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NEWS SUMMARY

Certainly, the president's prosecution of the war against terrorism has most Americans, and even some Democrats in Washington, feeling pretty good about him.

But we don't recall even Bill Clinton ever signing a bill that he said in advance he believed to be unconstitutional.

As we suggested yesterday, we still look forward to the signing ceremony, currently expected to take place shortly after President Bush returns from Latin America, and to seeing whether the Reformer with Results is able to express more enthusiasm about the new campaign finance law than he did in his Hughesian statement last night, which revived for us fond memories of Bush's steel decision (accompanied, even, by a faint-yet-unmistakable whiff of burning coal … ).

President Bush and Vice President Cheney had a post-breakfast photo op this morning and talked about Bush's upcoming trip in a seemingly news-less manner. Bush at this writing is heading off to Mexico, stopping at the border to view an inspection station.

USA Today , along with countless others, previews his trip. ( http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020321/3958272s.htm )

The release of the independent counsel report on the Clintons is as good a time as any to point out that you can still approach any covey of Republican-leaning lobbyists at the corner of 17th and K Streets and ask them what they think of the wartime hero President and his decisions on steel and campaign finance and get some pretty serious "how could he?/that's just politics" head-shaking.

These decisions are not, for the most part, getting built into a mosaic of "Bush is unprincipled and political, just as he accused Clinton of being" for several reasons.

Too much news in Washington, sadly, is driven by the press' insistence on waiting for the opposition party to cry foul about some action before covering it, and Democrats are for the most part (mutedly) critical of the steel move from the left, not the right. And of course they support the campaign finance bill.

The press (mostly) supports McCain-Feingold too, and so isn't inclined to criticize the president for signing a bill he, in his own statement acknowledges, likely has constitutional problems. And the press, despite its free-trading instincts, isn't really that steeped in the nuances of steel economics.

The The Wall Street Journal 's editorial page, which sometimes is a paragon of intellectual consistency, has the courage and fortitude to stay with the steel issue, and offers a pretty scathingly anti-Bush editorial today, even with a war going on, saying the already extant negative fallout "is all the consequence of Mr. Bush's decision to let Karl Rove play Secretary of State for a day. Over objections from Colin Powell and the Bush economic team, the White House political Svengali convinced the president the payoff from grateful steelworkers in this year's congressional elections and in 2004 were worth the risks. Then, conveniently, the tariffs expire."

"The steel decision was especially damaging to Mr. Bush and the trading order, because it was his first major trade decision made under domestic pressure. The world was watching for a precedent, all the more so because it knows Mr. Bush is sitting on an 80% approval rating — a rating that has something to do with a reputation, now tarnished, for standing on principle. Instead of acting like the world's economic leader, Mr. Bush behaved like a parochial Congressman."

"Even in purely political terms, the steel tariff looks dubious. The president didn't need to compromise to get Trade Promotion Authority through the Senate (it's already passed the House), and if he needs West Virginia's electoral votes in 2004, he's probably not going to win anyway. As for this year's Congressional races, Dick Gephardt is already bashing him for not doing enough. Mr. Bush's steel blunder is going to hurt him, and the country, for a long time."

On McCain-Feingold, the Los Angeles Times reports, "One reason the president plans to sign the bill is that he anticipates some of its provisions will be found unconstitutional, said a Republican who has spoken to Bush about the issue."
( http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-000020616mar21.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dfrontpage )

Which raises this intriguing prospect: "Feingold said he will support the legal defense of the bill, which he expects Bush's Justice Department to lead. He previously gained a commitment from Bush's solicitor general, Theodore Olson, to defend the law in court."
( http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020321/3958311s.htm )

The Boston Globe offers a nicely written round-up of the anticipated (mostly negative) impact of the law should it stay in place.

It's already been widely speculated that President Bush, with his awesome fundraising machine, will opt not to take public matching funds in raising money for his re-election campaign. "Democrats are worried that their nominee could emerge in March 2004 from a crowded primary field and be unable to fall back on a wave of soft-money advertising from the national party. Republican challenger Robert Dole … faced just such circumstances in 1996 and fell well behind his rival. 'I basically agree with that scenario,' said Joe Sandler, the Democratic National Committee's general counsel. 'It's a big concern.'" ( http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/080/ nation/Changes_may_erode_earlier_reform+.shtml )

"'I think one can safely say that [Democratic National Committee chairman Terry] McAuliffe and McCain have inadvertently conspired to create a disaster for the Democratic presidential nominee in '04,' said one glum Democratic strategist. 'You have a very long, very difficult, very dry spell between March and August where Bush dominates the free media because he's president and he dominates the paid media, as well, because he can afford to buy ads.'"

