Morning Political Note: Jan. 25

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 25 -- Often, Friday is for casual dress, checking moviefone.com, and finalizing weekend plans. But if you're in the political media maelstrom, get ready for 110 hours of non-stop adrenaline from this moment through the return of Tuesday night's insta-polls and dial-meters gauging America's response to the State of the Union.

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News Summary

A LOT is going on in public and behind the scenes on politics, Enron, the economy, and the war.

But in our world, the story that may get the most attention today belongs (as it often does) to Mr. Richard L. Berke of the New York Times.

Democrats and reporters sniffing around the Enron story, not content to let it stay "just a big business scandal," have focused their attention on Karl Rove. Democrats seem certain that there's more to his Enron ties than has been revealed, even as Rove has "worked" the Enron matter, trying to reframe the perception of how close the President was to Ken Lay by injecting under-reported facts into the public ken, reminding reporters that much of what Enron did and got took place during the Clinton Administration, and directing an operation that has aggressively pointed out Democratic lobbyist and lawmaker ties to Enron.

Now Mr. Berke, who writes as much about the President's top political advisor as any other national reporter, leads the paper's business section today with a story about Rove, Republican strategist and Georgia state party chairman Ralph Reed, and Enron.( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/business/25REED.html )

The undisputed facts: Reed worked as a well-paid consultant to Enron from September 1997 until just recently, and Rove said nice things about him to the folks at Enron.

According to anonymous "Rove associates" with whom Berke spoke, however, there is more to it than that: "The Rove associates say the recommendation, which Enron accepted, was intended to keep Mr. Reed's allegiance to the Bush campaign without putting him on the Bush payroll. Mr. Bush, they say, was then developing his 'compassionate conservativism' message and did not want to be linked too closely to Mr. Reed, who had just stepped down as executive director of the Christian Coalition, an organization of committed religious conservatives."

"At the same time, they say, the contract discouraged Mr. Reed, a prominent operative who was being courted by several other campaigns, from backing anyone other than Mr. Bush."

Rove and Reed emphatically deny these additional "facts" to Berke.

"But a friend of Mr. Bush recalled a discussion in July 1997 in which Mr. Rove took credit for arranging an Enron job for Mr. Reed. 'Karl told me explicitly of his concerns to take care of Ralph,' this person said. 'It was important for Karl's power position to be the guy who put this together for Ralph. And Bush wanted Ralph available to him during the presidential campaign.'"

"Mr. Rove was concerned, this person also said, that Mr. Reed not have a prominent public role in the campaign because 'Ralph was so evangelical and hard right, and Karl thought it sent the wrong signal.' Another Republican said: 'It was basically accepted that Enron took care of Ralph. It's a smart way to cut campaign costs and tie people up' so they do not work for other candidates."

If you can't see instantly what these blind quotes would do to the heart rates of those in attendance at Terry McAuliffe's morning DNC message meetings, well, you must never have spoken with these people before.

Berke quotes one expert suggesting that such an arrangement might have been illegal, but that seems unlikely to us, no matter what the facts.

What's biggest about this story is the chance that it will lead to Democrats crawling all over Rove to demand more answers, and the fact that Rove and Reed, who always have had a complex professional relationship, are now going to have to try to identify those anonymous sources who are, from their point of view, telling lies about them.

The story also describes Enron involvement with two other politicos: GOP pollster Frank Luntz did work for the firm around the 2000 elections, and Democratic raconteur James Carville interviewed for part of the job that Ralph Reed ultimately got, involving doing work for the company in Pennsylvania on an energy deregulation issue. Now, we know at this point that Enron has done some dumb things, and we think Carville is pretty talented at a lot of stuff, but the fact that they wanted to pay him a lot of money to work on a substantive issue … well … let's hope the Enron board hadn't approved THAT.

There was a lot of talk during the early days of the Bush campaign about exactly how Reed was tied to the campaign, both substantively and financially.

And Berke seems to have forgotten to cite a clip of his own, a September 13, 1997 profile of Reed that contained this: "As much as Mr. Reed talks about helping unknowns, his biggest hope seems to be that he can play a major role in the campaign of whoever wins the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000. He said he would put off a decision about whom he will help, at least until late 1998; that way he can keep in contact with all of them, finding out who has the best prospects and 'offering them a lot of free advice.' Of the possible contenders at this early stage, Mr. Reed has the closest relationships with Governor Bush, Senator Ashcroft and former Vice President Dan Quayle."

It's not clear to us how much of the paint-splattering off of this story will infect the news leads heading into the weekend and into State of the Union, but as we noted, there's a lot of other stuff going on.

We knew that the Republican congressional leadership will head to Camp David today to huddle with President Bush after Bush retrurns from his quick trip to Portland, ME, but we didn't know they'd be watching "Blackhawk Down" or spending the night, as the Wall Street Journal reports they are (the Journal also notes from its joint poll with NBC: "Of presidential qualities polled, Bush rates lowest on 'working effectively with Congress").

They've got a lot to discuss, starting with what to do about economic stimulus, now that Alan Greenspan has kinda rained on their parade, and that pesky Shays-Meehan thing. Having campaign finance advocates achieve 218 signatures for the discharge petition yesterday while that Enron guy was taking the Fifth — well, it took about two seconds for the CW to form that House Republicans can't afford to look like they're obstructing CFR.

It's possible that those opposed to these kinds of changes (we resist calling them "reforms") might grudgingly decide that Enron lifts concern about this issue beyond just the ed boards and some Chevy Chase living rooms.

As the Washington Post neatly reads from Greenspan's testimony, "Greenspan's views on the economy are so influential — and Democrats and Republicans are still so far from a deal — that Greenspan's reluctance to endorse the legislation could prove fatal to a final agreement" on the economic stimulus package. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34955-2002Jan24.html )

"Responding to Greenspan's testimony, Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he believes that a stimulus package is still needed but acknowledged there are 'mixed feelings' among senators on whether the need is fading."

On CFR, even with the discharge petition signed, there still are a lot of unknowns. Republican leaders will strategize this weekend about when to schedule the votes, with one GOP spokesman saying it might not be until June.

And, per the New York Times, "[o]nce the debate starts, the outcome is also not assured. The Shays- Meehan bill is only one of three that will be voted on. It will have to win more support than a less stringent measure sponsored by Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, and another bill to be submitted by Republican leaders. Whichever bill emerges from that faceoff is then subject to 20 amendment attempts." ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/politics/25CAMP.html )

The Los Angeles Times notes, "Exactly when the new House debate on the issue will begin is unclear. Rep. Charles F. Bass (R-N.H.), who was one of those signing the petition Thursday, said that House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) promised him a vote in February. A spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said the GOP leaders would discuss the schedule at a party retreat this weekend." ( http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-000006403jan25.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dfrontpage