Mehlman Delivers
BARNES, FRED
Mehlman Delivers The RNC chairman takes his message to the exurbs. BY FRED BARNES Waukee, Iowa KEN MEHLMAN WAS IN HEAVEN. And heaven for the Republican national chairman was Dallas County...
...Run hard and keep running...
...Many of the people moving here are Republicans, whether they know it or not yet...
...This grew out of his 2004 experience as the Great Implementer...
...He is anything but excitable...
...One, Bush's ownership agenda is appealing to African Americans...
...A Republican official said Mehlman follows the Coke approach and Dean doesn't: "Coca Cola doesn't attract people by saying Pepsi drinkers are intolerant and have never worked a day in their lives...
...His father was a supporter of Ronald Reagan and "Reagan is how I became involved in politics," he says...
...Mehlman is committed to expanding the Republican party and has, seemingly, no personal agenda...
...In Iowa, he spent time on all three missions...
...When he meets a Democrat, Mehlman says, he tries to find out what they have in common and see if they can work together...
...Mehlman had the job of carrying out Rove's plan of signing up hundreds of thousands of volunteers to register voters and get them to the polls...
...He worked in private law practice until joining the staff of Republican representative Lamar Smith of Texas in 1994...
...A second goal is related: Tie the national party more closely to Republicans in the states...
...His speech, largely praise of President Bush, was enthusiastically received...
...Mehlman isn't...
...Mehlman's most innovative theory is that a party can be turned into a force for lobbying Washington...
...Another Mehlman theory is that African Americans are ripe targets today for Republican proselytizing...
...Mehlman, from all appearances, doesn't...
...After taking over the Republican National Committee in January, he delivered Lincoln Day dinner speeches in several exurbs: Douglas County outside Denver, Lee County in southwest Florida, Pottawatamie County in Iowa across the Missouri River from Omaha...
...He recently spoke at a fundraiser for a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, city councilman, Otto Banks, who switched parties to become a Republican...
...He travels constantly, and his trips are not junkets...
...But, again, Mehlman doesn't expect instant gains...
...As the votes were being counted last November at the county office building, he said he overheard a Democratic official mutter, "We'll never elect a Democrat in this county again...
...McGee was featured on the program at the fundraiser for Dallas County Republicans at Waukee High School...
...Since they met in 1997, Rove has been Mehlman's patron, aiding his rise from the Bush campaign's Midwest coordinator in the 2000 primaries, to national field director in the general election, to White House political director in Bush's first term, to 2004 campaign manager, and finally to RNC head...
...I'm more realistic about what's required than people have been in the past...
...Three factors are different today," he says...
...In temperament and style, Mehlman is unlike Rove and even more unlike Democratic national chairman Howard Dean...
...Outreach is what you do four weeks before the election...
...Mehlman, naturally, emphasizes fast-growing exurbs...
...As a former elected official with a bulging ego, Dean is bound to be distracted by thoughts about the next office he'll run for...
...I'm a Texan by employment," Mehlman says...
...Mehlman applauded, looking like he couldn't be happier...
...A school teacher, McGee is running for city council...
...Of course, Rove is more than a Republican ally and a friend to Mehlman...
...One goal is to transform the Republican party into a powerful grassroots force for enacting the president's agenda in Washington...
...Mehlman grew up outside Baltimore...
...As effective as the Democratic operation was, the Mehlman team was better...
...Conservatives who worry Mehlman isn't one of them need not be concerned...
...He isn't one...
...In Iowa, he attended a fundraiser at the home of Isaiah McGee in Waukee...
...Rove is sometimes brisk and has ten ideas on his mind at any given time...
...Mehlman, however, is a believer in gradual change in politics, not sudden breakthroughs...
...Mostly an exurb, it lies miles from downtown Des Moines and is dotted with new homes and housing developments still under construction...
...Republicans lined up to have their picture taken with him...
...And last week Mehlman came to waukee, a boomtown in Dallas County, for a party fundraiser...
...He favors "inclusion, not outreach...
...Besides winning elections, Mehlman has two overriding goals and a pet project...
...It's also Bush country...
...President Bush won the county in 2000 but lost Iowa...
...And he is waging a personal crusade to recruit more blacks and Hispanics to run for office as Republicans...
...And heaven for the Republican national chairman was Dallas County outside Des Moines...
...We're the progressives now," he says...
...In Iowa, before getting to Dallas County, he met separately with social conservatives interested chiefly in the president's judicial nominations, Republican legislators, and with state party officials...
...This is where you find the new conservatives and the new Republicans," Mehlman says...
...Mehlman criticizes Democratic leaders but not rank-and-file Democrats...
...He became chief of staff to another Texas House member, Kay Granger, in 1997...
...He wears bland suits...
...Mitch Hambleton, the county Republican chairman, topped that claim...
...Mehlman, 38, is neither flamboyant nor brash...
...Rove was her political consultant and thus the Rove-Mehlman alliance began...
...Mehlman encourages this at all levels of politics...
...The inclusion strategy replaces the old practice of relying on African-American consultants...
...He was greeted like a rock star...
...That's not how it works," he says...
...One of the most powerful things in politics is when an incremental change becomes durable," he says...
...And he chatted with two Des Moines political Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...So far, there's no evidence that Republican activists from outside Washington have improved the chances of success for the president's plan to reform Social Security or any other initiative...
...Two, there's a "cultural disconnect" between African Americans and Democratic leaders...
...Locals brag it's the 10th-fastest growing county in America...
...He did two TV interviews and two radio interviews...
...The party already has an email network of 15 million people and a list of 1.5 million volunteers...
...We're honored you are running for this office," Mehlman told him...
...But in 2004, he more than doubled his margin of victory in Dallas County and won Iowa...
...It stresses support for African-American candidates...
...In short, Dean is abrasive...
...And he is unusually task-oriented...
...reporters, both of whom he knows from past Bush campaigns in Iowa...
...Dean's idea of outreach is to insult Republicans and question their motives...
...Dallas County is the fastest-growing county in the state," one said...
...As Republican chairman, Mehlman has emerged as a major public figure...
...Politics ought to be about addition, not division," he says...
...He went to Franklin and Marshall College and Harvard Law School, where he joined the Federalist Society...
...And Mehlman, a political operative with a taste for policy issues, makes more sense as a party leader than Dean...
...He stepped forward last week, for instance, as the party's leading defender of White House official Karl Rove, accused by Democrats of leaking classified information...
...Mehlman is intense and focused...
...Some changes already have become all but permanent—a bigger Republican voter turnout, the migration of His-panics to the Republican party— according to Mehlman...
...Inclusion is what you do four years before the election...
...Most thrilling for Mehlman was what Dallas County Republicans said...
...And, three, Democrats take African Americans for granted...
...But Mehlman was the star...
...Dean craves the applause of crowds...
...Democrats let "independent" groups like the lavishly funded Americans Coming Together hire paid workers to take on this task...
...But now comes the hard part: influencing Washington...
Vol. 10 • July 2005 • No. 42
