On the Prowl
"On the Prowl" Blues Skies As demonstrated by the president's behavior in the ten days following the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the Clinton White House likes to turn bad into good. So...
...Some of the people close to the president said he'd felt a little flat of late after the Commerce funerals and Saudi bomb memorial services," a White House staffer said...
...There wasn't enough intelligence to go on, and we were getting conflicting information...
...All three men are sitting committee chairmen caught in extremely tight re-election fights...
...If not great policy, at least it was quick thinking...
...Dianne Feinstein's office...
...Catholic Tastes What's with Bob Dole's dalliance with not-so-popular Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, who would probably not win re-election today...
...The bouncer could probably explain how a pack of underage girls were admitted into a trendy bar, but only Al and Tipper could tell you why their daughter was out bar-hopping at one in the morning...
...Seeing that the GOP's alternative to the Democrat wage hike couldn't pass, Lott called off a full-court press against the five Republican swing votes who had publicly declared their support for the wage hike: Alfonse D'Amato, Mark Hatfield, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, and Ben Nighthorse Campbell...
...He really wanted to use the Olympics the way Reagan used the '84 Games in L.A...
...The TWA tragedy put a damper on Clinton's goldmedal plans for the Atlanta Olympics...
...Pressler and Thurmond are expected to hold on, despite pessimistic polling and unfavorable press coverage...
...The Clinton Cookbook Republicans on the Senate Finance and Banking Committees are scrambling to get their hands on as much employment data as they can for June-July 1996, suspicious that the Clinton administration has been cooking the books...
...The fact that he has a very low profile and doesn't come from a pivotal electoral state does little to dissuade his backers: "His nomination as vice president could make the GOP very competitive in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri...
...So it was payback time when Clinton visited San Francisco last June and Brown refused to allow city police to block off homosexual-rights protesters from a fund-raiser Clinton attended at Feinstein's home-though Brown also took full credit for helping prevent an anti-Clinton riot...
...Everyone was extremely upset that we couldn't act on this tragedy sooner than the next day," says the source...
...It's a game plan, he has told acquaintances, that his old friend Newt Gingrich should have used once or twice in the early days of the io4th Congress...
...Not in My Back Yard Ohio Sen...
...Everyone knows he likes to get involved in events that make him emotional, and there hadn't been one recently...
...Holding On The Republican National Committee has targeted three Senate races-Larry Pressler's in South Dakota, Strom Thurmond's in South Carolina, and Jesse Helms's in North Carolina-as "must wins" if the party is to hold on to its narrow three-seat Senate majority...
...In fact, pro motions for the show were discontinued after three months...
...Cuomo's exit was graceful, though...
...Now WABC radio and the show's syndicator, Sony, have pulled the plug on Mario's mike...
...Clinton, in fact, had press secretary Michael McCurry schedule an ii p.m...
...in the Wee Small Hours The G-man was just about sweating bullets when he raced up to the bouncer at one of Washington's hipper watering holes on a recent Saturday night...
...Meanwhile, the RNC expects to pick up seats in Minnesota, where 12 September r 9 9 6 • The American Spectator Paul Wellstone is running poorly, Iowa, and perhaps Louisiana-and to lose seats in Oregon and Colorado due to the retirements of Mark Hatfield and Hank Brown...
...Citing devaluation of his property, Glenn is leading a charge to block construction of the homes...
...They are pushing Dole to pick a Catholic for the bottom of the ticket...
...Recent polls may have had him as much as ten points ahead, but RNC statistics show that of the more than 500,000 new residents registered to vote in North Carolina, more than three-quarters are Democrats...
...I've lost the youngest Gore girl," he blurted out, visibly shaken...
...Pointing out that he and his city epitomize Democratic all-inclusiveness, Brown lobbied for nearly a year to land a speaking gig at the Chicago Convention only to be rebuffed - not only by the Democratic National Committee, but also by the Clinton/Gore campaign and even Sen...
...13 The American Spectator . September 1996...
...Letting them be, Lott thought, would be the best way to play "defense" against Democrats poised to make hay over Republican "insensitivity to working Americans...
...They were particularly struck by two conflicting Labor Department reports in July...
