats] nominate, they want him weakened by the time he gets through the process.'"
"Many of those who served with Rove in Bush's first presidential campaign are expected to reprise their roles, including pollster Matthew Dowd, media adviser Mark McKinnon and finance director Jack Oliver, who now serves as deputy chairman and day-to-day overseer of the Republican National Committee. Ken Mehlman, the White House political director, is likely to serve as campaign manager, and Karen Hughes, Bush's closest adviser-without-portfolio, will also play a key role, perhaps out of a satellite campaign office in Austin, Texas. Marc Racicot, chairman of the RNC, may assume the same role and title at Bush's reelection committee.
The New York Times ' Rich Oppel somehow got some documents from the National Voting Rights Institute, apparently detailing some of the work from the Pioneers. LINK
Great must-read (sorry: there are a lot of those today, busy people), and the sign that as more documents get released/leaked, there will be a lot more of these stories.
On the other hand: rich people who know people who run for president know other rich people who can write $1,000 or $2,000 checks, and some of those rich people then know the president-elect and are qualified for big jobs in the new administration, and The Note can't get all worked up about that ? which makes us a bit, in this sense at least, like that wise Jim Dyke.
ABC 2004: The Invisible Primary:
The New York Times ' Adam Nagourney launched the next phase of the Invisible Primary in his must-read Week in Review story. LINK
Mr. Nagourney kicks off the 1992 comparison backlash portion of the current campaign cycle.
"Yes, the story line is almost irresistible in its symmetry: two presidents named Bush, two wars involving Iraq, two economies in distress and once again a concern about rising health care costs. And who can blame Democrats, understandably morose after defeats in 2000 and 2002, for grabbing this lifeline?"
"But the world is a different place than it was when the first President Bush saw his postwar popularity collapse under the weight of economic turmoil. These are two very different presidents, and two very different White Houses, particularly when it comes to politics. Not incidentally, the field of Democrats in this accelerated contest does not seem to include a candidate of the political caliber of a Bill Clinton."
"'It would be a mistake of the first order if the Democrats counted on the rhythms of 1992 to recur in 2004,' said James Carville, who was Mr. Clinton's campaign manager. 'The rhythms of 2004 are different than 1992, and if you try to dance to the rhythms of 1992, you'll be out of step.'"
Make sure to read every word including Matthew Dowd's analysis of why his boss isn't in as precarious a position on the economy as his father was.
SOUTH CAROLINA
John Wagner takes a look at Representative Jim Clyburn's kingmaker status in the Palmetto State. LINK
Congressman Gephardt apparently shouldn't expect Mr. Clyburn to be at his side when he rolls out those House endorsements later this month.
"Clyburn said he has no plans to make an endorsement until much later in the year. 'It might be a Christmas present for someone,' he said."
Mr. Wagner strangely neglects to mention that Senator Edwards departed from Friday's Fish Fry without addressing the crowd from the stage. However, Senator Edwards has already nabbed a Clyburn endorsement to crow about.
"Edwards counts state Rep. Bill Clyburn among his more visible South Carolina backers. The two Clyburns are first cousins and talk regularly about presidential politics. 'He has a tremendous following,' Bill Clyburn said of his cousin. 'If he endorses us, everyone else can pack up and go home.'"
"And if he endorses someone else? 'It means we're going to have to work a lot harder to win South Carolina.'"
MOSELEY BRAUN
Among the most accessible and friendly of the candidates in South Carolina, according to almost everyone.
END OF PART ONE |
