Entries for October 2008

From all accounts, it seems that this election night in Washington is going to be a big party night—especially for the Democrats. "Everybody I talked to has been really interested in going out," says Elizabeth Mullins, an area vice president for the Ritz-Carlton. "People just want an excuse to blow off some steam." In years past, Mullins tells Whispers that most Washingtonians hunkered down at home to watch the results. This makes sense since so many members of Congress are in their home districts for election night. But this year, in part because of the historic nature of the race, there's a lot going on at area hotels, bars, and restaurants and they all have an assortment of election-themed specials. For example, at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C., each time a state is called for a candidate, either its "red" cocktails like the Elegant Elephant or its "blue" drinks including the Delicate Donkey go half-price at the Lobby Bar. And the party will attract both hotel guests and locals.

Then there are the more official political gatherings. While the big show for Barack Obama supporters will take place at Grant Park in the candidate's hometown of Chicago, the Democratic National Committee has booked the ballroom of the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel (yes, the Mayflower Hotel of recent Eliot Spitzer fame) for its Election Night shindig. The Democratic National Congressional Committee and the Democratic National Senatorial Committee will hold a joint bash closer to the Capitol at the Hyatt Regency Washington.

Progressive groups have events planned too. The Human Rights Campaign has rented out the entire Capitol City Brewing Company, a microbrewery on Capitol Hill, so that GLBT activists and friends can watch the results pour in. "This is potentially one of the most exciting elections in our lifetime, and I think people are really, really motivated, so we are expecting a huge crowd," says Margot Rosen, HRC's director of membership and community events.

And journos not covering the conclusion of this long race to the White House can dip into the National Press Club, where the results will be playing on HDTV at the "Reliable Source" bar and where cardboard cutouts of the candidates will be on display for picture taking.

So then what about the Republicans? Well, the Republican National Committee is planning a party at the Capital Hilton in Washington. But its congressional arms, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, will not be holding any official parties. Instead, NRSC Chairman Sen. John Ensign will be around to chat about the Senate races with reporters and the NRCC will hold a conference call sometime during the night. When we asked why House Republicans wouldn't be out partying, we were told that they would be spending Election Night working.

—Nikki Schwab

Sen. Barack Obama and the most senior military officer to endorse him do not agree on an important Pentagon issue—gays in the military. Obama says that, if elected president, he will work for a consensus on repealing the law that bans open homosexuals in the ranks. He will likely have a Democratic Congress to do just that. But retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak, who backed Obama early in the primaries and lent him credibility on national security, tells Whispers the ban should stay.

McPeak says he wants Obama to stick with "don't ask, don't tell," a compromise the general helped hammer out with the newly elected President Clinton when McPeak sat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993. The policy lets gays serve as long as they keep their sexuality private.

McPeak answered with an abrupt "no" when asked if he supports Obama's plan. "The issue is unit cohesion in combat units," says McPeak, a former fighter pilot. "I think with combat units the question of cohesion is crucial. It is a war-winner. . . . My judgment is declared homosexuality in combat units will not contribute to unit cohesion. In fact, as near as I can tell, it would be inimical to it."

McPeak drew a parallel between racially integrating the armed forces after World War II and trying to sell the ranks on accepting openly gay colleagues. "We've only had mixed races in combat units for 50 years or so," says McPeak, who led the Air Force during Desert Storm. "The first mixing of races was by the Army in Korea in 1950. It was done because service leaders, generals, chiefs of staff, were able to get ahead of it, were able to go to the lunch at black history week and talk about American values that include equal opportunity for everybody no matter what color their skin is. So the service leadership made a commitment to racial equality and made it happen. Otherwise it wouldn't have happened."

Says McPeak, "If you want to do something like racial integration or the integration of openly homosexual soldiers, sailors and marines, airmen, the service leadership will have to get ahead of it. Service leadership will have to go to the gay and lesbian annual ball and lead the first dance. I've spoken many, many times at black history week and am proud to do it. . . . But I couldn't see how I could become an advocate for open homosexuality in Air Force combat units. I don't see how people can do it today."

Advice on dealing with the next administration is pouring out all over. And none is as blunt as the press-shop skinny in a new guidebook from the Washington-based IBM Center for the Business of Government. "Your relationship with them will be adversarial," pens former Clinton spokesman Lawrence Haas in Getting It Done: A Guide for Government Executives. "In speaking with the media, you will be tempted to shade the truth," he adds. "Don't." And, he says, "stiffing them will not work. That will just anger reporters, who will then go out of their way to portray you negatively." The guide features tips from 14 former top officials on every aspect of running a government, key in a year when two senators with no executive experience are the nominees. Haas's suggestion: Hire a reporter as a spokesman.