Switching to another ongoing theme of this Note, the Washington Times got its hands on an Andy Card memo that went out yesterday ordering "all federal agencies to scrub their Web sites of sensitive information on weapons of mass destruction and other data that might be useful to terrorists … The move alarmed scientists and open-records advocates because the government is withdrawing thousands of documents that have been available to the public for years." ( http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020321-16859342.htm )

"Late yesterday afternoon, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card sent a memo to the heads of all agencies and executive departments ordering an 'immediate re-examination' of all public documents. The officials were told to report their findings within 90 days to the Office of Homeland Security."

"[T]he review goes much further than withdrawing documents on weapons of mass destruction that should have been classified in the first place. It also includes 'sensitive but unclassified information,' according to a second memo to agency heads, which was drafted by secrecy officials at the White House and Justice Department. 'The need to protect such sensitive information from inappropriate disclosure should be carefully considered, on a case-by-case basis,' said the memo, which was also obtained by The Times ."

Aside from CFR, the papers today are full of coverage of Trent Lott's campaign to avenge his friend Charles Pickering, and Republicans' broader efforts to use Pickering to galvanize GOP voters in the midterm elections.

In a must-read, mind-blowing interview with Roll Call , Lott "signaled that he will be mounting a two-front war on Senate Democrats in the weeks and months ahead. He said he will continue to drive home a message that the 'Daschle Democrats' are obstructionists and don't pass substantive legislation, even bills that have broad bipartisan support. But he will also continue his own personal vendetta." ( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/03/news0321b.html )

Another Roll Call story reports, "As the Senate continues to deal with the reverberations from the Judiciary Committee's party-line rejection of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering's bid for a circuit court seat, [South Carolina Senate candidate and Rep. Lindsey] Graham and other House Republicans gunning for Senate seats are already using the fight as a rallying cry for their own campaigns." ( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/03/news0321f.html )

"Graham and Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), who is seeking to oust Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D), said they believe they can specifically use the Pickering case to score points with voters. Georgia Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R) said his campaign against Senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.) would portray the issue of judicial nominations as part of an overall effort by Senate Democrats to block Bush's agenda."

"National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Bill Frist (Tenn.) agreed with the Democrats' assessment that the Pickering case alone might be a hard campaign issue because it was so primarily rooted in Mississippi politics … But, like Chambliss, he said the Pickering case did raise the national profile of the issue of lower court federal judicial nominations."

From the ABCNEWS London Bureau: Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested after Israeli tanks entered the West Bank in overnight raids in response to yesterday's suicide attack. An Israeli army statement said a member of the Islamic militant group Hamas was among detainees. A soldier from Palestinian leader Arafat's presidential guard also had been arrested. The action came shortly after senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials failed to agree on a cease-fire, despite intense US pressure. US special envoy Zinni is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Sharon in Tel Aviv before resuming security talks later today.

Pope John Paul, in his first comment on a wave of Church pedophilia scandals, said Thursday that he was profoundly hurt by Roman Catholic priests involved in what he called "the most grievous form" of evil. Writing in his yearly letter to priests, the Pope said the Catholic Church wanted to show its concern for the victims of the scandals and aimed to "respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations."

US forces have killed at least 10 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who attacked coalition forces near Khost and also have detained one man. US troops continue to patrol area around Khost and are seeking out pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda resistance in Khost and Ghazny provinces.

Budget Politics

The New York Times writes about the dueling budget plans, and contains a sentence that should appear in pretty much every story with a Washington dateline as the political coda for the year: "But given their reluctance to call for reversing the tax cut, Democrats have had a difficult time showing how they would do any better." ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/politics/21BUDG.html )

The piece also says, "The Democratic minority leader in the House, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, plans to announce on Thursday that he will seek to force a vote this year on the three recommendations for overhauling Social Security developed by a commission formed by Mr. Bush."

And then the story has another sentence that also should probably be in every story through the election: "Republicans said Democrats were resorting to scare tactics on Social Security that would backfire."

