Kudos to Both Campaigns
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
Both Al Gore and George W. Bush clinched their parties' nominations last night. While there is energy and activity on both sides right now, they would each be wise to remember that the general election is about seven months away. Throttling back for a while would give the national body politic a chance to catch its collective electoral breath before the sprint to the finish late this summer and through the fall.
The teams these two men put together - and which they led - showed skill, cunning, perseverance, and the ability to stay focused on the goal. This collection of talent points to an old-fashioned battle using all the new technologies which will be great fun to watch.
There will be four periods during which the head-to-head campaigns will recede - not counting any vacation time: The NCAA basketball tournament which starts tomorrow night; the GOP convention at the end of July; the Democratic convention in August; and, the Olympics in September.
Al Gore used the very internet he invented to continue his challenge to George W. Bush via e-mail to debate 20 times and reject soft money. Gore said he would hold off using soft money to run television ads as long as Bush does not run soft-money ads.
How large do we think Gore's crocodile tears will be as he explains that he has no control over the independent, soft-money expenditures by the Sierra Club, the trial lawyers, the AFL-CIO, the feminists, and other Democratic-leaning organizations in the general election campaign? Get AFL-CIO president John Sweeney to agree not to spend any union money on Democratic campaigns, then we'll talk.
The U.S. Senate is on break until next Tuesday. One of the great guessing games in Your Nation's Capital is how Senator John McCain will be greeted when he returns. There has been a move afoot to get a sign from the Motel 6 corporation indicating the GOP has "left a light on" for McCain when he comes back to work.
Here's something to keep an eye on over the next couple of months: Watch to see how many U.S. Representatives and people running for U.S. House seats request Senator McCain's attendance at their fundraisers. I've got a lunch which says other than Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, McCain will be the most requested person.
The other evening I was on John Gibson's MSNBC program. A caller claimed Al Gore could, in fact, reinvent himself regarding campaign funding. Gibson said there is a term in biology for that: molting.
I knew molting was wrong, but I couldn't remember the right word. We went into a commercial break. I leaned over, got my cell phone, turned it on, and called Dave Espo, chief Congressional correspondent for the Associated Press.
"I'm on MSNBC in a break," I said quickly. "What's the word for going from a chrysalis to a butterfly?" Without a pause, Espo said, "Metamorphosis." I turned off my phone and, when we came back, I said (giving Espo appropriate credit) that molting was not the word Gibson wanted, it was metamorphosis, but in Al Gore's case it WAS the right word because the new skin of a molting animal looks exactly like the old skin.
When I got off the air and turned my phone back on I had a voice mail message. It was from Espo. It said, "I can spell it, too."
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