Word: gephardt
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When control of Congress is at stake, a politician can't afford to miss even the smallest opportunity to gin up votes. That's why Dick Gephardt, the Democratic minority leader of the House of Representatives, found himself having coffee one morning last week with nine party activists at Mr. C's Family Restaurant in Knoxville, a speck of an Iowa town that boasts the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum. With embattled Congressman Leonard Boswell at his elbow, Gephardt implored the faithful to pour on the energy: "Iowa literally has the ability to tell us who will...
...Gephardt said what he always says--all he's thinking about now is winning back the House--and hopped into a minivan for another 14-hour day of stumping for his Democrats, who need just six more seats to take the majority. He has raised more than $20 million for this election, doing 92 fund raisers so far this year. Some nights he sits at party headquarters until 11 p.m. dialing for West Coast dollars. He even cajoled Barbra Streisand out of retirement for a star-filled $500-a-ticket concert next month, to bring zing--and as much...
...Gephardt intends to make that happen one race at a time, if that's what it takes. As miles of soybean and cornfields slid past his window last week, he pored over talking points, memorizing which candidates wanted him to stress corporate responsibility, which wanted him to hammer their opponents on Medicare. In spare moments he coached others by cell phone: "You need to tell what happened in the House--the drug companies wrote the bill, and they wouldn't even let us bring up our alternative. It's a total capitulation to special interests! Keep going...
...from experience that none packs a wallop like Social Security. It could be their nuclear weapon in a year when Americans have seen their 401(k)s vaporize. So at each stop in Iowa, a state with plenty of seniors and perhaps the greatest concentration of hot congressional races, Gephardt lambasted Bush's plan to allow people to invest part of their Social Security taxes in the market. "Over my dead body will they be able to do it!" he roared...
...ought to know. The man was House minority leader Dick Gephardt. But what Gephardt didn't explain was why Congress - for the seventh year in a row - has failed to do anything about this crisis. At a time of surging federal deficits, one reason is the price - $800 billion or more over 10 years to provide something close to coverage for all seniors. Conservatives don't want the largest expansion of entitlements since the launch of Medicare to happen on their watch...