The American Spectator

TICKET CHOICE SEARCH
With the nomination for the Republican solidifying mightily, Sen. John McCain has asked his senior advisers to begin pulling together short lists for Vice Presidential choices. At the top of list, according to one senior adviser: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. "There are others that need to be on that list, but you have to believe the Haley is a frontrunner," says the adviser, who knows both McCain and Barbour well.

Barbour would be one name that puts many conservatives at a bit more ease, one of the criteria McCain understands he must meet, according to another adviser: "Another would be geographic balance, and Barbour takes care of that, too."

Other names on the initial list that may have as many as 30 names on it: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is a national chair for McCain, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, former Rep. J.C. Watts.

Two names set aside from the others: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Sen. Fred Thompson. Bush has stated that he has no interest in elective office at this time and hasn't endorsed a candidate (though it is likely he will soon endorse McCain). Thompson, who endorsed McCain on late Friday, has insisted in the past that he has no interest in serving on the bottom of the ticket. But his relationship with conservatives is so strong that McCain has little choice but at least to put Thompson's name on the list and make an effort to draw him in and hold him close. Thompson campaigned with McCain in 2000, so both men know each other well.

"Thompson as a running mate is more likely than Jeb. McCain has to take a run at both of them if he's going to have any credibility with the movement conservatives once he makes his pick," says the McCain senior adviser helping to draw up the list.

The choice of Thompson would check the box on geography (the South), as well as McCain's acknowledged need to energize the conservative base of the Republican Party for a run in the fall. "We understand that it's going to take more than running against Hillary or Obama to energize our base," says the senior aide. "We need to give our side something and someone to fight for. If it isn't John, then it needs to be ideas and someone they can support enthusiastically."

BELATED BUT BOLD
Radio talk-show host James Dobson's decision to endorse former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is seen as his attempt to inject himself into vice-presidential king-making, and if not that, then establish himself as the new leader of the social conservative movement heading into the next election cycle.

"Dobson doesn't believe we can win in 2008 with John McCain, but he thinks he can be the big winner in 2008 by if not putting his guy on the bottom of the ticket, then gaining credibility as the voice of the evangelical and social conservative movement moving forward," says a longtime, activist member of Dobson's Focus on the Family organization. "Either way, the big winner is Dobson."

Dobson was poised to endorse Huckabee earlier in the primary season, but leaks about the planned endorsement scuttled the plans, in part because just about every other major social conservative had made the decision to sit out the early primary process.

SHE DID IT HER WAY
Last week, in a private meeting with longtime supporters of her and her husband -- including many former senior members of the Clinton Administration -- Sen. Hillary Clinton insisted that, "this is not a reboot of 1992," according to an attendee of the meeting.

"She made it clear that she was happy to see so many friendly faces, but also made it clear that she knows she can't afford to be tied to Bill's Administration and history," says the attendee. "She made the point, though, that she also understood that if it weren't for her husband and his leadership, Barack Obama would not be in the position that he is in today. If that's going to be her message going forward, we're in trouble."

According to campaign insiders, Clinton and her senior team are mulling whether or not they require some kind of dramatic action to change up the narrative of her campaign going forward. "There's a real division over what to do," says one adviser. "Some think we let it ride. Others say we have to do something that distances her from Bill and all the bad stuff that has played out over the past six weeks. We just don't know."

GORE'S THINKING
Former Vice President Al Gore has asked his staff to begin laying out plans for an endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama if he performs well in the Super Tuesday primaries. "[Gore] doesn't see the utility of endorsing Obama until the endorsement would actually mean something and give Gore an opportunity to be the kingmaker," says a former aide with knowledge of Gore's thinking.

Gore is also being pressed by Clinton loyalists not to endorse anyone in the primary phase of the campaign but rather to serve as the one man who can "heal" the rift between Obama and Clinton loyalists leading on the convention in Colorado in August.

"Gore is beyond politics now, and to endorse would lower him to Clinton or Obama's level, I think," says another former adviser. "But he could take a real leadership role in the party if he wanted to, bridging the divide that we're beginning to see in the party. Bill Clinton can't do it. Really, only Gore can."

