RADIO BUG
Norman Pattiz has been one of the most visible
Clinton holdovers working in the Bush Administration. Never heard
of him? No reason you should have. But as a board member of the
agency that oversees such entities as Radio Free Europe, Radio
Marti and the station that beams the American perspective into the
Persian Gulf, he’s perhaps the most influential Democrat in
Washington. And evidently he wants to stay that way.
While Pattiz hasn’t given a dime to President Bush, he has
spread his money around to just about every Democratic presidential
candidate, perhaps in hopes he can hold on to his job at the radio
stations. It’s not like he doesn’t have a day job. Pattiz is the
CEO of Westwood One Radio, the second biggest national radio
network and developer of programming. Thus he has cut checks
totaling $9,000 to Sen. John Edwards,
Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt,
John Kerry and Joe Lieberman.
Pattiz is said to be thorn in the side of the scant Republicans
working on the international broadcasting board, as well as a glory
hound for the hard work of the Bush Administration. During the
early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pattiz made sure he was
the star of a CBS News report on how the Bush Administration was
attempting to improve America’s image in the Middle East through
radio broadcasts.’
“You’d think he was a Bush guy,” says a Republican Senate
Foreign Relations Committee staffer, which has oversight over the
broadcasting board. “But he’s a liberal Democrat. He is someone we
should have to worry about. When his term is up, Bush should push
him out.”
Pattiz, apparently is banking — literally — on the Democrats
pulling off the 2004 upset to save his job on the side.
DAILY EVANS
Secretary of Commerce Don Evans is one of
President George W. Bush’s best friends. He helped engineer the
bold fundraising and campaign financing model for the 2000 race
that is once again revving up across the country. And he has helped
get the President victories on Capitol Hill of late. Evans, in
short, is becoming the heavy lifter everyone thought he would be
out of the gates of the administration.
But Evans really came into focus during the fight over the
recent Bush economic stimulus package. While others tried to keep
House Ways and Means chairman Bill Thomas and
Senate leaders in line, Evans lined up businesses big and small for
their support and kept the private sector backers pushing the tax
cut issues with the grassroots. Evans was also responsible for
pointing the White House in which locales to hold their high
profile events across the country. “Those routinely led the evening
news, and they played well just about every time,” says a White
House political staffer. “Evans was the background doing a solid
job for us.”
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Evans was standing
behind the President at the signing of the tax cut bill. Nor will
it be a surprise to see Evans playing an increasingly high profile
role in the coming months. It’s expected that the White House, with
support from Republicans in both houses, will attempt to make
another run at tax cuts and perhaps yet another swipe at the death
tax. Regardless of what they attempt to do, look for Evans to be a
much more visible player on the Hill and on the stump for the
president.
“Unlike Clinton, we’re not going to put our Treasury Secretary
out there to raise a ton of money from Wall Street,” says the White
House source. “We’re not going to be holding coffees with
[John] Snow there. Evans is going
to be our face and our key guy in getting businesses and
businessmen behind us.”
While the Treasury secretary won’t be Rubin-esque, he won’t be
totally invisible. Already, he’s been slated to appear at several
fundraisers for Republican highrollers. But soon Snow will
disappear, leaving Evans holding up the money bag.
