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To: DMaA who wrote (23494)	1/8/2004 9:14:28 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793670

Bush takes on Soros Pro-GOP drive emulates labor By Alexander Bolton - "The Hill" The Bush-Cheney political operation is working with business groups to help President Bush overcome the impact of pro-labor coalitions that have sprung up since the enactment of campaign finance reform legislation. The business groups have devised an ambitious plan to counteract the anti-Bush forces that have already mustered a $10 million dollar pledge from Wall Street financier George Soros. Ken Mehlman, who left his post as White House political advisor last year to oversee the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, is playing an important role in organizing the new effort. Now that the law bars the use of most forms of so-called soft money in election campaigns, a large segment of the business community appears to be turning more and more to a labor union model that entails direct advocacy among employees, some of whom also could be union members. The campaign finance laws require the group to maintain at least a semblance of nonpartisan independence, but there is no question that it favors Bush’s re-election in November. For the last several months, trade associations have been working on collaborative plans to influence employees within their respective industries and to get them to the polls in the hope of electing pro-business candidates. They plan to hold a “summit meeting” soon to formalize their respective roles. But it is already evident that there are two prongs to the plan to boost the political impact of business in this election year. The first calls for informing employees about pro-business issues that affect them and encouraging them to vote for pro-business candidates. The second calls for rounding up endorsements from the heads of non-partisan trade and business associations for Bush. In addition to advancing the presumed benefits of the administration’s economic policies to their workers, the effort will be bolstered by endorsements from a separate group of industry leaders supporting the Bush-Cheney ticket. They plan to communicate their political preferences through a group that one Bush ally called “[business] association CEOs for Bush.” Although business groups have been begun to focus more on voter mobilization in recent years, the current efforts reflect a higher level of sophistication and urgency — in large part because of the passage of campaign finance reform. This is likely why Mehlman is personally involved in the effort. Mehlman has met with the organizers of the business voter-mobilization effort. To demonstrate their nonpartisan colors, they have also offered to meet with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe. For their part, Democrats are suspicious of the group’s motives and ultimate allegiances. DNC Communications Director Debra DeShong said that after inquiring on the subject she could find no one at the committee who had been contacted by the coalition. “Our researchers said all these people are big Bush supporters and definitely right-leaning,” said DeShong. Mehlman has pushed the heads of nonpartisan trade associations to join the pro-Bush group. Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, said Mehlman is playing a key role in organizing “association CEOs for Bush.” Kuhn, a 1968 Yale classmate of Bush, is also a so-called GOP “Pioneer” who has raised more than $100,000 in hard money for Bush-Cheney campaign. Kuhn noted his trade association would not endorse Bush. It will, however, join in the large get-out-the-vote effort that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has already launched with other groups. Kuhn acknowledged that by personally endorsing Bush, he could influence how employees in member companies vote. Another trade association head close to Bush who asked not to be identified by name noted the obstacles that now prevent business and trade groups from openly supporting Bush. “The overwhelming majority of [business] executives and association CEOs are not in a position to deliver their institution as an endorsing entity,” said the lobbyist. “Many groups will not even do candidate comparisons. They will only encourage their people to be informed, be registered, and actually vote.” The lobbyist added that a group such as “association CEOs for Bush” did not exist in 2000, a campaign that billed itself as an outside-the-Beltway insurgency. David Rehr, president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, is yet another trade association head who has personally done a lot to support Bush. His group will also forgo making an official endorsement. However, Rehr said he would likely join association CEOs for Bush. “I don’t think there is any trade association that is going to say to its members, ‘Vote for the president’ because it triggers all the campaign finance laws,” said Rehr, also a “Pioneer” fundraiser who has raised over $100,000 in individual contributions for the Bush-Cheney reelection drive. “But [associations] have a constitutional right to say to their members how [candidates’] positions will affect them.” During the beer wholesalers’ annual convention in Las Vegas, Rehr addressed 3,600 members on policy issues. Behind him and the speaker’s podium, Bush’s picture was projected on a large screen. The voter mobilization effort has been spearheaded by seven major trade associations: the Associated General Contractors, The Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Jade West, with the wholesaler-distributors, who is helping to organize the effort, said that between 60 and 65 trade groups have joined the effort, which will allow member groups to exchange ideas on how best to inform their business employees on issues related to their industry, encourage employees to register to vote, and show them how to obtain absentee ballots. West said Mehlman is not directing the group. “It’s more of a testament to Ken Mehlman’s smarts that he recognizes that this is something that can be helpful to them without being a part of them because we have to be independent.”

