NIGHTHORSE READY TO RIDE OFF
Rumors are swirling on Capitol Hill that Republican Colorado
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell is mulling
retirement and may make a decision on that score in the next few
months. “We’ve heard he might exit before the November elections,
but that he hasn’t set anything in stone,” says a Republican
staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee, on which Campbell
serves.
Campbell, you’ll recall, entered the Senate in 1992 as a
Democrat, then changed over when Republicans won the Senate
majority in 1994. In 1998, there were rumors back home in Colorado
that Campbell might be considering retirement because he failed to
announce early on that he would seek re-election. Known as a free
spirit, Campbell won his re-election bid then disappeared for
several days on a long motorcycle trip, blowing off press queries
about his re-election. He says to anyone who listens that he hates
Washington and the culture of Capitol Hill.
But Campbell staffers discount the rumors of retirement, instead
saying that Campbell has told the Senate Republican leadership that
he is interested in giving up his seat on the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee. “He’s very busy with Appropriations and
Energy. He wants off one committee, that’s all,” says a personal
staffer to the Senator.
Another reason Campbell would avoid retirement: Rep.
Scott McInnis, a conservative Republican from
Campbell’s old 3rd Congressional District. In 1998 McInnis
considered running for the Senate seat that might have opened had
Campbell retired, and he has made no bones about how he’d love to
serve in the Senate.
His hard-line conservative views and perceived
anti-environmental positions are anathema to the moderate Campbell,
who is said by staff to be concerned that Colorado Gov.
Bill Owens might appoint McInnis to the Senate if
a seat opened up. “He’d hate to see McInnis get that seat because
of something he did, like retire,” says the Campbell staffer.
LITTLE RACICOT
Someone apparently seriously mulling early retirement is Republican
National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot, who RNC
staffers say is fed up with a controlling White House that has made
political missteps he advised against. “He wasn’t part of the
recruitment of Richard Riordan out in California,
but Marc was very upset at how that Republican primary was handled.
He pressed for the White House to at least talk to [now Republican
nominee] Bill Simon before the primary election,
but he was ignored,” says a senior RNC aide. “He’s disenchanted
with the job, because he feels he’s been cut out of most of the
political decisions. Those are made by others inside the White
House and then handed off to the RNC.”
Racicot is also said to have felt he should have been consulted
more in the decision to bring Mitt Romney back to
run for Massachusetts governor.
Racicot served a governor of Montana from 1993 to 2001 and
turned down an RNC request that he run for the Senate. Instead,
citing the need to earn money for his family, Racicot joined the
Washington office of the law firm of Bracewell & Patterson,
where he lobbied for, among other clients, Enron. He is not a
full-time RNC chairman. Instead, he continues to work for his firm
on a number of different issues, but has said he will not lobby or
represent clients before Congress or the White House. “I think he
feels torn. He has no desire to work full-time for the RNC, but on
the other hand, he took on this role out of personal loyalty and
friendship to President Bush. He doesn’t want to let him down,”
says another senior RNC adviser.
If Racicot does step aside, almost certainly not before this
fall’s mid-term elections, RNC staff expect Deputy Chairman
Jack Oliver to be the likely successor due to his
ties to Karl Rove. Oliver is credited with the
RNC’s improved outreach program to Hispanics.