So while you may have heard Gov. Sarah Palin raving about moose burgers, moose hot dogs, moose chili, and delicious moose stew, finding moose meat on a restaurant menu is nearly impossible. Just ask the folks at the Lobby Bar at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C., who wanted to add moose burgers to zest up the bar's menu for election season. "We scoured the country," says Colleen Evans, the director of public relations for Marriott International, which owns the Ritz-Carlton. "We went to all the exotic meat purveyors, and they said it's illegal to sell moose meat."

That's because wild game cannot be sold, even if it's legally hunted. It can, however, be harvested for personal consumption, which is why the Palins are able to have a freezer full of moose that they hunted but you, the everyday consumer, can't buy any. "If you simply go out wherever you live and hunt, you can't shoot it and dress it on its own and sell it to a restaurant," explains Amanda Eamich, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. "In order to sell meat products into commerce in the United States, you have to be federally, or in some case, state, inspected."

That means that anyone wanting to try wild game who doesn't hunt or know any hunters has to buy farm-raised. And there aren't moose farms. But they do farm something close: "So a cousin of moose is elk," Evans told Whispers. "Just like the other white meat, it's the other moose meat." The Lobby Bar is serving elk sliders until after the election. And Executive Chef David Serus, who is pictured above with his eats, tells us that when eating game, it's always good to accompany it with a sweet sauce, so he includes some cranberry Dijonnaise with his miniburgers.

Of course, to add balance to the menu, he also created a miniature chicken pot pie, a favorite of the other veep candidate, Sen. Joe Biden.

-Nikki Schwab

Pfc. Track Palin has been promoted from driver to an "air guard" position in one of the rear hatches of the Stryker vehicle. He stands in the hatch with a rifle and watches out for danger to the vehicle, be it airborne or on the ground. His unit also provides security for the brigade's commander and deputy commander. From there, the next promotion is to be a dismounted soldier, one that leaves the 20-ton, eight-wheeled armored combat vehicle.

From all reports, Track Palin is an unassuming and humble fellow and very quiet about the whole "mom running for vice president" thing. "He's a good kid and a good soldier and he'd like to remain anonymous," says Col. Burt Thompson, who commands the Alaska-based 25th Infantry Division's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, known as the "Arctic Wolves."

His silence is certainly understandable, also because soldiers are very, very strongly cautioned about talking politics, especially these days. In fact, military officials in Baghdad tell our embedded reporter Alex Kingsbury that numerous foreign journalists have been denied requests to embed with units in Iraq explicitly because they wanted to do stories about the troop's feelings on the eve of the elections. Because the soldiers aren't allowed to answer political questions, the embed requests were denied.

Colonel Thompson says Palin has received no threats along the lines of Britain's Prince Harry , who had to leave service in Afghanistan, and doesn't expect any.

As for reports in the press that implied favoritism to get Palin into the Alaska Stryker unit, they're balderdash, says Thompson. Looking ahead, he says: "It might be kind of tricky if she [Governor Palin] is elected, but he's probably safer here with these guys than anywhere else in the world. It is certainly dynamic and pretty cool to have him with us."

Earlier this week, Whispers talked to dad Todd Palin about Track and he said they try to talk often. Ditto for Sarah Palin, says Thompson. "Sarah Palin does communicate with us via E-mail and she receives the brigade updates in the form of the weekly newsletter. She's also the official Brigade Mom . . . We know Governor Palin very well, trust me. We get her E-mails and she gets ours. She has sent us some very nice E-mails." He adds, "Listen, she's been to every deployment ceremony, she visits units in Alaska, and she really cares about the military. And all that was even before she decided to run for vice president."

Never underestimate how one tiny diplomatic detail can spoil even the grandest events. Take flowers at state dinners. White House florist Nancy Clarke reveals that picking the wrong color or type can send the wrong signal. Don't pick white for a Muslim dinner. That's the color of death. Ditto yellow for Latin American guests, she writes in White House History, the journal of the White House Historical Association.