...The Cuomo show-"the liberals' answer to Rush," as early promotions put it-consistently finished at the bottom of the quarterly Arbitron ratings, was heard in less than 5 percent of the country, and was generating no ad revenue...
...So we tanked almost everything we'd planned...
...The princess veep's underage friends were still in the bar, but she somehow had eluded the eagle eyes of the Secret Service...
...O N THE PROW L Blues Skies As demonstrated by the president's behavior in the ten days following the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the Clinton White House likes to turn bad into good...
...According to a confidential memo to Dole approved by social conservative activists such as Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer, the Catholic they like most for veep is Don Nickles, a threeterm senator from Oklahoma with an impeccable conservative track record...
...Brown has also steered some $50,000 (at last count) to Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader's campaign-funds locals had been counting on for Clinton...
...The briefing was canceled when it emerged the reasons for the tragedy were unclear...
...Lott also reasoned this was one of the few votes on which some senators were going to have to "vote their state": D'Amato and Specter in particular felt the increase was important to blue-collar Republicans in their states...
...They said that on hearing of the TWA crash he was `energized,' really `jazzed...
...Though Nickles's name didn't make the short list until late July, he is closely aligned with the former majority leader, who is said to think highly of Nickles's political sense and felt comfortable working with him, a criterion Dole has set for his veep nominee...
...Lott called his strategy "keeping the party together by letting them stray...
...But when it comes to his own investments, he's a regular Republican...
...The city wants to build several homes next door to Glenn's, valued at $120,000 to $150,000 each, to be sold to firemen and policemen who work in Vail but can't afford to live there...
...John Glenn voted against the Senate's latest and most moderate welfarereform legislation, touting the Democratic Party line that it was too harsh and would have a negative impact on those in need...
...The first, claiming that national unemployment had reached a six-year low, was released to much fanfare and led every national newscast that evening...
...press briefing that night, at which he would speak to the nation about the crash...
...Green Brown Boy Clinton may have California locked up, but big-mouthed San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown remains a major thorn in the president's side...
...But then everyone realized, `Gee, he isn't going to be able to milk this TWA thing and the Olympics at the same time.' It would have appeared really unseemly, especially if terrorists blew the plane out of the sky...
...Such a figure was stunning in such a short period of time after the government had announced a six-year low overall figure," says a Senate Labor Committee staffer...
...In the category of the unimaginable, Phil Gramm and his millions in campaign funds continue to run five to ten points behind darkhorse Democratic upstart Victor Moraleswhom the national Democratic Party isn't doing much to support...
...The Prowler suspects the veep doesn't take Clinton's proposed curfew for youngsters all that seriously...
...It's Ridge's Catholicism, stupid, a faith that Dole and RNC strategists feel could swing the election their man's way...
...Glenn owns a vacation house in Vail, Colorado, in a development where the average home costs around $6oo,ooo...
...He claimed he was quitting to devote his energies to reelecting President Clinton...
...The President was supposed to give this rousing speech to the U.S...
...Helms is in the most serious trouble...
...The Liberals' Answer to Mush A year ago former New York governor Mario Cuomo was promising to knock Rush Limbaugh's block off the radio airwaves with a syndicated radio show out of New York...
...Within two weeks, however, Labor's weekly report on new, firsttime unemployment filings showed that within one week's time after the record low, more than 18o,ooo new jobless claims were filed, a ten-year high...
...athletes on the opening day of the Olympics, and we had all kinds of advance things planned-a photoop with some Dream Teamers, a couple more speeches and talks with athletes," the staffer recounted...
...Stray Cats Republican and Democratic senators alike were praising Senate majority leader Trent Lott's handling of his first big legislative test: the vote to increase the minimum wage...
...So when TWA flight 8oo crashed off the coast of Long Island the night of July 17, it set off a festive atmosphere of sorts at the White House and at Clinton/Gore campaign headquarters...
...It was just weird, and it didn't make a lot of sense...
...New York and some parts of New England might even become competitive," the memo notes...
...Grist for the Mills Which glamorous White House staffer has been seen in intimate settings -both in Little Rock and Washington -with Bruce Lindsey, the married Clinton consigliere...
Vol. 29 • September 1996 • No. 9
