September 21, 2003
POLITICAL POINTS
Newt Gingrich Pops Up Again
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY - NEW YORK TIMES
HE may be out of office but he is hardly out of sight.
Newt Gingrich, the conservative agitator and former speaker of the House, has come to the aid of — get this — Howard Dean in his catfight with Representative Richard A. Gephardt over Medicare spending.
In the great Medicare wars of 1995-96, Mr. Gephardt and other Congressional Democrats hammered Mr. Gingrich for proposing to extract $270 billion from Medicare. Mr. Gingrich insisted it was simply a reduction in the rate of growth, not a cut, as the Democrats charged.
Now Mr. Gephardt is attacking Dr. Dean for statements he made in the 1990's that he, too, supported major reductions in Medicare spending. Dr. Dean has since asserted he was talking about slowing the growth rate, not cuts, a distinction Mr. Gingrich pounced on immediately, leaping to Dr. Dean's defense.
"I'm disappointed that Gephardt has resorted to the politics of distortion and dishonesty," Mr. Gingrich said. "He knows that the sum of his attack is untrue.`
Or does he? Cuts or slower growth, it's still less money, right? Back to you, Mr. Gephardt.
Famous Names Join With Kerry
WITH the hot candidate Dr. Dean and the maybe-hot candidate Wesley K. Clark to contend with, Senator John Kerry (formerly hot) scrambled last week for high-profile endorsements to electrify his campaign.
He managed to persuade three big names to make their way into his corner: Senator Dianne Feinstein of California; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts; and Claudia Kennedy, the retired lieutenant general who was the highest-ranking woman in the United States Army.
Ms. Feinstein's endorsement brings Mr. Kerry's level of support on Capitol Hill to 17 lawmakers. Not bad. But he still trails Representative Gephardt, who is the leader in Congressional endorsements, with 31.
Gephardt's Plan: Gonegative.com
ALL the presidential candidates use Web sites to spread political gospel and raise money. Representative Gephardt has taken things a step further. He has started additional Web sites to whack specific opponents.
One is exclusive to bashing President Bush, amiserablefailure .com, so named for the phrase Mr. Gephardt uttered about a zillion times in a recent debate to describe Mr. Bush's presidency. Another is DeanFacts.com, which contrasts positions held by Dr. Dean (boo!) to his own (yea!).
"Each one is targeted to a different audience," Mr. Gephardt's spokesman, Erik Smith, said. "We're trying to broaden our appeal to Internet users. They expect a certain degree of freshness to everything, and that puts pressure on him to constantly provide new content and interesting ways to present it."
Oh, so that explains it.
A Running Mate in Name Only
GOV. RONNIE MUSGROVE, Democrat of Mississippi, is getting lots of help this year running for a second term but not, apparently, from Barbara Blackmon, the Democrat running for lieutenant governor.
In Mississippi, candidates for the top slots in the state run separately, and Ms. Blackmon, a state senator who would become the first African-American elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction, says she has no plans to stump with or for Mr. Musgrove.
It's nothing personal, she insisted.
"Down here, we've never had a coordinated campaign," Ms. Blackmon said. "It's up to each of us to galvanize our own supporters."
Mr. Musgrove, who only squeaked into office in 1999, is facing a fierce challenge from Haley Barbour, a former Republican Party national chairman. But political experts in the state said Mr. Musgrove's chances would be improved if black voters, about a third of the usual turnout in Mississippi, responded to Ms. Blackmon's historic opportunity.
"I'm betting he'll win bigger than he did four years ago," said Joseph B. Parker, a political science professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. "The conventional wisdom is that he is stronger, in some part, due to her."
Speech? Check. Blow Drier? Check.
IS he or isn't he? Good looking, that is, and how much does it matter for a presidential hopeful?
These have been burning questions for Senator John Edwards of North Carolina ever since someone in President Bush's re-election campaign tagged Mr. Edwards as the Breck Girl for his movie-star mug.
The nickname has stuck, especially on conservative talk radio (where Senator Kerry is known as Ketchup Boy). While Mr. Edwards's campaign aides pshaw at anything so silly, it is hard to escape images of Mr. Edwards at his campaign events, like one the other day in Robbins, N.C., where he officially announced his candidacy.
Besides a handsome picture of him from high school, smiling broadly in his football uniform, aides passed out — wouldn't you know — small bottles of Breck shampoo. "Commemorative bottles of Breck shampoo," corrected Jennifer Palmieri, Mr. Edwards's spokeswoman. "This was his presidential announcement."
Who Backs Clark? Not His Boss
SINCE 2001, a year after he retired from the Army, General Clark, the newest Democratic candidate, has worked as a merchant banker for Stephens Inc., a large family-owned investment company based in Little Rock, his hometown.
And aren't those Stephenses proud of him? Well, sort of.
"We have respect for Wes as an individual and friend and we wish him well," a company statement said.
But the Stephenses have long been Republican supporters. This year, the company's chief executive, Warren A. Stephens, signed on to be the Arkansas finance co-chairman for Bush-Cheney 2004.
The Week Ahead
IT'S a reunion week in New York for biggies of both parties. President Bush addresses some old friends at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday night, and his would-be replacements gather for the next Democratic debate on Thursday night — the first for General Clark, who should learn quickly if the other candidates really meant all those nice things they have said about him.
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