This is the kind of intrigue which makes having spent most of one's adult life around politics all worth while. The national Democrats are beside themselves over the loss of the Mayor's race in New York City on Tuesday.
Forget that they picked up two Governor's mansions. The Dems know that the only political headline from this year's election will forever be: Democrats Stumble Over Big Apple.
Michael Bloomberg, who is identified as a Republican largely because he ran on the Republican line on the ballot as opposed to any long-standing affiliation with the GOP, used as his media consultant a pretty talented guy named Bill Knapp. Knapp worked on Al Gore's Presidential campaign.
Bloomberg also used a pollster named Doug Shoen. Shoen is also highly respected as is his partner in the polling firm, Mark Penn who has been the principal pollster for various Bill and Hillary Clinton endeavors.
Terry McAuliffe is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee with the blessing and endorsement of the aforementioned Bill Clinton and was, of course, the Clintons' first mortgage banker.
So, Bloomberg wins the NY Mayor's race and McAuliffe says in an AP report by Shannon Mccaffrey yesterday, "If I have anything to say about it, people who partake in those activities will no longer get business with this committee."
Harold Ickes, former top Clinton White House aide agreed, saying, "I don't think the party should engage political consultants who work both sides of the street."
If you walk down one side of a political street on the Senate side of Capitol Hill you will pass a townhouse with a plaque saying it is the corporate offices of Squire, Knapp, and Dunn, Bill Knapp's firm. Guess what the plaque on the next door - probably a different entrance to the same building - reads?
Come on. Play along. Guess. Ok. It reads: HillPAC, which would be Hillary Clinton's Political Action Committee.
When the formation of HillPAC was announced, the Associated Press reported that one Harold Ickes "will serve as the PAC's chairman."
So Knapp's firm which is (at a minimum) sharing a building with, and very possibly renting space to, Hillary Clinton's PAC, is under fire from Terry McAuliffe who was Hillary Clinton's private banker, and Harold Ickes who is HillPAC's chairman.
See? You can find out about where we dropped bombs overnight anywhere. But where else could you find out this kind of stuff?
While both parties are trying to spin the notion that the other party's results were more damaging than their own, here was a bit of news which might actually HAVE national implications. Mirta Ojito's piece in yesterday's New York Times noted that Bloomberg got 47 percent of the Hispanic vote - "four points higher than Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani received from Latino voters in 1997, records show."
Given the success George W. Bush had in attracting Hispanic voters as Governor of Texas this could indicate a very troubling trend for the Democrats.
The President addressed the nation last night with a moving and - more importantly - a helpful speech, making the case that this is a multi-dimensional war requiring the help of every person in every walk of life.
While the President was touring the Centers for Disease Control in Georgia yesterday, First Lady Laura Bush was speaking at the National Press Club.
As part of her speech she remembered where she had been when word of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy came through: "I was a senior at Robert E. Lee High School in Midland," she said. "I remember feeling as if a blanket had been thrown over the school, suffocating all the usual sounds of scraping chairs and classroom chatter. People cried. The horror was so sudden and unimaginable."
Then, speaking of the morning of September 11th, she said: "I was on my way to meet with Senator Ted Kennedy [in the Capitol] when a Secret Service agent told me that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center ... Senator Kennedy and his big dog Splash were waiting for me. Words can't describe the depth of feeling I had -- being with President Kennedy's brother as another tragedy broke our nation's heart."
As they used to say in Texas for the six years that George and Laura Bush lived in the Governor's mansion: "We've got us a First-Rate First Lady."
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