The Washington Post looks at how the Senate Democrats' proposal, rolled out yesterday and "likely to be approved by [the Budget Committee] today," "would tap Social Security every year for the rest of the decade. They called on the next Congress to solve the problem." ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58995-2002Mar20.html )

"Yet for all the rhetoric" in the fights over the House Republican and Senate Democrat plans, "the bottom lines of the competing plans are nearly identical."

Campaign Finance Legislation

The self-satisfied New York Times editorial amazingly fails to address all of the specific criticisms that McConnell made of the paper yesterday, and continues its Never-Never-Land worldview with this: "Neither the public nor lawmakers who struggled to enact campaign finance reform will sit by if there is any attempt to weaken it." ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/opinion/_21THU1.html )

The The Wall Street Journal editorial denouncing the bill seeks to make certain that the people who pushed for its passage are held accountable for what they have wrought, but the piece undermines its credibility at least a bit by crying crock tears of concern over the notion that the law will make "our politics … even more polarized."

Rick Berke reminds us again that the new, higher hard money limits mean that "bundlers" of $2,000 checks are going to be the new stars of campaign fundraising, and their existence limits the degree to which anyone can say that the nexus between fundraising and access will be broken. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/politics/21ASSE.html )

One we hadn't thought much about: Senator "McConnell said the soft-money ban would end national political conventions as they are now run, since 80 percent of the money it takes to stage them comes from soft money." ( http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020321-228776.htm

Roll Call notes that as the Senate voted to pass Shays-Meehan-McCain-Feingold yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee was moving to loosen disclosure requirements for 527 groups, or "stealth PACs." ( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/03/news0321g.html )

Yesterday's debate was free of the rancor that has characterized both parties in recent weeks, and was oddly refreshing.

Even if McConnell, for example, doesn't actually believe his pro-CFR colleagues are convinced the system actually will be "reformed" by all this, he took pains to thank them for contributing to the debate.

The president's statement makes no reference to the ban on soft-money advertising by outside groups in the days before an election, arguably the most contentious proposal, other than to say that the legislation overall presents some "legitimate Constitutional questions."

Not to be understated in the debate is the pitched anger felt by many conservatives over Bush's both-sides-of-his-mouth quandary here. From the heartland right, represented by Rush Limbaugh, to the Catholic conservatives at the National Review, chest-beating has begun.

Here's an excerpt from an American Conservative Union press release: It is a travesty that so many Members of Congress-on both sides of the aisle-seem to have either forgotten about or chose to intentionally ignore their oaths to 'support and defend the Constitution' when they cast their votes in this case. It is, frankly, sad that such an affront to freedom has actually made it to the desk of the president of the United States. The fact of the matter, however, is that it has, and the president must take this opportunity to stand up for freedom and the Constitution."

All well and good, but will ACU members — or members of the Christian Coalition, listeners of Limbaugh, and other Republicans --actually withhold their support from a wartime president merely because he signed an allegedly constitutionally dubious bill into law? We'd bet that "the base" of the party doesn't care that much, while the elites — the fundraisers, intellectuals and insiders — do.

The same can be said for the Democrats. Most Democratic-leaning voters don't rank this among their top issues. But activists, interest groups and political advocacy organizations do. They are closer to the center of power; they know the distinctions between federal and non-federal accounts; and many believe that the soft-money proliferation has corrupted an already flawed election financing process.

To segue to our "Invisible Primary" section, here's more Democratic fretting from that Boston Globe story: "Given the Democratic Party's leading role in campaign finance reform, some observers expressed doubt whether its presidential candidate could, practically or politically, follow Bush out of the public funding system."

"Other analysts say that Bush's fund-raising machine is so advanced, and unique, that no Democrats and few Republicans could match it."

"Nevertheless, a few of the people most often mentioned as likely candidates are compiling extensive fund-raising lists. For example, Senator John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, has greatly expanded his direct mailing list over the last few years. Gore has the national stature to raise a great deal of cash. Governor Gray Davis of California has demonstrated a Bush-like fund-raising touch." (Yes, but note that Davis can raise money in unlimited sums as governor, but would be subject to the $2,000 limit as a presidential candidate.)

