DRUDGE MATCH
Sen. Hillary Clinton came out publicly on Friday
to support the short-lived candidacy of Tipper Gore for the open
Senate seat in Tennessee, even though at first Hillary and her
Capitol Hill staffers thought the whole Tipper-will-run idea was a
lark. “We first saw the item on Drudge,” says a Clinton staffer.
“And we thought it was a joke or something. We e-mailed the link
around and just kind of laughed about it. I think even Mrs. Clinton
thought it was a hoax or someone at the DNC just floating a goofy
idea.”
But Hillary, who has not spoken much to Tipper since hubby Al’s
failed presidential run, is said by staffers to have made several
phone calls to Democratic colleagues in the Senate, though not to
Mrs. Gore herself, to confirm the notion that Tipper might be
running. “Mrs. Clinton confirmed it, then put out the release that
she was supportive of it,” the first staffer says. “What else could
she do?”
Still, the Clinton staffer adds, Hillary thought it amusing that
“the Gores are trying to imitate the Clintons in almost every
way.”
WALL FLOWERS
Sen. John Edwards spent last week showing off art
in his office to North Carolina newspaper reporters in an attempt
to send a message home that he was serious about running for
president. At one time, Edwards had pictures of Ben
Franklin and George Washington hanging on
the walls. But that décor is out. Now, Edwards has the
visages of Andrew Jackson, James
Polk, and Andrew Johnson looking down on
him. “They are huge portraits,” says a reporter for the Charlotte
Observer. “You can’t miss them and he won’t let you miss the
significance.”
As Edwards will tell you, all three men hailed from North
Carolina and all were elected president. Never mind that Andrew
Jackson made his mark in what’s now Al Gore’s
state, or that Polk was a one-termer, or that Johnson was
impeached. As far as Edwards is concerned, they were all as good as
trial lawyers. Will Edwards go a step further and hang a picture of
himself on his walls? “He’s not that full of himself,” says an
Edwards staffer, who adds, “yet.”
LOTT HOLDS
In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s defeat of Judge
Charles Pickering’s nomination to a federal
appeals court, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott
moved to block the nomination of Jonathan
Adelstein to the Federal Communications Commission.
Adelstein is an aide to Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle, and the move is seen as a payback to Daschle for
killing any chance of a floor vote on Pickering.
Daschle had recommended Adelstein to the Bush White House and
received favorable responses. In doing so, ironically, Daschle was
following a process established by then majority leader Lott during
the Clinton years, to allow the Senate Majority Leader a key say in
dealings with the White House on nominations to federal committees
and commissions. “Lott realizes now that his getting into bed with
Clinton to move nominations during the nineties is burning him
now,” says a Republican Senate leadership aide. “Now Daschle has
the power, and he’s using it. It will be interesting to see how
Lott adapts.”
Apparently not very well. Instead of trying to simply kill off a
couple Democratic friendly nominations, Lott announced last Friday
that he will also attempt to kill legislation in the Senate that
would appropriate a little more than $1 million for Senate hearings
into how federal law enforcement has operated since the 9/11
attacks.
“He’s trying to kill legislation the Bush administration wants,”
says another GOP Senate leadership aide. “Lott is angry over
Pickering, who’s a friend, but he’s just not thinking clearly on
this stuff. Why hurt Republicans?”
Lott’s seeming errors in judgment are compounded by the fact
that many Republicans and Democrats alike blame Pickering’s defeat
on Lott’s failure to do solid advance work with his colleagues
before the nomination hearings took place. “Senator Lott did
nothing for Pickering leading up to the hearings,” says a
Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer. “Maybe he assumed the White
House was doing more, but Lott could have done more to curry favor
with our people. He had to know the NAACP and others were working
us hard.”
