Entries for June 2007

Class, welcome to Political Fundraising 101. We are lucky enough today to have Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's press secretary, Bill Burton, as our guest speaker. His topic: making sense out of the spin and hype of the upcoming quarterly fundraising tallies that all the candidates will herald as why they are winning the money race. We've always liked and respected Burton because in just a few words, he can explain what's fact and fiction. And in his memo below you will learn why the "primary" money Obama is raising from a record number of small donors may mean a heck of a lot more than the big checks candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton are raising. Take it away, Bill:

It's almost here: the day the White House press corps moves back into the West Wing. The shift begins July 3 and the newly renovated press area officially opens on July 11 with a ribbon-cutting, with the first briefing planned for the following day.

All together now, let's sing "Happy Birthday to You" to Congress's newest 40-year-old, Rep. Patrick Kennedy. There's a party and, naturally for a congressman and a Kennedy, it's being turned into a political fundraiser for his re-election. We just intercepted the invite and it looks to be a doozy. It's this Thursday in New York City and hosted by dad Sen. Edward Kennedy, brother and sister-in-law Edward Jr. and Katherine, and cousin Caroline Kennedy and her hubby, Ed Schlossberg. This isn't some BYOB fete. Tickets are $1,000 to $5,000.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is a freak for speed-the kind delivered under the hood of a Chevy Corvette. He owns a 400 horsepower 2005 Vette and is hunting for one of the new sports cars with a pepped-up 440 horsepower engine. But it's a compro mise choice, he concedes. "You know they have this Z06 that's 500 horsepower," he says with awe. "They loaned me a Z06 for three days to see if I liked it," he tells us. "I loved it, but I would be in jail by the end of the week because that thing was going 90 mph in second gear, and I didn't know how I was going to use the other four gears." Afterward, he made this mental note: "Powell, you are 70 years old. Stick to 400 horsepower. You don't need 500."

JOE CIARDIELLO FOR USN&WR

How many lawyers, lobbyists, and publicists does it take to plug a congressional investigation? Thankfully for Washington's K Street, a heck of a lot. With 460 full committee and subcommittee oversight hearings having already taken place in just the House since January, the legal business is exploding to handle the new business sparked by the Democratic takeover in Congress and one chairman in particular: Rep. Henry Waxman, head of the Oversight and Government Re form panel. "We call it the 'Waxman Industrial Complex,' " says one lobbyist. "It's a little bit like being a kid in a candy store," Abbe Lowell of McDermott Will & Emery says.

Unlike a normal court, Hill hearings pose a web of problems for the defense, drug, energy, and financial firms now under the microscope. "Nobody wins," says Ty Cobb of Hogan & Hartson. "The goal is survival." A slip-up by a CEO, and the stock could plummet, business dry up, and jittery workers leave. PR agencies are brought in to help save a company's image. "Headlines happen to a lot of people," says Dale Leibach, head of Prism Public Affairs, a PR firm, "but most of our best work never appears." Being Washington, connections count. Lowell, who has worked for Democrats and defended shamed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, says "you can't substitute for knowing people."

Kevin Sheekey isn't just New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political guru pushing him to run for president as an independent. He's also the mayor's image-maker and party guy. We've learned that it was Sheekey who dreamed up the now famous Bloomberg Party that caps events surrounding the annual star-studded White House Correspondents' Association dinner every spring. The very day Vanity Fair announced it was dropping its sponsorship, Sheekey moved in. His goal: Raise the profile of Bloomberg News. At the time, 2000, Bloomberg wasn't mayor. "Sheekey's like Karl Rove and Michael Deaver all in one," says one ally, in a reference to President Bush's political boss and Reagan's image-maker.

Now known as the Washington face of Fox News, Brit Hume back in the 1970s was a staffer for muckraker Jack Anderson. We hear that when the CIA releases its secret files on covert actions, like spying on Anderson's staff, Hume's code name will be revealed: "Eggnog." It must have been boring for the spies, he says. "I was clean for once back then!"

It shouldn't have surprised Demo cratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama or top aides when he won the Politico straw poll after giving a passionate, even in spirational speech at a convention of progressives. That's because despite his repeated statements that he wouldn't run for president—several times since his 2004 Senate election—a new book says he planned his White House bid the day he came to Washington. "The plan," writes Chicago Tribune author David Mendell, was meant to put Obama in the best position if he wanted to run in 2008. It's obviously worked, though aides say we're reading too much into Mendell's well-researched report on "the plan."

"Hey, Ken Walsh," our surprised White House correspondent heard June 13 when he and his wife, Barclay, were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary at a hilltop restaurant over looking the Athens Acropolis. "It was Al Gore," says Walsh. The former veep was in town to show off his global warming slide show to the Greek president. "It really is a small world," says Gore's spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider.

He has probably published more con serva tive books than anyone else, but when Alfred Regnery decided to write his take on the politi cal movement, he shopped it to a publishing house other than his Regnery Publish ing. "You can't have your name on the top and the bottom of the book's spine," he demurs. So come January, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism will be published by Simon & Schuster. Simon's Mary Matalin raves that it will be a wake-up call for conservatives. For Regnery, going to Simon was more than just ducking what some might have seen as simple self-promotion. He says the mainstream publishing house's purchase of Upstream proves the importance of the conservative movement. "Ten years ago they would have told me: 'Get out of here.' "

In the strange bedfellows department this week, we've got the hand-holding of the right-leaning American Conservative Union and left-tilting American Civil Liberties Union. Come June 26, in front of the Senate, ACU boss David Keene will join with ACLU's Anthony Romero to demand the re turn of basic rights—habeas corpus in constitutional lingo—to prisoners long held at Guantánamo Bay. "Many people might be shocked to see a tag-team of the ACLU and the ACU," says Romero. "But, hey, what's an 'L' between friends?"

More From this week's Washington Whispers column in the magazine:

• Speed Has Limits, Even for Powell
• OutLoud
• Cartoon