Political News Summary: Feb. 11

W A S H I N G T O N, Feb. 11 -- Our twin leads from Thursday — campaign finance reform and the budget — carry on into today, but absent President Bush, who will be occupied with other matters, and possibly distracted by humming TVs all over Beltwayville showing the Enron hearings.

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News Summary

Don't be fooled by what for now seems like a typical slow-starting Monday in Washington.

By the end of the week, we expect to have run the gamut from:a) a flirtation with Armageddon, with the House vote on campaign finance reform currently expected for Wednesday;b) the human face of the new impetus for the CFR vote, Ken Lay, taking the 5th;c) President Bush's decision on whether or not to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain;d) Bush's meeting with the president of Pakistan;e) former Vice President Gore's first major policy speech since the 2000 election, focusing on foreign stuff, in New York City;f) the current Vice President's major foreign policy address to the same audience three days after Gore's; andg) the knighting of Rudy Giuliani;toz) the first quasi cattle call of the 2004 presidential election, with a handful of Democratic Senators pondering their national futures expected to address the California state party convention in Los Angeles over the weekend.

And if that isn't enough for you, there are the undercurrents: the Democratic party's frustrated-to-panicked struggle to gain traction against the president's wartime popularity, which is now officially and undeniably rubbing off on the president's party; and Democrats' related efforts to strike the right tone and message on the budget.

While Bush is running deficits, the Washington Post notes that "Democrats have thus far avoided the issue of how they would pay for their domestic initiatives while funding both the war on terrorism and Bush's tax cuts, the largest of which will not take effect for years. Republican claims to the contrary, neither Daschle nor Gephardt have called for repealing the cuts," but neither have they proposed a way to deal with the budget in a global way.( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55320-2002Feb10.html )

Roll Call looks at White House and GOP efforts to capitalize on the president's approval ratings to pressure moderate Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2002.( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/02/news0211g.html )

Meanwhile, in the most blatant example yet of the president and his party trying to leverage his wartime popularity for political gain, Bush has allowed his image to be used in GOP TV and radio ads against a handful of Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2002, accusing them (in varying language) of "not doing their jobs" because they didn't support the president's version of the economic stimulus package.

The TV spots are running in Montana, Missouri and South Dakota; radio ads are running in Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota.

These ads got little notice because they were launched late last week amidst the Enron/Shays-Meehan frenzy. Democrats don't plan to let the spots go uncountered; expect response ads to go on the air in many of these states this week. And stay tuned for a year of accusations flying back and forth about politicizing the war.

Today, the Campaigner-in-Chief heads to the battleground state of Wisconsin to raise money for Gov. Scott McCallum, while First Lady Laura Bush appears on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the president's popularity makes his visit doubly sweet for Governor McCallum, who inherited the job from HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and is now running in his own right. ( http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/feb02/19233.asp )

While the president jets off to Milwaukee, the White House will have to spend more time contending with this new Enron bump, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: "While the Bush administration was drafting its national energy policy, a leading lobbyist for Enron Corp." and Bush 2000 campaign communications strategist "was plotting strategy to turn the plan into a political weapon against Democrats, according to" a memo "newly obtained" by the Times . ( http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-000010595feb11.story )?coll=la%2Dheadlines )%2Dpolitics )

"Edward Gillespie, who parlayed his close ties to the Bush White House into a lucrative contract representing the energy giant, warned that the administration faced 'a classic liberal-conservative … dynamic,' which cast Republicans as the party of big business and enemies of the environment."

"'Instead of picking the fight that has been picked for us, we should pick a new fight,' said the confidential April 2001 memo, presented to energy companies and industry groups. The memo suggested the industry 'change the dynamic by "Carterizing" the Democrats'--an allusion to the dour ex-president."

"Gillespie said he never shared his memo with the White House, and his thoughts on political strategy, offered in informal conversations with administration officials, were never taken. But within weeks, Gillespie's recommendations surfaced in advertising promoting Bush's energy plan. One newspaper ad read, 'Remember the 70s? Gas lines were long, rationing was in, Jimmy Carter was president and he told us to wear a sweater.'"

The papers over the weekend and today have given full treatment to the White House's relative silence on campaign finance reform, noting how Enron has upped the pressure on Bush not to visibly oppose Shays-Meehan. And one Republican suggests to Roll Call today that Bush's view is that it's congressional GOPers' fight — not his.

But USA Today offers another incentive for Bush to keep quiet. "The biggest beneficiary of a campaign-finance overhaul bill slated for House action this week might be the man who decides whether to sign it into law: President Bush. The legislation would double to $4,000 the maximum an individual can donate to a candidate: $2,000 for a primary and another $2,000 for the general election. The president 'easily will raise a quarter of a billion dollars' for the primary elections in 2004, says Jan Baran, an election lawyer who represents Republicans. The change also might prompt Bush to become the first major-party candidate to opt out of the public-financing system in a general election since it was created in 1976, election experts say."( http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/02/11/usat-bush.htm )

Roll Call looks at the question of who will be hurt worse if Shays-Meehan does pass and get signed into law. "Gephardt set the stakes for Democrats at a Whip meeting Thursday morning, telling Members that the party's future looked grim without steps to limit the GOP's fundraising potential under President Bush."( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/02/news0211a.html )

"A senior Republican lawmaker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Hastert received no assurances from Bush that the White House will try to block passage of the Shays-Meehan bill … 'I don't think the president is going to get involved,' said the lawmaker. 'Bush doesn't want any piece of this. He doesn't see it as his fight, he sees it as our fight.'"

The story notes that McCain, "who planned to return to Washington Sunday night to prepare for the upcoming debate — is also featured prominently in television ads that will begin airing across the country today in the districts of nine Republican lawmakers who reformers believe could be critical to the debate's outcome. The ads, which will air on cable television networks, also feature Feingold, Meehan and Shays talking about the need for reform of the campaign finance system."

"GOP lawmakers targeted by the ads are Reps. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Elton Gallegly (Calif.), Sue Kelly (N.Y.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), John McHugh (N.Y.), Doug Ose (Calif.), Jack Quinn (N.Y.), Jim Saxton (N.J.) and James Walsh (N.Y.)."

"Most of the nine voted for earlier versions of the Shays-Meehan bill but were still undecided going into this week's debate … Campaign for America, the pro-reform group founded by former Wall Street financier Jerome Kohlberg, which is financing the television ads, is also bankrolling phone-bank operations in 30 districts across the nation, including the nine targeted by the television ads."

Also today, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman will hold field hearing on the air quality at Ground Zero. The AP picks up on a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report that "Workers near ground zero and residents of the area never heard about a government report that said the dust from the fallen World Trade Center was as harmful as liquid drain cleaner. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports today that the US Geological Survey gave its report to the [EPA]. But the paper says the E-P-A never got the news to the people who needed to hear it."

Former Attorney General and Florida gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno is expected to speak at Justice Department memorial service today for Tony Sutin, the former Justice Department official who was killed in the recent shooting at the Appalachian School of Law, where Sutin served as Dean.