ON THE PROWL
Sweatshopped American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees labor boss Gerald McEntee, who played kingmaker in the 1992 presidential election race by elevating a...
...Sam Brownback isn’t up for re-election until 2010, but he’s already focusing on winning back votes in the state he may have lost from his presidential bid...
...Out of those thousand votes, about 10 percent were bills that became lawand half of those were namings of federal buildings and such...
...Sam Brownback of Kansas, Sen...
...Pork Futures House Republicans may not be able to throw much into blocking the plethora of earmarks Democrats are foisting onto appropriations bills—between Reps...
...Charlie Crist of Florida, Sen...
...If their advance people are so minor league that they actually reserve the rooms in the candidate’s name, then they deserve everything they get,” crowed a Romney aide...
...I can see a campaign that is not being supported by AFT members wanting to hit it hard at some point and take them out of the game...
...We don’t promise a whole lot, there is a lot more to be done before a short list becomes a reality...
...Casual Fridays Moderate House Democrats say that majority leader Rep...
...Brownback, according to Kansas state party officials, isn’t in any serious danger of not being reelected, but his support of immigration reform didn’t sit well with some grassroots conservative folk on the other side of the issue...
...Not that she would know it...
...Brownback, according to aides, will work to rebuild those relationships over the next year...
...1 4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2007/JANUARY 2008 O N T H E P R O W L The Long and Short of It Rudy Giuliani likes to say that he keeps his promises, so you have to wonder how he’s going to keep the promises he’s made to at least ten different individuals about his short list for vice president...
...If we aren’t doing it, outside anti-pork and pro-taxpayer groups will,” says a House leadership aide...
...She just doesn’t get it sometimes...
...Mending Fences Sen...
...Steny Hoyer’s decision to cut back the House work week by a day in 2008 is an indication that his influence is growing among Democrats, to the diminishment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi...
...In late October the House held its one-thousandth roll call vote this year, the first time Congress had reached that level since ratification of the Constitution...
...Pelosi’s office demanded that Democrats mark the event as a victory for the party, against the advice of Hoyer and other party leaders...
...They feel like we’re stuck in the mud and playing the Republicans’ game,” says a House leadership aide with ties to Hoyer...
...Giuliani appears to be the only candidate right now offering short list consideration to potential supporters, including Gov...
...Particularly if AFSCME and other unions pool money for activist groups as they did in 2004...
...Kit Bond of Missouri, as well as a few others...
...AFCSME intends to budget more than $55 million in get-out-the-vote money for early primary states, according to labor insiders, compared to the $48 million it officially budgeted in 2004, and there is manpower behind those dollars...
...It only served to highlight just how little we’ve actually achieved compared to what we promised,” says the House aide...
...Hoyer, who has long been considered a more powerful House member than Pelosi based on his fundraising prowess and Capitol Hill connections, has been hearing it from mostly moderate and conservative members, and even a few of Pelosi’s supporters of late...
...They are organized and they make a lot of noise wherever they are...
...There are tens of thousands of AFSCME members in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan...
...The language is always a bit couched, but it’s always, ‘I’ll give you serious consideration on the short list,’” says a Giuliani campaign adviser...
...But McEntee didn’t just do it— he made both Clintons sweat it out for more than five months...
...According to Romney insiders, the Romney campaign in Nevada got wind of the arrival of Fred Thompson to Las Vegas in late October and pranked him by giving his hotel room a 4:45 wakeup call and, later, an early morning room service delivery...
...It’s going to be a huge issue for us in the election cycle...
...And it’s also true that Mike Huckabee leveraged his support of AFT’s plan for a good showing in the Iowa straw poll last summer...
...What’s more, “President Clinton met with him at least that many times, a couple of times over dinner,” says a campaign source...
...Room Service The Mitt Romney campaign has been having fun with its competition when it’s out on the road...
...To our way of thinking, there was nothing for us to do on Friday, she had us wasting time when we could be home doing something, like campaigning and raising money...
...Fifty bills in a year doesn’t compare to what we promised, and she wanted to put a spotlight on it...
...Sweatshopped American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees labor boss Gerald McEntee, who played kingmaker in the 1992 presidential election race by elevating a then-obscure Arkansas governor to the Democrat nomination for president, stayed inside the “family” and pushed forward the endorsement of Sen...
...The AFT is going to be a force in a couple of different states,” says a Republican National Committee staffer...
...It’s true that AFT’s former executive director, Tom Wright, was a well-known Scientologist, and the organization’s roots are grounded in financing and support from the Church of Scientology...
...Hoyer announced that he’d cut the Friday from the work week, which will allow members to leave town as early as Thursday afternoon for their home districts if they choose to do so...
...Fair Is Fair The Americans for Fair Taxation organization is not associated with the Church of Scientology, as one Republican presidential campaign—hint, the candidate’s own church has its own public relations issues to deal with— would have the people believe...
...Playing hard to get, McEntee also played footsy with John Edwards and to a lesser extent Sen...
...She’s all about image, and she fought this change to the death,” says a moderate House member...
...AFSCME’s support is big for Clinton, because strategically it helps her in Iowa, where she has been struggling with winning grassroots backing...
...John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, and StenyHoyer, there are more than $500 million on the books for 2008—but they intend to go after the budget inserts hard throughout 2008 with an aggressive monitoring system on many of the high ticket items...
...Hillary Rodham Clinton in late October...
...She didn’t seem to understand that if we can’t do either, she isn’t going to have a majority next time...
...O N T H E P R O W L DECEMBER 2007/JANUARY 2008 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 1 5...
...The dollar amounts budgeted for political activity may be much higher, too...
...All the polling and public outcry tells us we’re reaching a tipping point with this stuff...
...Barack Obama.According to Clinton campaign insiders, Hillary Clinton met with McEntee no fewer than seven times over the preceding five months...
Vol. 40 • January 2008 • No. 10
