*AWOL EDWARDS: The Senate took a key environmental vote May 21 (see rollcall, page 28), and the only senator to miss it was presidential candidate John Edwards (D.-N.C.). All of the other Democratic senators running for President made the vote, and sided with radical environmentalists against the availability of military training grounds. Edwards’ absence further wounds his already anemic hopes for the 2004 Democratic nomination. Radical environmentalists, who all but control the Democratic Party, will be upset to learn that during the vote, Edwards was in Iowa pandering to corn farmers with a massive plan to force widespread use of the inefficient fuel ethanol.
*ELITIST IN COWBOY BOOTS: Speaking to the Bar Association of San Francisco the following week, Edwards tried to cast President Bush as an elitist. "I come from a really different background than President Bush," said the freshman senator, who goes out of his way to make as much as possible of his humble origins. "He has not spent 30 seconds since he was elected to the White House thinking about people like my dad-thinking about people who worked in that mill with my father." (Not even on Sept. 11, 2001?) Edwards, who made his millions by suing businesses and thus draining his state’s economy, also criticized Bush for celebrating the tax cut he signed last week. "The President should not, today, be celebrating passage of tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country," he said.
*LIEBERMAN’S LOW STANDARDS: Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), presidential candidate, has an economic goal. "The Connecticut senator said he would work toward ensuring U.S. productivity growth-the amount of output per hour of work-at 3% annually by the end of his first term. The United States was mired in weak productivity from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, but the rates started to improve after 1995 to greater than 2% annually" reported AP. Only one problem, Joe: Last year’s productivity increase was 4.8%-well above your goal.
*GEPHARDT’S GAY POWER PLAY: Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) chose recently that part of his campaign for the gay vote would be to take political advantage of his daughter’s homosexuality for his presidential campaign. She is happily playing along, now with an interview in People magazine. "By telling her story to People, his daughter has become the first child of a national candidate to publicly discuss her homosexuality," gushed People in its June 2 issue. Chrissy Gephardt tells the paper how she was married for four years before becoming a lesbian.
*DEM TURNS ON CLINTON: Democratic consultant Susan Estrich had scathing words for the Clintons last week in her syndicated column. Estrich charged that Bill and Hillary, along with former Clinton White House team members such as Sid Blumenthal, continue to hog the Washington spotlight, drawing attention away from the nine Democratic presidential candidates. "Could somebody please tell these people to shut up?" wrote Estrich in her semi-weekly column. "The Clintons suck up every bit of the available air. Nothing is left for anyone else."
She was especially upset by Blumenthal’s new book, which defends Clinton’s scandal-scarred presidency. "The 2004 candidates need a chance to get some attention . . . which they never will do as long as the likes of Sidney Blumenthal are playing into the hands of conservatives in insisting on debating the scandals of the 1990s."
*MARIN MOVES ON: The latest Bush Administration official to call it quits is Rosario Marin, who announced she is leaving as U.S. Treasurer at the end of June to return to California. She is expected to seek the Republican nomination there to face Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.). A former mayor of Huntington Park (Calif.), Marin stirred both the state GOP convention last fall and the recent GOPAC dinner in Washington with speeches about being the daughter of immigrants. But her only well-known policy positions are that she is pro-abortion and, as one GOP consultant told us, "she was against the [anti-illegal immigration] Proposition 187 in 1994."
*CLINTON SUPPORTER, GOP CANDIDATE: Already seeking Republican nomination to run against Boxer is former Los Altos Mayor Toni Casey, who gained press attention at the national convention in 2000 as the most outspoken advocate on the Platform Committee for repealing or watering down the GOP pro-life plank. It was revealed at that time that Casey was a seven-year contributor to EMILY’s List (which promotes pro-abortion women for office), as well as a $1,000 donor to the Clinton-Gore re-election and a $500 donor to Michael Dukakis for President in 1988.
*NOT FOREVER YOUNG: That’s the word around the powerful House Appropriations Committee these days, as Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young (R.-Fla.) prepares for his the final two years of his six-year stint as chairman. With maneuvering already intensifying in the race to succeed him, the early front-runner (assuming Republicans retain the House next year) is Transportation Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R.-Ky.), a conservative. Others almost certain to run are Reps. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) and Ralph Regula (Ohio), both senior to Rogers but considered more moderate. Regula is best-known on the committee for leading the fight in 1995 to save the National Endowment for the Arts.
