Polinaut: June 21, 2006 Archive

What was the matter with the old team?

Posted at 5:41 AM on June 21, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Anytime a candidate announces a new a "team" in the middle of a campaign, the antennae go up. Michele Bachmann, candidate for Congress in the 6th District, sent out a press release announcing a team described as a "who's who among Washington and Minnesota" operatives.

It's the "Washington" part of that where I'm sure the story is. But there was no "we'd like to thank so-and-so for serving in the capacity of XYZ up to now."

And apparently there were a lot of so-and-so's.

Here's the new lineup. The words are from the campaign.

Andy Parish , former staff aide in the Minnesota State Senate, serves as Campaign Manager.

Ed Brookover , Chairman of Political Practice for Greener and Hook, serves as General and Media Consultant. Brookover is a former Political Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Glen Bolger , one of the Republican Party's leading political strategists and pollsters, serves as the campaign's chief pollster. Bolger is a partner and co- founder of Public Opinion Strategies.

Dan Hazelwood , direct mail guru and President of Targeted Creative Communications, serves as the campaign's Direct Mail Consultant.

Jennifer Bogart , one of the premier PAC fundraisers for Republican candidates across the country, serves as the PAC Consultant.

I'd say, clearly, the national Republican Party is entering the race in a big way. I Googled Brookover's name and found a Washington Post article on what happens when the "big boys" come into town. Prominent in the piece? Ed Brookover.

Glen Bolger may be familiar to real hard-core political junkies who get their news from NPR as he runs the firm -- one of them -- that NPR used in political polling and occasionally analyzed them for NPR.

Update 9:12 a.m. - Dan Hazelwood. His wife, Blaise Hazelwood, pops up in a Washington Post article in January 2003 which looked at his strategy in the '02 race.

Can't find much on him in a quick series of searches. He's been on lots of panels about campaigning, but so far I can't find an archived version of any of them.

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City of tears

Posted at 7:49 PM on June 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

By the time I got home from work tonight, the Cleveland Indians were already down 9-1 to the Chicago Cubs after 3 innings, so I went surfing for something more inspiring. I didn't find anything, so I had to settle for the Daily Show rerun.

Now, this is probably old news to you big political junkies, and those of you who actually, you know, read the Wall Street Journal. But Stewart, who was interviewing an author who wrote a book about what babies Washington politicians are, mentioned that a group of Republican teams pulled out of the Congressional Softball League in a tiff, I guess, with the Democratic commissioner.

Are you kidding me? I kept waiting for the punch line until I figured it out; that was the punch line. So I pulled up the most important journalistic tool since the pencil, I speak -- and do I really need to say it? -- of Google.

Sure, enough, a search revealed all the details in an April column in the Wall Street Journal.

I can't figure out which is worse. Watching these folks are watching the Cleveland Indians.

A quote from this particular author rang true, "the only time there is bipartisanship in Washington is when it comes to protecting their incumbency." I took note of the fact the Senate today rejected a minimum wage bill in a very partisan fight, a week after the House had no problem coming together to vote a pay raise for themselves.

Seriously. Is there anything funnier than real life?