The Note

ByABC News
June 18, 2004, 9:11 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, June 17, 2004&#151;<br> -- NOTED NOW

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Politically, we live in the Age of the Unbelievable.

After the '94 Republican tsunami, the government shutdown, impeachment, the Florida recount, and the '02 Republican defiance of electoral history, we have learned to check our surprise at the door when the seemingly impossible occurs right before our eyes.

It might SEEM like a slow and steamy summer day, but all over the place, the unbelievable is happening.

To wit:

For insiders and GOP-savvy members of the Gang of 500, the most unbelievable passage to appear in any newspaper in America in ages is this from today's Washington Post story about how John McCain (who co-chairs the president's re-election campaign in Arizona) will unbelievably campaign with the president at the end of this week!!

This is the amazing part: "McCain's trip with Bush grew out of a meeting this spring between White House senior adviser Karl Rove and John Weaver, a top adviser to McCain, who became a Democratic consultant after the bitter campaign between Bush and McCain." LINK

"Rove and Weaver, who both were GOP strategists in Texas, had a well-publicized falling-out in the late 1980s and have been rivals ever since a relationship that was strained further by the 2000 campaign. Weaver described Rove as 'gracious' and said the two had 'a very honest and very frank discussion and let's just leave it at that.'" (emphasis added by a fainting Googling monkey).

Why is this unbelievable? Let us list the ways: LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK.

But there are plenty of other unbelievable things out there.

For instance, the New York Times ' David Sanger who continues to write about the potential political implications of the president's foreign policy with more nuance and sophistication than anyone else out there is still able to slip the word "privately" past his unsuspecting editors, as in

"Mr. Bush's aides are increasingly apprehensive about the drop in his approval ratings that polls indicate are largely attributable to his handling of Iraq and the prisoner abuse scandal. Publicly, they express confidence that those numbers will recover once Iraq settles down. Privately, they say, they are uncertain it will settle down in time for the election." LINK

(Nicely reported out, Mr. Sanger. That's pretty much the whole ball of wax at this point.)

And suspend your (dis)belief for this: It's June, and President Bush is taking his TV ads off the air (for "days not weeks") while John Kerry stays on the air. And even if the Republicans are right when they say it is simply a smart use of their resources, it is even more unbelievable how much cash Kerry is still raising.

And, in the kind of snap judgment (daring to be wrong!) that The Note makes all too regularly, we are amazed that all the hand wringing over how Bill Clinton would address the Monica Lewinsky issue in his book might have been completely vaporized by how he talked about it in the just-released CBS excerpt.

Another one: even with Jano Cabrera helping shape the message of the Democratic National Committee, the party chairman, Terry McAuliffe, continues to use the greatest cliché of our time with impunity, telling the Washington Post : ""This is a perfect storm for fundraising, a visceral dislike of George Bush's policies, a great nominee, and a unified and energized party."

Is this the first time the hackneyed term has crossed those Syracusian lips? So not: LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, and LINK

Other things we can't believe: the Washington Post 's Ruth Marcus continues to have more influence over the regulation of campaign finance rules than the FEC does LINK; Roger Simon has made us completely forget that Larry King ever had a USA Today column LINK; and John Kerry seems to be paying no Democratic-interest-group price whatsoever for (apparently) considering only white men to be his running mate.

Now, watch: he'll pick Jeanne Shaheen.

Much more on veepstakes below.

Today, the 9/11 Commission releases its final staff statement at 8:00 am this morning and follows with a hearing on the military's response to Sept. 11 featuring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Myers. At 11:30 the Commission holds a hearing on the FAA's response to Sept. 11.

President Bush meets with his Cabinet at 10:05 this morning before speaking to the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington at 1:30. He then travels to Spokane, Wash, where he speaks at a fundraiser for a Senate candidate at 9:25 p.m..

This afternoon, Senator Kerry speaks to the Michigan AFL-CIO executive board at 2:20 p.m. before attending evening fundraisers for his campaign and Rep. Kilpatrick. And there are some holes in his morning DC schedule for maybe some face-to-face encounters with possible runningmates.

