Will John Danforth succeed Powell?
Now that the success of the Swift Boat veterans' attacks on John Kerry has convinced Republicans that there will be a second Bush term, the insiders are starting to talk about the state department problem. Colin Powell has let it be known that he does intend to resign, as does his deputy Richard Armitage. They plan to form an international consulting firm along with assistant secretary of state Pat Harrison, following in the lucrative footsteps of Henry Kissinger, William Cohen, Lawrence Eagleburger, and Brent Scowcroft. Until Iraq went pear-shaped, pro-consul Jerry Bremer was assumed to be a shoo-in to replace Powell. Not any more. And Bush does not want to lose Condi Rice at the national security council (although don't rule out the ex-provost of Stanford University running for the California senate). So the smart money says the man to watch is the former Missouri senator John Danforth, currently ambassador to the UN, who has been widely praised for his role as special envoy to the Sudan. An ordained Episcopalian minister and heir to the Ralston-Purina pet food fortune, Danforth is a blue-blooded Republican who went to Princeton and then got law and divinity degrees at Yale. He is also a hero to the right as the senator who moved heaven and earth to get his former aide Clarence Thomas confirmed to the supreme court. They even prayed together in Danforth's private bathroom before the crucial hearing. And he gets on well with the chairman of the foreign relations committee, Dick Lugar, and with the ranking Democrat on the committee Joe Biden.
A dog food fight
Of course, some unkind Democrat could dent Danforth's "Mr Clean" image by raising the intriguing issue of the dog food that failed to bark in the night. In 1989, Ralston-Purina was fined $10.4m by a district judge for making false claims that its dog food could cure a serious ailment. Shortly after being confirmed to the court, Clarence Thomas heard the Ralston-Purina appeal and wrote an opinion overturning the fine. This was good news for his mentor John Danforth's own holdings in Ralston-Purina stock, and Danforth's two brothers, who sat on the board, but seems at odds with that legal provision which requires a federal judge to disqualify himself when his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. At the time, Monroe Freedman, professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University Law School, wrote: "Thomas showed no regard for his ethical obligations as a judge and no respect for the statutory mandate that he recuse himself. On both counts, Thomas is unfit to sit on the supreme court."
McCain for 2008
The Republican's 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole did not know the mic was on when he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that John McCain "was right" to tell Bush that he "should be ashamed" of the Bush campaign tactics against McCain in the crucial South Carolina primary four years ago. Voters had received anonymous phone calls asking if they knew McCain had an illegitimate black daughter (in fact, he had adopted a handicapped Bangladeshi girl), and were told that McCain had broken under interrogation and "betrayed other Americans" in a Vietnam prison camp. McCain said then that he'd never forgive Bush. Now McCain is campaigning for him. Why? Because McCain now thinks that he has a good shot at replacing Bush four years hence, and for that he needs to demonstrate tribal loyalty. McCain will be 72 by then - even older than Reagan in 1980 - but the presidential longing is known as "Potomac fever." And, as former candidate Mo Udall used to say, "the only cure for Potomac fever is embalming fluid."
Getting out the vote
Having already broken the fundraising record to pay for the air war of television ads, this year's presidential election is also breaking the manpower record. Never has the "get out the vote" drive, known as the "ground war," been so intense in the swing states. The Kerry campaign had 75 full-time staffers in Ohio in August - more than double the total Al Gore deployed in October 2000. The Bush team is deploying 45 full- time workers, plus 58,000 volunteers - including a local chair for each of Ohio's 12,132 precincts. By the end of August, they had knocked on 111,000 doors and made 728,000 phone calls. In 2000, Bush had only 16 staffers, signed up 22,000 volunteers, had no precinct organisation and made just 500,000 calls during the whole campaign.
Shock jocks for Kerry
The Democrats reckon they have a secret weapon in the "shock jock," a dirty-mouthed talk-show host called Howard Stern whose on-air jokes led to the Clear Channel radio network being fined $755,000 for "indecency." But Stern has hundreds of other stations, and a regular audience of 20m, mainly blue-collar males - and he is bombarding them daily with anti-Bush attacks. Stern has in the past backed Republican candidates, but this time it's personal. Clinton's old pollster Doug Schoen has a poll that says 4 per cent of all undecided voters are Howard Stern listeners - and they back Kerry 53:43. In "battleground" states, Kerry beats Bush by 59:37. Another big radio host with a lot of "undecided" listeners, New York's Don Imus, is also backing Kerry.