To: DMaA who wrote (23494)	1/8/2004 10:24:04 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793670

We are really getting to a "Consensus" on Dean. In all aspects. DR. DEAN'S ADVANCE: UNSTOPPABLE... By DICK MORRIS NY Post January 7, 2004 -- IF Howard Dean wraps up victories in the early primaries, as now seems quite likely, he may find that he has won them too well, so that his victories contain the seeds of his own destruction. But he'll likely survive - thanks, ironically, to the work of the party establishment. Any candidate who wins Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina acquires a political momentum that's hard to stop. But in Dean's case, such early victories will do more than just accelerate his campaign, attracting media attention, money, supporters and votes - in each of these three primaries or caucuses, he stands likely to knock an opponent out of the race. Dick Gephardt can't survive losing to Dean in Iowa. He might feebly attempt a comeback down the road, but he has waged a very weak campaign in the other states and has bet all his marbles on Iowa. John Kerry's misguided campaign will probably come to an end in New Hampshire. With former Gen. Wesley Clark gaining on him, he might even suffer the indignity of coming in third in his next-door state. Kerry's problem, indeed, his epitaph, is that he tried to move to the center before he secured the left. He looked at the field and saw Joe Lieberman, Gephardt and John Edwards as his adversaries. He correctly reasoned that all three men were to his right and then leapt to the fallacious conclusion that he had the left all to himself. But he didn't reckon with Dean outflanking him on the left. So when Kerry voted for the Iraq War, he thought he was moving to the mainstream for the general election when he was really cutting his throat in the primaries. Edwards' campaign never really got going. He can't survive a loss in South Carolina, the state next door (and the place of his birth). Dean is doing well in South Carolina and Al Sharpton is a threat there as well. Little noticed is the Washington, D.C., primary, which comes one week before Iowa's caucuses. As the real first-in-the-nation primary, the D.C. voting will serve to anoint either the Rev or former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun as the black candidate. Sharpton will probably win and the resulting concentration of minority voters may lift him to a win in South Carolina. But whether Dean or Sharpton wins there, Edwards will be out. Then Dean will suddenly face a three-way race for the nomination. The underbrush will have been cleared away and he will face Sen. Lieberman and Clark in the finals. The question for Dean is whether his leftist base can stake him to enough votes to prevail in a three-way field. Against the current crop of nine candidates, he can win by garnering a quarter of the votes in most states. But when the race narrows, he'll need to get 40 percent or more to win in each of the large key states. A fringe candidate can usually get one voter in four. But can he get enough to win once the bar is raised? My bet is that he can - because of the very rules that the Democratic Party leaders put in place to stop somebody like him from winning. Chastened by the almost-victories of Bill Bradley and John McCain in their respective primaries in 2000, the party bosses decided not to risk having their favorite sons overturned by some flaky result in Iowa or New Hampshire. Knowing that a candidate (like Dean) could come out of nowhere and win these two notoriously unpredictable states, the party leaders deliberately front-loaded the nominating process so that the victor of Iowa and New Hampshire would have a hard time garnering the money in time to compete six weeks later in the simultaneous primaries in New York, California, Texas and Ohio. If some out-of-the-mainstream candidate upended their favored campaigns in New Hampshire or Iowa, he would never be able, they felt, to translate his new momentum into dollars in time to buy enough media to influence enough voters to win four big states. By the time he had solicited funds, opened the mail, deposited the checks and bought the media time, the primaries would be almost upon him. Oops. Dean outwitted the leaders. By raising his money early in the process through the Internet and eschewing the limits on his campaign spending that federal matching funds would bring, he already has enough money to compete in the big four states. It is Dean's opponents, struggling for traction after losing Iowa and New Hampshire, who will trouble revving up for the big primaries in early March. While they are still scrounging for funds to get off the ground, convincing donors that they can win, Dean will have pulverized the airwaves - and the Internet -with his message. His momentum will leave them choking in his dust. So the very system rigged by the bosses to prevent the Democratic Party from being captured by the extreme left will operate to assure that nobody can stop them.