Doesn't Roll Call, the Capitol Hill insider bible, know that we reporters are supposed to play "gotcha" games with politicians and not each other? Well, one of its contributors apparently didn't get that memo. I know because a story I posted online last week about a House GOP "death list" of candidates likely to face defeat was the subject of the Roll Call story written by Rothenberg Political Report Political Editor and Roll Call contributor Nathan Gonzales. For some reason, he tried to compare the Whispers list with another posted online in a bid to out our source, a big no-no in my book. He made the lists sound alike. They aren't. They don't even look alike: Ours was in Word, his in Excel. And for some reason, the reporter found meaning in the actual time our story posted and the minute the other list published, suggesting that they were the same because they went live on the Web just some five hours apart. Of course, this embarrassment could have been avoided if he had waited a little before pushing the online-publish button. He E-mailed me Monday to find out if his list was the same as mine, but I didn't see the message until Tuesday because I was traveling on GOP running mate Sarah Palin's bus. In it, he didn't ask Whispers to reveal sources—we wouldn't—but did ask if our list was the same as one from former House GOP official Scott Hatch, now a lobbyist. The best part: His E-mail came in at 2:35 p.m. Monday, just 62 minutes before the story posted on the Web. Now I know how some public figures and press aides feel when getting calls from reporters for comment on stories they are only minutes away from publishing. Anyway, here, in part, is my belated E-mail back:

Sorry, dude, I was on the road with GOP running mate Sarah Palin and out of BlackBerry range, I opened. Your  "gotcha" game on who my source is failed ...Our list came from a current insider, not some long-ago aide who may or may not have an ax to grind with those on his list. What's more, your effort of trying to figure out down to the minute when I posted my story and how closely it matched the timing of the other list was silly. Believe it or not, I don't sit glued to my desk pumping out info the second I get it like so many bloggers. Sometimes I actually sit on stuff for days until we can verify it —or if I just feel like doing something else.

MoveOn.org is double-teaming its fans this week with a long-promised Barack Obama pin and an urgent E-mail request from Al Gore to help the Democrats get out the vote on Tuesday. We're on MoveOn's media list, so when the offer for a free pin came in, we clicked "yes" just to see if they would deliver. It came this week, as you can see in the picture.

The pin is kind of ugly, but it's unique. Oddly, it came with no explanation or fundraising info. But that's OK because Al Gore teamed up with the liberal activists in an E-mail urging Democrats to help organize voting groups around the country and not let what happened to him in 2000 happen to Obama. "We know from 2000 that progress is not inevitable. Victory can fall just out of reach. And the difference of a few thousand votes can put our country on a decidedly different path," he writes.

Here's his whole E-mail:

My personal request to you
Oct 28
Dear MoveOn member,

I know something about what can happen in close elections. And we've only got 7 days left to make sure this isn't one of them.

We are witnessing history in the making. Millions of young people are getting involved in politics for the first time. A leader named Barack Obama is rising up to unite America behind his vision of progressive change. Yet we know from 2000 that progress is not inevitable. Victory can fall just out of reach. And the difference of a few thousand votes can put our country on a decidedly different path.

That's why I'm writing to you today to personally ask you to volunteer with the Obama campaign to help get out the vote this week. Click here to sign up:

I know that MoveOn members have the power to swing elections. In 2006, you made over 7 million calls—I made some myself—and together we won back both houses of Congress. And already this year, nearly 120,000 of you have signed up to volunteer for Obama in battleground states.

But the stakes this year are too great for any of us to sit it out.

We're facing two wars and an economic meltdown. The climate crisis, in particular, is worsening more quickly than predicted and without strong leadership from the next president, we could face consequences right out of a science fiction movie.

Barack Obama will provide that leadership. But only if we all make sure he wins. Please sign up to volunteer today.

Yes we can,

Al Gore

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 4.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Sorry, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but Americans want the free market and not Washington to decide which companies live or die. Pollster Frank Luntz tells Whispers that only 25 percent of voters want the Feds to bail out corporate America. In a poll for the Kauffman Foundation, apparently angry voters decidedly rejected those typically handed the nation's economic reins. Only 14 percent want a Fortune 500 CEO—like Paulson—to manage the economy, and a similar 14 percent want a lawmaker in charge. So, who's da boss? Some 56 percent said a successful small-business owner should run the shop.

Give it up for Sen. Barack Obama, who plans to let up on the pace with some yuks on the Daily Show. We just got this notice that he'll be the star attraction tomorrow tonight. This is Obama's fourth time on the show. In his first, Obama, very relaxed and looking younger, had fun talking about the rookie Senate "hazing process," telling Stewart, "They make me sharpen pencils."

Sen. John McCain's campaign must have learned playground rules in a federal prison yard. Because theirs is no way to treat a new friend, running mate Sarah Palin. From the time she was so poorly unveiled at the Republican National Convention to her muzzling to "fashion-gate" and now to an anonymous McCain staffer's charge that Palin's a "diva," theirs was a bungled effort that Palin probably realized just a few days into the campaign.

