COLUMNS

Women of Note in Washington (And a Few Men, Too!)

  • Capital Connections ®
  • |
  • December 01, 1999

by Karen Feld

Tipper Gore is in good company. The Second Lady and longtime photographer has her photos on exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington along side those of celeb shutterbug Annie Leibovitz. The exhibit, “The Way Home: Ending Homelessness in America,” focuses on an issue which has been a passion of Mrs. Gore for many years.

Tipper’s Husband, Vice President Al Gore, isn’t one to rest on his past laurels. “I played college basketball,” he said in New Hampshire the other day. “The difference between me and Bill Bradley is I don’t make a big deal of it.” Score one quotable quip for the Veep on the campaign trail.

“It took a Hillary to raise a president,” Gail Sheehy writes in her book, “Hillary’s Choice,” which joins this week the numerous other tomes on the bookshelves dissecting the First Lady. Sheehy observes that Hillary views the world the way men of power do, never allowing the public to see her wounds, “and in the face of all obstacles” holding on to her life strategy in service of a larger agenda.

And will a “Munster” be an obstacle for Hillary’s quest for to become a New York Senator? TV comedian, Grandpa Al Lewis, has once again established an exploratory committee for a possible New York senate race. His candidacy could make a difference in an tight race between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani. As a third party candidate, he is likely to not only attract the progressives who dislike Mrs. Clinton, but also those who aren’t fans of either the First Lady or the Mayor.

What will Monica Lewinsky’s choice be at the New York ballot box? We don’t know — she has finally learned when to keep her mouth shut. She’s not saying whether or not she’ll vote for Hillary for Senate in New York. But she is talking about her new qualifications for a candidate for romance: “single, straight, emotionally available.”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has timed her upcoming Mideast trip so she can host a dinner for Kennedy Center honorees Sean “James Bond” Connery, Stevie Wonder, Victor Borge, Judith Jamison, and Jason Robards at the State Department, Saturday evening. The Clintons host the awardees at the White House Sunday evening before the glitzy gala performance and late night dinner.

Star power or curiosity? Regardless of the reason, Mary Bono, Sonny’s widow, is a big draw on the campaign trail, and Republicans around the nation are using it to their advantage. The Congresswoman has appeared on behalf of Republican candidates at some four dozen events this year. She’s even won over acerbic House Majority Whip Tom DeLay who has enlisted her help in conveying the GOP message to young women. Certainly she’s collecting political IOU’s which can only benefit her constituents, that is all of them, except perhaps her kids, who will see her less and their Palm Springs nanny more.

Go Back to Words page