Syracuse Herald-Journal

Bush's first 100: the 'undone' list

By Mark Libbon Washington Notebook

Terry McAuliffe threw a party last week, one of the best-stocked and most partisan of the events marking the first 100 days of the George W. Bush presidency.

The Syracuse native and chairman of the Democratic National Committee set the tone with giveaway T-shirts depicting oil derricks on the White House lawn and the phrase: "Republicans. These guys just aren't for us."

[OG Note: Wait. Hold on here. This is the best the Democrats can do: "These guys just aren't for us"? Leaving aside the sexist tone and the accompanying irony (since Bush seems to have appointed more women to higher cabinet positions than Clinton), the slogan is majorly lame. I can't believe I typed that. Okay, the slogan is abysmally unimmginative.]

"Subtle," observed columnist Mark Shields after seeing two DNC television ads using the tagline.

For McAuliffe, Wednesday was Day 82 of his campaign to juice up the party at the grassroots. He introduced remarks by the Hill's top Democrats, Sen. Tom Daschle and Rep. Dick Gephardt, and he pointed out Clintonistas John Podesta and Joe Lockhart among the guests at a downtown restaurant.

In his own talk, the fund-raiser extraordinaire for the Democrats sounded another anti-Bush catch phrase: "It's not what George W. Bush has done, but what George W. Bush has undone in his first 100 days."

McAuliffe spoke of state and local races where the DNC is already involved, and how the party is updating its technology and voter files while stepping up research and attention to redistricting. The party next month launches a series of public hearings into reports of voter irregularities in the Bush-Gore squeaker.

The DNC charter prohibits McAuliffe from choosing a favorite in any Democratic primary, so he declined to say who has his support in the Democratic contest to run for mayor in his hometown.

But he pledged that the national party will be "all over" Syracuse as soon as the local party chooses its candidate.

Coming from a proud native, it may not have been hyperbole when McAuliffe said, "We don't have a more important race than to elect the next mayor of Syracuse."

Free speech

One by one the eight senators stepped to the microphones set up Tuesday outside the Capitol and talked about gun control legislation. Minding her position as a freshman senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton stood and smiled and waited her turn, which was next to last.

When she was done, Clinton stepped back to resume her role as just one among eight. Then came an unseemly reminder that Clinton cannot escape her oversized celebrity.

"Hill-a-reee!" came a rude cry from an underdressed yahoo on the edge of the crowd.

"Hill-a-reee! And Bubba! And Gore!" he shouted. The lunkhead linked the three to Satan in his ramblings, which went on for an awkward half-minute, drowning out remarks by Sen. Jon Corzine about felons who buy weapons at gun shows. Finally, Corzine stopped and turned from the microphones and cameras to see who was causing the commotion.

Clinton, ever smiling and looking forward, remarked just loudly enough to be heard by nearby reporters, "A perfect example of what we're talking about."

Greetings from Caz

Unfazed, Clinton returned to her office building and greeted 20 students from the Student Support Services program at Cazenovia College.

"It's a good program, and I'm so glad you're involved in it," Clinton told them. The federal program offers special assistance to low-income students who are the first in their families to attend college.

The group led by program director Jeffrey Rosenthal spent four days touring Washington. The visit with Clinton was the high point for Devon McCarley, 19, a business management major from Buffalo.

"Hillary Clinton is my role model," said McCarley. "I'm all for the stands she takes, and her personality is what really gets me."

Mark Libbon's Washington Notebook appears Sunday in the Herald American. He can be reached at (202) 383-7818 or by e-mail at mark.libbon@newhouse.com

Sunday, April 29, 2001

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2001