Entries for December 2006

—Marshall Ramsey, Copley News Service

He's lost 110 pounds, written the book on middle-age healthcare, and even teamed with old foe Bill Clinton to urge kids off Coke and Big Macs, but the truth is bacon still rules outgoing Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's life. The proof is in the pudding, or at least the casserole. It's right there in full living color on his "Farewell Arkansas" card we got in the mail, probably one of the neatest political cards we've ever received. It unfolds to show the state capitol, a family portrait, a message from the guv, and his wife's recipe for green bean bundles: two cans of green beans, one pound of bacon, one cup of brown sugar, a quarter cup of butter, and three teaspoons of garlic salt. From his picture, it's clear the guv sticks to the beans but, um, his boys apparently haven't gotten the message of Huckabee's book, Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork: A 12-Step Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle.

But enough snarking. The likely 2008 GOP presidential candidate also did something nice to one of our own this week, U.S. News contributor Suzi Parker, who's based in Little Rock. Her dad is ailing, and the guv phoned her. "He called me to see how my dad was," she says. "Arkansas is a small state." And while he was on the phone he even dropped a newsy nugget: Since his high school days, he has accumulated hundreds and hundreds of books, including an extensive theological library from his college and seminary days and many years as a pastor. "Since becoming governor, I have also collected a number of books, on subjects ranging from current events to health to theology," he told her. But instead of donating them to a library as he leaves the governor's mansion after 11 years, he's giving most to the Arkansas Department of Corrections for inmate libraries. "I'm still in the process of boxing and sorting, and will hopefully complete the task shortly after Christmas but before the New Year," he says.

Despite a flurry of reports that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani are surging in the 2008 presidential primary race, many Republican strategists believe that Sen. John McCain remains in firm control of the contest. "He's doing everything right, has the funding, and is ready to take on the opponents," says one GOP adviser to the White House. Another key Republican political strategist says that it is significant that none of the opponents have so far taken shots at McCain: "They are leaving him alone; nobody's gone after him, and that's crazy." Over the past week, strategists in interviews have laid out McCain's advantages over the competition. First, he has huge name recognition and a good reputation. Second, he has the ability to outraise most of his opponents. And third, he is well organized in key primary and caucus states and has built an aggressive staff. In fact, the strategists see the fingerprints of the McCain campaign in recent stories about how Romney has moved to grab the conservative mantle by switching his positions on gays and abortion.

—Tom Toles, The Washington Post

Evidence continues to mount that the new Democratic majority plans to investigate the war, energy policy, and other Bush policies, as key committees have begun hiring lawyer-investigators whose job will be to probe the administration. In the House, for example, the Appropriations Committee under Rep. John Murtha's direction is hiring investigators who will be charged with looking into the administration's war policies and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Rep. Henry Waxman, the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee who's been dogging the vice president's energy task force, is also hiring lawyers. A Democratic leadership official said that the planned hearings and investigations into the war and other issues the lawyer-investigators are being hired to look into will be "very focused." In the Senate, officials said similar hirings were underway in a speeded up effort to have people in place for the start of the new Congress, especially the planned early January hearings into the war and military spending that are set to begin January 8.

—Steve Breen

It's not every day that a woman is elected House speaker-in fact it's never happened-so incoming House boss Nancy Pelosi is planning to make the most of it.

Aides say she has mapped out a victory lap leading to her January 4 election that both touches on her blue-collar, Catholic, and Italian-American roots and her firsts in politics. Instead of starting in liberal San Francisco, which she represents, Pelosi opens her two-day tour in her childhood home in Baltimore's Little Italy on January 2 at–where else–the Church of St. Leo the Great, for a mass. Then she'll huddle with the extended political family from Baltimore, where her dad was once mayor. On Wednesday, it's on to Washington, 30 miles down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, where she'll do two events at her alma mater, Trinity University: mass and a tea for other women players. Aides think it's cute that Pelosi "went away" to Trinity after high school. Then dinner at the Italian Embassy, where crooner Tony Bennett will perform.

Thursday brings her big election and then some little private swearing in for members that she'll attend. The evening is capped with a big fundraiser and gala featuring singers like Stevie Wonder.

And it all ends Friday when Pelosi will meet with just about anybody who wants to as she opens the Cannon House Office Building Caucus Room to Americans for what's called "the people's house" reception. The symbolism there, say aides: that she's returning the House to them from special interests.

—Steve Breen

—Marshall Ramsey

That 100-hour legislative blitz planned by the new House Democrats isn't really the breathless affair you might be expecting.

In fact, the 100 hours of work actually occurs over 12 business days and 20 days if you include weekends and holidays (PDF). Democrats tell us that the project to swiftly approve stuff like ethics reform and the recommendations of the 9/11 report has to be spread out to account for other business and, frankly, because they don't want to burn out members.

What's more, the Democrats want to end the effort in a big crescendo right as President Bush is traveling to the House to give his State of the Union address, likely on January 23.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has made headlines with his eat-fresh childhood obesity prescriptions and his own 110-pound weight loss, but it's not his personal Biggest Loser victory that has Democrats taking notice. They think this 2008 dark horse presidential candidate is poised to gobble up his GOP opponents and win the Republican nomination. A preliminary internal review of Huckabee by the Dems says: "With national Republicans in disarray and the GOP base angry and demoralized, Huckabee may be the best positioned to run as a true Washington outsider." It's a winning pattern: Bill Clinton, another Hope, Ark., kid, did the same thing back in 1992.