ABC 2004: The Invisible Primary

Ranked in your Note writers' view of importance, here are some reasons why Senator John Kerry should be happy with his generally boffo upcoming Rolling Stone profile (cover art: Shakira) by the same guy who did a similarly positive piece on Senator John McCain:
says Kerry has lined up "Michael Whouley, a veteran Democratic strategist, to advise him on a presidential bid." (First time we've seen this in print, and for insiders, this is key, because Whouley is wicked good, and worked for Gore last time.)
calls wife Teresa Heinz "beautiful, charming, [and] slightly exotic" (is that a euphemism for "unpredictable," we wonder?)
draws the "sharp distinction" between Kerry's and Bush's military service
gives Kerry a chance to say of his Navy service in Vietnam: "we were chasing around with aircraft carriers, working with the John McCains who were flying the planes"
gets a relatively positive quote out of Senator Ted Kennedy: "John is qualified for any job he puts his mind to."
reels off reasons why the author doesn't think Kerry is a Massachusetts liberal: "On social issues, he's pro-choice and progressive, but on fiscal issues, he leans right. He voted for the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget amendment, and he supports what he calls 'sensible' tax cuts"
photo caption: "In the past year, Kerry has emerged as a fair but consistent Bush critic"
lets Kerry dispute Bush's decision to run the military campaign out of Florida
describes Kerry as "a man in constant motion"
quotes Kerry calling Bush, on September 10, 2001, "politically dead meat"

On the other hand, you might well be shocked at the personal and political shots that Kerry takes at President Bush here, about as harsh as any 2004 would-be has taken since September 11. Kerry flat out says he would have run the war against terrorism differently in some ways, and suggests that his more extensive military experience than the president got defending the Alabama border would serve him well as Commander in Chief.

Neal Travis' New York Post column writes up the interview for those Gotham hard-money bundlers whose daughters might not have lent them their copies of Rolling Stone with a helpful Post-it on the Kerry interview. ( http://www.nypost.com/gossip/travis.htm )

And Travis takes a moment to take a shot at Gore, too, with one of those "even his friends roll their eyes over him" asides that are poison for Gore in the chattering class: "You know the jostling for the Democratic presidential nomination has really begun when Al Gore shaves the beard off and John Kerry takes the gloves off. Gore, in one of those waffles that drive his supporters to despair, says he only got rid of the whiskers for Tipper's sake."

Check out this Boston Herald story about the drastically altered Massachusetts gubernatorial race and Kerry's expected role in it, with Kerry aides scoffing at the national implications stuff. "Prominent national Democrats — led by U.S. Senator John F. Kerry — are already mobilizing to thwart the suddenly powerful threat posed by Mitt Romney's Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign. Sources said Kerry (D-Mass.) has agreed to help raise money and provide strategy to state Democrats to defeat Romney, whose entrance into the race has energized the GOP's hopes of keeping the governor's office." ( http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/romn03212002.htm )

"A Romney victory could catapult him onto the national political stage — possibly eclipsing Kerry's own presidential ambitions for 2004, several Democratic strategists and lawmakers said."

"Kerry aides privately dismissed talk about a Kerry-Romney rivalry, noting they are focused on preparing for a national race and aren't particularly troubled by Romney, who faltered in a major debate against Senator Edward M. Kennedy in their 1994 contest."

We also hear that Kerry will be meeting with the Iowa Democratic chair when she visits DC on Friday.

Roll Call reports that Gephardt is considering an idea to basically "add a second vice chairmanship slot" to the House Democratic Caucus "and give the leader discretion to appoint a black, Hispanic or female Member to leadership to create 'balance' at the top after the elections." ( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/03/news0321d.html )

"The revelation that Gephardt has, in fact, agreed to look at the plan has for some raised the specter of his likely presidential bid, which never seems to be far from the Missouri lawmaker's calculations. One Democratic leadership aide suggested that the plan offered a chance for Gephardt to shield himself from attacks by constituent groups that perhaps felt left out during his time as leader. The aide noted that only last weekend Gephardt joined Clyburn for an event in South Carolina, an early primary state."

Legislative Agenda

The Washington Times reports that phones all over Capitol Hill have been lighting up with calls from constituents opposing, not campaign finance law changes, but the bill just passed by the House to grant amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants. ( http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020321-401993.htm )

The New York Times and others document the face-off between the Democrats (and their Senate efforts) and the Republicans (and their House plans) on Enron-related bills, with no clear evidence yet that Democrats can produce marquee votes that will force Republicans to choose between public anti-Enron sentiment and their free-market concerns. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/business/21ENRO.html )

In case you missed it, yesterday Daschle fessed up that because of a procedural hitch, he can't keep the proposed Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump from making it to the Senate floor, setting up a blame game between Daschle and his whip, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, and Nevada's other US Senator, Republican John Ensign.