How would I know? From my interview with Palin and hubby Todd yesterday, they explained how they size people up on outdoor expeditions in Alaska: "It's like Plato said, 'You learn more about someone in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.' We've had people that Todd has ended up hiring [for his commercial fishing business] based on how they did out on a hunt or a snow machine ride with us to see if they are going to complain. Are they going to buck up and realize that you have to make the best of the circumstances you're in? It's a good kind of testing ground for people," says Palin.

In the face of adversity, she's clearly bucking up. Consider something else when judging whether she's a good team player: Todd told me that the presidential campaign has torpedoed Palin's once stratospheric approval rating in Alaska. It's down 20 points since she's assumed the partisan pit bull role. As for those urging her to go "rogue," there was no evidence during my three hours with her campaign yesterday that she was going to stage a mutiny and certainly nothing close to the day 1988 GOP running mate Dan Quayle announced to his press corps that he was taking charge of his effort from heavy-handed Bushies. She and her staff never mentioned a 2012 bid or even veered from her well-traveled pro-McCain, anti-Obama stump speech. Even the music was the same at rallies in Leesburg, Va., and Fredericksburg, Va.: Dolly Parton's "9 to 5." And the frustration staffers feel about the campaign HQ back-stabbing wasn't evident on Palin's face.

But that could have been because Whispers focused more on Alaska and her life there than on the day-to-day issues debate and the status of the campaign. How important is back home to her? "If I ever thought those days were over, I wouldn't be running for vice president. It's that important to me to be out there in the great outdoors." Ditto for Todd, who pulled out his BlackBerry to show me a photo sent by two hunting pals from back home. On the screen were huge moose antlers framing a handwritten sign asking: "Where's Todd?"

We did touch on some hot-button issues, such as guns, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, her bid to keep the polar bear off the endangered species list, and culling wolves in Alaska from helicopters.

On guns: "It's an issue in the campaign because you have such a stark contrast between the two tickets. I have been a lifetime member of the NRA. John McCain and I are such proponents of protecting our constitutional rights." On Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama, she adds, "He has voted to ban guns and ammunition. That says it all."

On polar bears: "We do all that we can to protect our polar bears. And, thankfully, because of the Marine Mammals Protection Act, those provisions in there that we have been so strictly adhering to, our polar bear population has increased. It is healthy," she says. "Now putting it on a threatened species list, to us, we believe, is premature because of the population that is healthy. But here again, so often it's politicians on the East Coast, they do not understand Alaska and our love for our wildlife and our environment."

On wolf culling: "People, especially on the East Coast, who run the ads against Alaska allowing predator control, they've got it all wrong. They call this aerial hunting of our wolves. Nobody aerial hunts for wolves. That's illegal. You don't hunt from an airplane. It's predator control, which is a management tool that trained and certified biologists can use . . . to control a predatory herd that's decimating a population of moose and caribou. And it's a needed management tool because that moose and caribou herd is the source of food for especially our native villages in Alaska," she says. "It's not used that readily, even. It's one of those last-resort things."

On ANWR: "I hope people understand, in a 20,000-square-mile area, this is 2,000 acres. It is a plot of land the size of LAX that we would want to drill to explore. The pictures you see where they do their ANWR stories, mountains and rivers flowing and moose, those aren't even ANWR," Palin says. "You take a football field, you put a postage stamp in the middle of the football field: That's ANWR."

Those issues stirred her during 30 minutes of talk on the back of her McCain bus, but not as much as discussing "Alaskana" life in the Frontier State. Especially hunting. First, she says it's caribou more than moose hunting she likes because "it's kind of more family oriented."

And, yes, they eat all they kill. "We love our moose hot dogs, we love our moose chili and moose stew, but caribou too," says Palin. "We do this not just because it is a good family activity, but fish, moose, caribou: Those are the staples. That's what we eat. You go look in our freezer today, and you see fish, moose, and caribou. You don't see beef in our freezer. I love that I was brought up on this clean, healthy source of protein, and we teach our children the same. It makes sense for us to seize the opportunity to harvest our own food."

For Field and Stream fans, she uses a .243 for caribou, a small bullet normally used by white-tailed deer hunters. And she's just as good at hunting exaggerations as the next guy, as evidenced when she asked hubby Todd about her longest shot:

Sarah: "What's my longest?"
Todd: "It was pretty long."
Sarah: "It was so impressive."
Todd: "I was like, 'Holy cow. She didn't hit that one.' "
Sarah: "See, I have to ask him, so I'm not bragging about it myself."
Todd: "Her dad probably knows better, but it was a long range. Probably closer to 200 yards."
Sarah: "Two hundred? I was going to say 600."
Todd: "A 150 to 200 is a long shot."

• Click here to read more on Sarah Palin.