PATRIOTIC GORE
The Democrat Party senior leadership is feeling a Rush.
Rush Limbaugh, that is. Late last week, DNC Chair
Howard Dean, Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin and
Senatorial Committee chair, Sen. Chuck Schumer,
and Speaker Nancy Pelosi all signed off in some
form or another direct mail fundraising plans that will feature
Limbaugh for their national party.
“‘Don’t let Limbaugh smear true patriotism,’ that’s the theme,”
says a DNC staffer. “We’re not going to let Limbaugh determine what
soldiers can talk and what soldiers can not.”
Bad grammar and ill-informed opinions aside, the DNC hopes to
raise millions of dollars off Limbaugh. “If we can’t silence him,
we should at least make some money to make his life more miserable
in a Democratic-controlled Washington in 2008,” says a Senate
Democrat leadership aide.
Others on the Democrat side are pushing ahead with other plans.
Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative
staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio
hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin
based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal
Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to
discuss the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.”
“Limbaugh isn’t the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable
about what he says on the radio,” says a House leadership source.
“We don’t have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all
political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we
can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks
out there on the campaign trail.”
MILKING RUDY
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appear to be playing
a game of “Can You Top This?” After a weekend visit to Florida and
an event in Estero, Giuliani came away with decent reviews and
numbers (between 500 to 600 in a room that had Giuliani staffers
pulling seats earlier in the morning to ensure the appearance of a
standing room only event, and only four questions taken from the
audience in what was billed as a “town hall” event).
“We’ll do an ‘Ask Mitt’ event there and blow his doors off,”
says a Romney campaign adviser. “A town hall requires more than
four questions and 30 minute speech. Maybe he’s taking his speech
lessons from Fred Thompson.”
Romney is also prepping a new series of opposition attacks
against Giuliani, one being his support of the Harvey Milk School
in New York, which became a certified educational facility for gay
and lesbian high school students during Giuliani’s administration
as mayor. Prior to Giuliani, it was not a school certified by the
city of New York.
“Most voters hear Giuliani, but don’t know his background, his
previous positions, and they just assume that Governor Romney is
the only guy who’s had to take different positions because of his
constituencies,” says the Romney aide. “We’re going to make sure
voters in Florida know that Rudy is not the social conservative he
would have them think he is.”