"Ensign (R-Nev.) insisted Wednesday that Daschle has the power to use his majority party power to quash Yucca Mountain … 'If Tom Daschle keeps his word, the state of Nevada will not have nuclear waste. All he has to do is not allow that veto override to come to the floor.' But Daschle and Reid say Nevada will lose the last legislative battle in the Yucca Mountain fight unless Ensign marshals enough GOP votes to augment the thin Democratic majority in the Senate." ( http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000020658mar21.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Da%5Fsection )

Whitewater

We wonder how many clever associates got to help the Clintons' puckish lawyer David Kendall write this section. The report, "when fairly and carefully read, lends no support to such an innuendo. One might say with equal justification that the office of independent counsel has uncovered no evidence from which a jury might infer beyond a reasonable doubt that the Clintons had pilfered Powerball tickets, trapped fur-bearing mammals out of season or sold nuclear secrets to Liechtenstein."

And we wonder, as the New York Times and New York Post seem to, how these three souls stayed secret for so long: "The report said a confidential White House witness and two construction workers told investigators that they saw Mrs. Clinton 'carrying records that had the appearance of the billing records in July 1995.'" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/politics/21WHIT.html )

Democrats still are justifiably clucking over this exchange at an unrelated hearing yesterday, regarding independent counsel and New Jersey GOP Senate candidate Robert Ray, in which EPA Big C. T. Whitman gave an answer that can only be described as Clintonian:

"I'm curious, with all your knowledge of politics in New Jersey, did Mr. Ray talk to you about running for the Senate prior to leaving his office?" Senator Leahy of Vermont asked.

"He didn't talk to me about running, his personal running," Mrs. Whitman replied. "He talked about whether or not the Senate race, no actually, I take it back. What he did was say he might have an interest in it, but he didn't ask for my support or get into any particulars as to how you'd run a Senate race."

Politics

The The Wall Street Journal profiles free-speaking Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC); is there any doubt that if he were a Republican and still said the kinds of things he does, he would get more skewering in general than what's contained in this Journal nut graph? "His outspokenness isn't without cost: Mr. Hollings's occasional misfires inevitably raise questions of where lawmaker gives way to buffoon."

Several counties in Maryland will test new touch-screen voting machines in a series of local elections in April. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59013-2002Mar20.html )

Massachusetts

"Democrats are planning a quick and intense attack against Mitt Romney, with the party set to send representatives to Salt Lake City to look into his Olympic leadership, and with Democratic staffers back in Massachusetts ready to dig into other aspects of his past and political positions. But privately, some Democrats are concerned about their own field — with some suggesting that one or more gubernatorial hopefuls should bow out now, to allow the other candidates to conserve resources."
( http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/080/metro/ Democrats_weigh_moves_vs_Romney+.shtml )

"[T]he party has only about $200,000 in the bank — not nearly enough for a sustained media effort, and party leaders say even that money is needed to cover basic operations."

The story suggests, as we did yesterday, that those paid TV ads against Romney may not happen.

The same Boston Herald story that leads with Kerry's possibly involvement in the race notes, "Democrats plan to re-examine Romney's role in a bitter labor dispute at an Indiana paper company. The paper company, Ampad, was part owned by Romney's former venture capital firm and the plant workers were fired. The dispute helped torpedo Romney's Senate campaign."

"But national Republicans are also poised to assist Romney. The Republican Governors Association has already injected itself into the race, providing money and support. The RGA last week sent $400,000 to the state Republican Party to help Swift's campaign … RGA spokeswoman Kirsten Fedewa said the Massachusetts GOP will keep the money, although it can not be used directly for Romney's campaign."

"The RGA yesterday issued a statement slamming former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a Democratic candidate, for criticizing the 'failed policies' of Republican governors in Massachusetts."

Tennessee

We thought they pretty much already had, but Roll Call reports that the White House and the Republican Senate campaign committee is considering throwing their support to Lamar Alexander in his primary against Rep. Ed Bryant. ( http://www.rollcall.com/pages/politics/00/2002/03/pol0321b.html )

New Hampshire

A leaked memo about how his office is run, and some fundraising for primary rival John Sununu by Trent Lott and others, makes it a very bad day in the Union Leader for GOP Senator Bob Smith. ( http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html )?article=9761

The memo allegedly ends with these intriguing words: "Negative press, loss of Senate seniority, job loss, class action harassment suit, active hostility."

