Condy not for Cali?
The big loser in the magnificent political mess in California is White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. The most powerful black woman since the Queen of Sheba, she had her eye on the governorship in 2006-after the second term of the incumbent Democrat Gray Davis. Her brilliant fundraising stint as provost of Stanford University established her otherwise nugatory Californian credentials. But the recall drive by Californian voters to ditch Davis early, followed by the sudden candidacy of the bikini-waxed Arnold Schwarzenegger, has upset Condy's timetable. Is this the key to the embarrassing leakage of the story that Secretary of State Colin Powell will be resigning at the end of Bush's first term? Powell has so many enemies in the White House that the leakage could have come from anywhere. But the smart money says that Condy is laying down a marker for her next job at state now that California is blocked. The leak of Powell's departure was a very concocted yarn. Cabinet members, including secretaries of state, always send in their resignation papers at the end of a presidential term. And the only secretary of state in recent memory who has served more than one term was George Shultz under Reagan. The real surprise would have been for Powell to want-or be offered-a second term.
The tide is high for Edwards
The Democrats have started their television ad campaigns for next year's presidential elections, but are too poor to run anything more than highly targeted and local efforts. Senator John Edwards has bought space in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire and the White House reckons they have nothing to worry about. Edwards's main pitch is a direct-to-camera attack on George W Bush: "He believes if we take care of folks at the top, that somehow the whole country will be lifted," Edwards intones. "Now we know the cost." That's fine-except that in the White House, Karl Rove's minions have already unearthed the film clip of Democratic icon John F Kennedy telling the voters just after his own tax cut 40 years ago that it's fine to help the rich because "a rising tide lifts all boats." Coming soon to a primary state television network near you.
Dean woos Texas
Vermont governor Howard Dean, bought space on just one television station-Austin in Texas. Dean's explanation was that he wanted to reach just one viewer-the holidaying president at his ranch in Crawford. He also reached the massed ranks of the bored White House press corps, stuck sweating in the Texas summer heat with nothing to do but watch television. It makes a change from speculating about Dean's imminent appearance in the Doonesbury comic strip. Garry Trudeau, the strip's author, is not only a liberal Democrat. He's also a boyhood friend of Dean from summer camp days.
Republican-friendly mergers
It's reunion time for Bush fundraisers in the halls of the federal communications commission (FCC), where the ultimate media merger in the fast-growing Hispanic market is now up for approval. The Spanish-language television group Univision Communications (worth $7bn) is taking over the big 69-station radio network of the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (HBC) for just under $3bn. It should be a walk. Univision's chairman, Jerry Perenchio, donated $500,000 in "soft" money to the Republican party over the past four years, and was a Bush "pioneer"-one of the select group who raised $100,000 in "hard" money for Bush by getting 50 friends each to donate the maximum $2,000. On the other side of the merger is Bush's old Texas chum Tom Hicks, whose investment group has 40m shares in the mammoth 1,200-station Clear Channel Communications radio network. Clear Channel in turn owns 26 per cent of HBC. It was Tom Hicks who made Bush into a millionaire by buying out the Texas Rangers baseball team, allowing Bush to turn a $606,000 investment into $14.9m. Then there's Warren Tichenor, whose family own 16 per cent of HBC. Tichenor was one of Bush's top ten fundraisers in the 1998 Texas gubernatorial campaign.
The Bush fundraisers should get their way at the FCC, except that a handful of Democrats are working hard against it. They're led by Hillary Clinton, who warns that the merger would not just put an end to any serious competition in the Hispanic media market but also lock Univision into a Republican-leaning stance. Hillary's problem is that two of the Hispanics who were in Bill Clinton's cabinet are on the other side-former energy secretary Bill Richardson and former housing secretary Henry Cisneros, who just happens to be a former Univision president.
Gephardt bites the dust
Dick Gephardt's decades of service to the labour unions could not win him the endorsement of the AFL-CIO at their beauty pageant for Democratic presidential candidates in Chicago. Gephardt already has the backing of the steelworkers and teamsters' unions. But Jerry McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees insisted that the AFL-CIO's unprecedented war chest of $45m and its crucial volunteer organisation should go to a candidate with the right polling numbers. In effect, McEntee is preparing the way for Howard Dean, who gave a powerful employer-bashing performance to the union leaders.
