COLUMNS

Stature and Spending . . . Washington Style!

  • Capital Connections ®
  • |
  • June 07, 2000

by Karen Feld

“Stature” is the buzz word around The White House in recent days. Mrs. Clinton will make certain she has it! Expect to see the First Lady back on Pennsylvania Avenue for policy briefings and other public events including two State Dinners -Morocco and Tunisia- in upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, her opponent in the NY Senate race, Rep. Rick Lazio, will ride the Mainstream Express in an effort to position himself to appeal to moderate voters. Not only that, he’s using his musical talent to his advantage. He plays acoustic guitar (and even owns two vintage guitars) so that entitled him to pick an imaginary guitar on stage at a campaign stop in central New York the other day. He played John Fogerty’s ’80’s hit, “Centerfield.” But to make certain his talent isn’t lost on elderly voters, he greeted an older crowd with a few lines from “New York, New York.”

Miss the “he said, she said” in the New York Senate race since Rudy Guiliani dropped out? Well gossips, Mrs. Parker Bowles is back in the news. .. Bonnie Prince Charles coaxed Mum to receive Camilla at Highgrove where Charles hosted a birthday barbeque for Greece’s ex-King Constantine… The last time that many Royals gathered was for Andrew and Fergie’s wedding … and now there’s talk about wedding bells again! My Windsor snoop says the Queen is delighted to see tabloid headlines about anyone but Sweet William-her grandson, who has been having a tough time with the media.

Remember the hoopla when First Lady Hillary’s older brother, Tony, married Nicole Boxer, daughter of California Senator Barbara Boxer? All’s not well on the Rodham-Boxer homefront. After six years and a five-year-old son, Nicole has quietly filed for divorce.

Campaign watchers and the public alike may be shocked in mid-July when N.J. senatorial hopeful, Jon Corzine, files his FEC report for campaign spending. Insiders say he spent more than $40 million of his own fortune in the Democratic primary against former Gov. Jim Florio. . . That’s a record-breaking amount (Michael Huffington spent $30 million in an unsuccessful California race)! Corzine, 53, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, even hosted free dinners complete with beer and wine for Democratic voters he hoped to win over. He followed former Treasury Sec. Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs. Rubin, by the way, is said to be top pick of former Sec. of State Warren Christopher, who’s heading Al Gore’s search committee for a runningmate.

Patrons at the annual Wolf Trap fundraising gala listened to Johnny Mathis perform on a moonlit evening and those of a certain generation reminisced with warm memories of where they were and with who when they first heard “Twelfth of Never,” but a few buzzed that while everyone else “made-out” — as it was called back in those days–to Johnny Mathis’ recordings, Alma Powell, wife of General Colin, was dating Mathis.

Go Back to Words page