Dana Milbank is the only Washington Post reporter I don't trust. Just too "left wing."
washingtonpost.com
A Candidate Who Answers His Own Phones?
By Dana Milbank
Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page A09
Wesley K. Clark: NATO commander. Presidential candidate. Receptionist?
Everybody knows that Clark, the latest entrant in the Democratic presidential primary competition, is scrambling to assemble a staff because of his late start. But Peter Wallsten found out just how much Clark is scrambling when the Miami Herald political writer tried to call the nascent Clark campaign headquarters last week after Clark signaled his entry into the race.
Wallsten had heard that Clark was planning a trip to South Florida, so he telephoned Little Rock for more details. He called every 10 minutes, encountering only voice-mail messages, busy signals and endless ringing, until 6:30 p.m., when somebody finally picked up the phone.
"Hello?" an excited Wallsten inquired.
"Hello?" replied a male voice in Little Rock.
"Who's this?" Wallsten asked.
"General Wesley Clark speaking," the voice said.
Wallsten, not expecting the candidate to be working the switchboard, identified himself and asked about the Florida trip. "I don't know -- we're still trying to figure that out," Clark replied. "Call back in 15 minutes." Wallsten tried to ask more questions of Clark, but the candidate quickly extricated himself from the conversation.
"There was no time to inquire about his economic plan," Wallsten said.
Ghost of Congress Past
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has been out of office for years, but his political ghost continues to haunt the Democratic presidential field. It began earlier this month, when Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) accused rival candidate Howard Dean of being a Gingrich fellow traveler on Medicare -- an accusation Dean didn't like one bit.
A search of the record shows that Dean did, in fact, have some admiration for the Republican revolution, as he related in January 1995 on ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley." Dean said, "I've been unwilling to condemn the change in Congress. I actually think, despite my broad philosophical disagreements with the new speaker, that the change in Congress is a healthy thing. This government was fossilized and, frankly, the House was the area that it was fossilized in. So now we have an opportunity for historic change, and the question is how far are we going to go?"
The former Vermont governor isn't the only candidate in the race who had flattering words for the Gingrich revolution. The Boston Herald quoted Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) in November 1994 saying: "I want this change. I'm delighted with seeing an institutional shake-up because I think we need one."
Dean, True to His Team
They're playing hardball up in New England. Dean, a New York native before his ascent to the top in Vermont, is having a rally on Tuesday in Boston's Copley Square, not far from Kerry's Beacon Hill home. Asked about Dean's raid into Kerry country, Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs offered a barbed welcome. "Boston is a diverse and inclusive city occasionally welcoming Yankee fans like Howard Dean," he said.
Them's fightin' words to Red Sox fans -- including a lot of voters in the New Hampshire primary. But Gibbs has proof, an interview Dean gave Seven Days, a Vermont alternative newspaper, in which he named Elston Howard, the first black Yankee, as his childhood hero. "He had the same name as me and he played catcher, which I did in third grade. The great Yankee team of 1961 is still the best Yankee team ever, with the possible exception of 1927." The publication said Dean then named the entire lineup for the '61 Yanks.
On the topic of lineups, it seems to be free-agent season among some campaign workers. Sources up north say that on Monday -- the same day Kerry strategist Chris Lehane quit -- a Kerry aide called Joshua Glasheen, Dean's deputy state director, and Jeremy Bird, the 1st Congressional District coordinator, in New Hampshire to offer them jobs on Kerry's team. Gibbs called the rumor "absurd."
Conversion on the Bike Path
In India, many people consider cows to be sacred. In Vermont, they worship bicycles.
How else to explain this exchange between Dean and ABC News's George Stephanopoulos last Sunday, after Dean was asked if he was raised Roman Catholic.
"No, raised Episcopalian, and I ended up as a Congregationalist," Dean said.
Why did he become a Congregationalist?
"Because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path. . . . We were trying to get the bike path built. They had control of a mile and a half of railroad bed, and they decided they would pursue a property right suit to refuse to allow the bike path to be developed."
Quotable
"No Child . . . what's it called?"
-- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, quoted in the Wall Street Journal last week belittling his presidential brother's beloved education legislation, "No Child Left Behind."
"No."
-- President Bush, when asked at a roundtable interview whether he would appoint brother Jeb to an administration post when his term as Florida governor ends.
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