Illinois

The Chicago Tribune has one word for the months-long gubernatorial battle between GOP nominee Jim Ryan and Democratic nominee Rod Blagojevich: "Venomous." ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0203210221mar21.story )?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed

California

In California, Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon has axed Phil Sheldon, a consultant who is a prominent conservative activist, after days of complaints from moderates within his party and from Democrats statewide.
( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/21/MN56508.dtl )

Buried in the story is a quote from White House Ambassador to California Gerald Parsky, who says President Bush will campaign for Simon sometime in April.

George Will, consciously putting himself at odds with some Republicans who think the president is doing so well that he might be able to carry the state in 2004, seems to call for a ballot initiative in California to divvy up the state's electoral votes by congressional district, the way Maine and Nebraska do. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59289-2002Mar20.html )

New York

You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, and you don't make outrageous demands on House Republican campaign chief Tom Davis and expect him not to tell the world about it.

Former GOP Rep. Rick Lazio announced yesterday that he won't run for his old House seat, after weeks of negotiations about what kind of help the party would give him. He was perceived as the only Republican who could have won the seat back for the party, so Democrats are thrilled and berrying us plenty about how this development, and a few others yesterday, affect their chances of winning back the House.

Anyway, so Davis unloaded to the New York Post : "'This finishes him politically — no doubt about it,' said Rep. Tom Davis, a powerful Virginia Republican in charge of GOP House campaigns … 'There is some bitterness about this. I'd say his political career is over.'" ( http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/44080.htm )

Florida

Tomorrow is the state's budget deadline, and Gov. Jeb Bush will keep the legislators in special session until they can strike a compromise, which looks exceedingly unlikely, since both the state House and the state Senate haven't followed traditional procedures.
( http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/ orl-asec-breakdown032102.story )?coll=orl%2Dhome%2Dheadlines )

USA Today looks at Janet Reno and how her "campaign has thrown a wrench into Democrats' plans for defeating Bush, a man they especially want to oust because of his role in securing Florida's electoral votes — and the presidency — for his brother." ( http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020321/3958217s.htm )

The state's election officials are nervous that if they don't get a finalized congressional district map soon, there will be problems come November. ( http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/politics/2876023.htm )

Bush Administration Strategy/Personality

Bob Novak has become quite the master of dual-use of his material between his CNN chattering and his column, recycling stuff back and forth, on the apparent assumption that no one but us is paying attention. Of course, he isn't the only pencil-who-does-TV-on-the-side-but-for-more-money who does this.

Anyway, Novak continues to predict doom for new Nevada lobbyist Ken Duberstein, who agreed to fight the Yucca Mountain decision, after several GOP lobbyists refused the anti-Yucca crowd's overtures, saying they didn't want to get on the wrong side of the White House. ( http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak211.html )

Duberstein, eminence grise that he is, might not care in the end. Or, as Novak hints, he might be on such a Don Quixote mission, it won't matter.

Why can't all politicos be so forthcoming with the hometown press about where they go and what they do when they are in DC? The Union Leader helpfully reports, "Yesterday, (Senator Judd Gregg adviser Joel) Maiola and GOP activist Tom Rath were at the White House — twice. Breakfast with Presidential political adviser Karl Rove. Lunch with the Bush advance team."

Media

Deborah Orin scoops us again — we swear we were working on this story: she reports in the New York Post that Bloomberg (the company, not the Mayor) will indeed hold its now fabled and traditional post-White House Correspondents Dinner fete on May 4 (and, Ashleigh, well into May 5), even if the man himself might not attend. ( http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/44081.htm )

There hasn't been anything close to the pantheon of "high tech lynching … potted plant … sometimes you have to go above the law … what did the president know … etc," but, then, we live in different times from the Golden Age of our younger years: the "Gilmore Girls" isn't as good as "Bridget Loves Bernie," either.

( http://kfcplainfield.com/tv/bridget.html ) Nonetheless, if you are into Enron and can't get enough of Rep. Greenwood's Star Wars references? C-SPAN is re-running the best of the best, all next week, beginning at noon each day.
( http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dschedule )