DURBIN DECLINE
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s vote against Judge
Charles Pickering in the Senate Judiciary
Committee may have far-reaching implications for his constituents.
For several years Durbin has been pushing big federal financial
guarantees to help fund the expansion of O’Hare International
Airport outside Chicago.
It is a pet project of Mayor Richard Daley and
former Clinton-Gore crony William Daley.The
airport expansion has been fought by Illinois Republican Sen.
Peter Fitzgerald.
The Bush administration had expressed a desire to help Durbin
and the Daleys get the funding. But while dining with the Daley
brothers in Chicago during St. Patrick’s Day festivities last
weekend, Bush told them that Durbin’s refusal to support Pickering
may very well doom their sky-high airport plans.
“Durbin wouldn’t even speak to Lott about the Pickering matter,”
says a Republican leadership source. “This is personal now, and the
Pickering thing is going to have some far reaching effects on pet
legislation on the Democratic side.”
Fitzgerald has struggled in the past to keep the airport
financing deal off the books, but has been told by Lott that this
year’s fight won’t be half as hard. Republicans won’t the let the
deal go through. Across the Capitol, House Speaker Dennis
Hastert, a fellow Land of Lincoln resident, has similarly
agreed to keep O’Hare expansion backing off the books to spite
Durbin’s and the Daleys’ dreams.
JANET’S LOST LABOR
Former Attorney General Janet Reno has finished
driving around Florida in her “little red truck tour,” and
Democrats who hoped she might get lost now fear she has locked up
their party’s nomination to face off against Republican incumbent
Gov. Jeb Bush. And it isn’t just Reno who scares
them. It’s her polling numbers. According to internal Florida
Democratic Party polling, Reno has a sizable lead over her
Democratic competition, Tampa Bay attorney Bill
McBride, state Sen. Daryl Jones and state
Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida recount fame.
“We’re stuck with her,” says a state Democratic Party official
of Reno. “She has a better than 50 percent backing inside the party
and guys like McBride are far behind by 25 or 30 points.” But when
Reno faces off against Bush she’s buried. “We’re talking landslide
losses in our numbers,” says the party official. “Real bad. We show
her losing 65 percent to 35 percent; numbers like that. That gap
can certainly narrow, but with a candidate with her kind of name
recognition, it isn’t looking good.”
The primary race might not be over just yet. While McBride isn’t
a household name, he apparently has the support of former President
Bill Clinton and some FOBs in Washington. It’s
expected that the Florida state AFL-CIO will soon endorse McBride
on the recommendation of national AFL-CIO headquarters in
Washington. “We’re hearing that Clinton and [Democratic National
Committee Chairman] Terry McAuliffe aren’t backing
Reno but won’t do it publicly,” says the state party official. “But
they’re steering support to McBride, though, through political
friends and supporters. How else to you explain the biggest union
backing an also-ran?”
CARD PLAY
Rumors have Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card either
resigning or taking an extended leave of absence to direct the
Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign of close friend Mitt
Romney, who will be the Republican candidate now that
acting Gov. Jane Swift has been pushed aside.
“Card was expected to be a short-timer in this White House,”
says a legislative staffer in the White House. “I think some people
are surprised he lasted this long.”
