Oh, Al. You've Got Some Explaining to Do!
Friday, March 10, 2000
With the modest advantage of hindsight, both George W Bush and Al Gore had insurmountable advantages over John McCain and Bill Bradley: Bush's enormous fund raising totals were the precise equivalent of Gore's superdelegates.
From Anne E. Kornblut in the Boston Globe: ''It is a case of the Bush campaign employing a long-term strategy, bringing massive amounts of resources and applying them in a methodical manner, which, over time, overwhelmed the McCain hit-and-run campaign,'' said Republican strategist Rich Galen. ''It's like a football team with a very good ground game. Sooner or later they're going to grind you down and put the ball in the end zone.''
John McCain has a delicate balancing act ahead of him. The "leverage" he has been awarded by the WPA (World Pundits Association) yesterday, when he suspended his campaign rather than quitting the race entirely, is like the effect of gravity. The farther he is away from the daily give-and-take (and press coverage) of the campaign the less influence he will have over the process.
While he is on vacation, McCain's senior political people should be in constant contact with their opposite numbers in the Bush campaign to get the best deal they can for their boss so, upon his return, the necessary joint appearance can occur with the appropriate assurances on each side firmly in place.
Just for closure's sake, I reprised my ride on the Mullcycle up to the McCain headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Twelve days ago I rode up to watch the extraordinary rally which took place on the Sunday before the Virginia primary (and the day before the Pat Robertson speech.)
Yesterday, in the hour following John McCain's exit speech, the street was empty, the doors and windows of the old cinderblock building were open to let the muggy spring breeze blow through and, it was drizzling.
With the fall campaign barely 18-hours old, the Los Angeles Times revives the Clinton/Gore fundraising scandals in full roar with a piece on a secret report of Charles LaBella. LaBella, remember, was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to look into the Justice Department's handling of those scandals especially on whether an independent counsel should have been appointed to investigate people like: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and Harold Ickes.
That handling, according to the Times report was scandalous in itself. Here's the headline: "Funds Probe Unfairly Spared White House, '98 Report Says."
Now we know why Al Gore was so up front with his "I'm-against-soft-money" remarks on Super Tuesday night. His people obviously knew this story was in the works and he was trying to inoculate himself against the charges that Janet Reno and her senior deputies may have protected the President and Vice President. To see the Los Angeles Times story, click here.
More on the fundraising scandal front: There appear to have been over 100,000 e-mails "overlooked" by the crack White House legal team, when they were assembling documents under subpoena by the House of Representatives during investigations into the influence of illegal money on the 1996 Clinton/Gore re-election campaign.
According to Pete Yost of the Associated Press the computer experts who worked at the White House under a contract with Northrop Grumman, were threatened by White House Office of Administration employees who told them there was "a jail cell with your name on it" if they disclosed what they knew about the cover up.
Al Gore will claim he was absent that day.
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