Veepstakes:With chicanery and fake-outs worthy of a Law and Order episode-meets-Punk'd, Senator Kerry snuck in Rep. Dick Gephardt for a 90 minute meeting at his Senate hideaway yesterday, and Democratic sources confirm that the two men had a frank discussion about Kerry's vice presidential search.

Though Senator Bob Graham was in Georgetown last night for a fundraiser, he did not make a visit to Kerry's house, as best we can tell. The Massachusetts Senator met instead with campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and with James Johnson.

What's next? Well, as we said, Kerry has a few hours to spare on Friday.

As was reported on World News Tonight Wednesday, the Kerry campaign is looking closely at the week after July 4th to introduce America to their choice. But that's subject to change, and to the vagaries of Kerry's own decision. It may happen even earlier, but we wouldn't bet on it.

Influential Democrats, including many key Senators and party operatives, are fans of John Edwards, and an insistent chorus of "you must choose John, John" has certainly pierced the walls of that swanky inner chamber of his campaign plane.

The Kerry campaign has used Edwards so effectively as a surrogate that they may have boxed themselves into the corner of having to explain to the Democratic world why they DIDN'T choose him after all.

Even aides to several leading contenders admit that the Edwards boomlet is real. They believe that Senator Kerry has seen polls that show how Edwards helps him in states like Wisconsin and Florida. Those Democrats will close ties to the Senate and House races think an Edwards on the ticket could enhance the prospects of an Erskine Bowles victory in North Carolina and help Inez Tennenbaum in South Carolina.

No other contender can be said to have such a broad-based constituency of elite supporters, and a second ring of "enthusiasts," such as Walter Mondale and Hillary Clinton, both of whom have been heard of late making the case for why Edwards would be a strong pick.

After stumping in Buffalo yesterday, Edwards swooped into the Big Apple, where he and the AFL-CIO's Linda Chavez-Thompson were honored as "progressive patriots" at a $250 per head fundraiser for the Drum Major Institute, a liberal think tank.

The ostensible purpose of the event was to commend Edwards for using his presidential run to focus attention on the plight of America's middle class.

But the buzz in the room was less about Edwards' own presidential run and more about the role most in the room expect him to play in Kerry's.

"He deserves to be up there in national office with Senator Kerry," lawyer Mel Weiss gushed when introducing Edwards, "and I hope he will be second on that ticket because he's remarkable."

While accepting the award, the words "John Kerry" crossed Edwards' lips three times: when discussing the economic pain he and Kerry saw on the campaign trail, when contrasting Kerry's health care plan with Bush's alleged lack of one, and while asserting that he and Kerry see fighting poverty as a moral as well as an economic issue.

Wearing the Outward Bound pin of his late son Wade, Edwards' personal touch was also on display: gripping, grinning, telling a Hassidic Jew who invited him to speak to his New York community, "let's work on this together," even setting the flash function on the disposable camera of one of the many females who wanted her picture taken with the man People Magazine chose as its "sexiest politician" in 2000.

Here's our "to-be-sure" paragraph:

Edwards does not appear to meet what has been described to ABC News as a key criteria for the veepstakes selection that the nominee be instantly credible on foreign policy and be able to go toe-to-toe with Dick Cheney.

And that is a simple, if surmountable sticking point. There is certainly enough talent in the communication ranks of the Kerry to come up with an explanation that unsticks the point for us, but we haven't heard it yet.

Perhaps a boffo first week for Edwards (remember Lieberman's first week as Gore's running mate) would outweight in the minds of voters and the press a less than stellar debate performance (remember Lieberman's debate performance versus Cheney?). Or maybe Edwards, in the debate and on the trail, could finesse the foreign stuff and focus on driving an economic message.

Kerry has told associates that he views the vice presidency as an extremely important institution and wants a person of heft to fill it. Many prominent Democrats agree, that that's why they're floating names like Sam Nunn and William Cohen.

Cohen's office has formally declined to say whether he's being vetted, although an assistant to the former defense secretary said she had not heard anything about the process.

Here's a statement San Nunn gave ABC News about a report that he was being vetted. Note the use of the word "intention," and Note the careful language in general.