While many conservative Republicans viewed the Wall Street
bailout bill as a disaster, others were privately pleased with the
way the politics played out. The two most satisfied Republicans may
have been House GOP deputy whip Eric Cantor and
House conference chair Adam Putnam, who were both
front and center for the cameras as the bill was initially killed,
then resurrected by Republicans and passed. “Both have their eyes
on bigger jobs in the next Congress. Both want to be higher-profile
leaders,” says a House Republican leadership aide.
But both privately were supporters of the House bailout bill,
when many conservative members were of a differing opinion. And
both reportedly had opportunities to push more forcefully for a
conservative alternative to the legislation pushed by the Bush
administration and Treasury Department.
That hasn’t stopped the chatter about Cantor potentially
challenging Minority Leader John Boehner or House
Whip Roy Blunt, who led negotiations in the first
round of bailout bill negotiations.
Putnam is said to be interested in the House Whip post as
well.
But six months ago, both men’s base was the conservative wing of
the House, and that wing has been decimated by the bailout
vote.
“We don’t know how many of those guys are going to survive this
election cycle,” says the House leadership aide. “That bailout bill
is going to be end up being a huge problem for a lot of our guys,
not just this election cycle, but possibly the one after that,
depending on what happens.”
Both Cantor and Putnam privately pressed conservative
Republicans to help with passage of the second, pork-bloated
version of the bailout bill. Meanwhile, current leadership blocked
any attempt by conservatives to add more stringent oversight and
management amendments to the bill.
“Boehner and Blunt were already on thin ice, and this may be the
bill that ultimately puts them under,” says a House member who
reluctantly voted for the second bill. “I don’t want any of them
back, but it’s not clear to me who else steps up. We let down the
American people, and I don’t see how any of us go home and look our
constituents in the eye.”
McCain Dole-Drums
If Sen. John McCain loses the presidential
election, recriminations will be broad and swift. Already, there is
talk of who will take over management of a woefully mismanaged
Republican National Committee, which because of McCain’s decision
to accept public financing has borne the brunt of managing his
national campaign. Current RNC chairman Mike
Duncan stepped up to fill the void left by Sen.
Mel Martinez’s exit, but has been a
disappointment. “We needed a wartime chairman, someone who could be
a real leader, and Duncan isn’t it,” says a current RNC employee.
“We needed a [former RNC chairman Edward]
Gillespie type, not a low-key manager.”
Further discussion will also focus on the team that surrounded
McCain, which was famously ineffective and lived up to its
nickname: “Dole ’08.”
“These guys were backbiting, bad-mouthing their own candidates
and doing just about everything wrong,” says a current McCain
senior staffer. “We had senior McCain and RNC leaders going out a
week after Sarah Palin was announced as the
running mate bad-mouthing her, McCain, and the ticket.”
In fact, some of McCain’s most trusted advisers—to both him and
his wife, Cindy—were bad-mouthing Palin to the press in the days
leading up to and during the Republican convention. “I’ve never
seen a group of people so happily bad-mouth their guy and gal,”
says another longtime McCain adviser. “It’s disgusting and there
ought to be reckoning. We were talking ourselves out of victory
when the battle wasn’t even close to being over.”
Obama’s Oppos
The campaign of Barack Obama in midsummer deployed a
three-person research team to Arizona, among other locations, to
compile materials, articles, and backup documents on Cindy
McCain’s struggle with prescription painkillers, and for
about a month shopped the materials to media outlets they felt
would be receptive to following through on the information,
according to a producer for CNN, who was approached.
A version of the McCain story was eventually published by the
Washington Post in mid-September. The story was peddled by
a Democratic political operative paid by the Obama campaign,
according to the CNN producer, who says that while none of the
primary materials were shown to him, he was told he’d receive
“enough information and guidance” to make the story what the
consultant called “explosive.”
The “explosive” nature of the story, according to the reporter,
was the Obama’s campaign attempt to link Sen. John
McCain to his wife’s problems.
"The guy kept trying to sell me on the idea that if we dug
enough, we might find that Senator McCain had been using too,” says
the producer. “It was obvious to me they wanted this to become a
hit on Senator McCain. Cindy McCain was just the starting-off
point.”
The producer says, “I didn’t touch it, and I know the Obama camp
had difficulties finding a taker,” adding that he never spoke to
his bosses about the information, in part out of concern that a
higher-up might have been willing to run the story. “There are some
anchors and senior news people who I think believe it is in their
interest to help Obama. We are no better than MSNBC in that regard,
though not as blatant about it.”
Political consultants paid by the Obama campaign also attempted
to shop opposition research on the McCains’ adoptive daughter,
Cindy McCain’s finances and family-owned business, and John
McCain’s role in the “Keating Five” scandal, as well as information
on Sarah Palin’s family. The same political
consultant who pitched the McCain drug story likewise pushed a
story that Palin was charging victims of rape for the rape kits
used to detect the crimes and potentially convict those who
committed the crimes. Even though that story had been debunked, the
Boston Globe reported it as fact days before the
vice-presidential debate.
Although Obama’s campaign has accused other campaigns of playing
dirty and going negative, it more than any other has sought— and
gained—the cooperation of reporters to attack his opponents.
According to a former Hillary Clinton political
adviser, her campaign estimated that more than 50 percent of the
negative and so-called “investigative” pieces about her came from
Obama opposition sourcing.
“They are smart,” says the former Clinton hand about the Obama
campaign. “They only provide memos and little material unless the
reporter asks for files he can’t get on his own. They have the
backup stuff, but won’t go that far. But the memos have enough info
to make the reporting easy. I’ve seen some of them and there are
lots of breadcrumbs.”
The Clinton consultant says that word among Democratic sources
is that the same team that spent weeks on McCain research also
wrapped up its work on Palin. “Reporters up there digging in Alaska
were seeing the Obama people pulling the same stuff they were
looking for, so it’s not going to be clear whether the dirt is
coming from Obama or real reporting.” But for the Obama campaign,
either outcome works just fine.
Obama’s Rummy
Retiring Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel has told
friends that he would happily serve in the administration of Sen.
Barack Obama, were he asked. Hagel has indicated
to Obama staffers that he would be open to serving as defense
secretary.
Hagel was the most prominent Republican to back Obama over his
longtime friend John McCain. In fact, Hagel
traveled with Obama during his Mideast tour earlier this year.
Softball
MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews is privately
talking to longtime friends about the possibility of challenging
Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. Matthews, who
was born in Philadelphia, has also spoken to Pennsylvania governor
Ed Rendell about possibly making a run, according
to a longtime Rendell fundraiser in Philadelphia. Matthews does
have political experience beyond his TV yap; he worked for former
Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill.