WIRED IN
With an expectation that federal and state legislators will be looking to cut spending in the coming fiscal years, Big Labor -- the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and AFSCME -- are watching local telecom tax initiatives in California tomorrow to determine whether similar initiatives can be pushed out across the country.

"If we can get a doubling of people's phone taxes by tweaking the legal language at the local level, it will mean millions of tax revenue, and revenue is going to be important for our membership across the country as localities and states look to cut across the board," says an SEIU lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Voters in such California cities as Richmond, Pasadena, and Los Angeles will vote Tuesday on whether to "modernize" or update decades-old phone utility taxes to include such things as wireless phone texting or music downloads over the Internet. Internal revenue analysis by the city of Pasadena shows that taxpayers there could see as much as a doubling in their communications-taxes on the bottom of their phone bills. The phone companies collect the taxes from consumers and pass it through to the local governments; it is not a tax on the phone companies.

"It isn't just phone taxes we're looking at," says an AFL-CIO tax specialist based in New York. "We're looking at everything, hotel taxes, car-rental taxes, cable-TV, anything that can get tacked on to people's bills in a relatively innocuous and painless way that will get local and state government more money."

BILL'S BILLIONS
New York Times sources say that if Sen. Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic nomination or a general election for President, it will largely be due to the efforts of their investigative and political reporter Jo Becker, who yesterday reported on the ties between former President Bill Clinton and Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, who has committed almost a quarter billion dollars to Clinton's foundation, largely after Clinton appeared to pave the way for Giustra's company to get a sweet uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan.

Becker, who formerly worked for the Washington Post, has been put on the Bill Clinton beat for the foreseeable future, and has been digging around the Clinton Foundation for months, according to Clinton campaign sources, one of whom has been assigned to track Becker's activities. "She's like a woman scorned," says the campaign source. "The foundation and the former President weren't honest with her early in her reporting, and now she's going to burn the house down if she gets her way. The size of the headache she is causing inside the campaign cannot be quantified."

The campaign has been trying to keep tabs on sources Becker has been talking to for several months now, attempting to figure out which lines of inquiry she is undertaking. As reported several months ago, the Clinton campaign attempted some time ago to "oppo" the former President's post-White House time, trying to anticipate potential thorny issues that might arise for Senator Clinton. "We don't know everything, because the Clinton Foundation is something we haven't been able to fully breach," says another campaign source. "We're just getting access to some of Senator Clinton's papers from her time in the White House, and we're her fricking campaign. It's unbelievable."

Becker's work has focused almost exclusively on the Clinton Foundation, and the ways in which Clinton has used the entity to further his own personal wealth, as well as those who support him and his philanthropic activities.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Clinton was negotiating terms to exit a partnerships and consulting deal with longtime supporter Ron Burkle. Clinton was able to attract large sums of investment money to Burkle's operation from several sources, the biggest being the royal family of Dubai. "Everyone assumes that if he separates from Burkle that the relationship with Dubai is severed, too," says a source with ties to the Clinton Foundation. "But the Dubai ties aren't the result of Burkle. That's a personal relationship with ties to the foundation, and those aren't going to end."

McCAIN, CPAC, AND FRED
Advisers to Sen. John McCain are encouraging the would-be Presidential frontrunner to arrange a private meeting with his longtime friend, former Sen. Fred Thompson in an attempt to gain greater credibility with the conservative base in the Republican Party. "They can do the meeting when he's in town for the CPAC meeting," says a McCain adviser, speaking of McCain.

McCain's campaign purchased a booth at CPAC and announced on Wednesday that McCain himself would attend the event. McCain's advisers see the event as a win-win for their candidate. "If he's applauded, then we can spin it that he's being welcomed by the base that is important to win in the fall. If they boo him, then these are still the morons who haven't liked him for a decade, so no big surprise, and John looks like the bigger man for showing up and taking the abuse. But I don't think the latter will happen. Everyone understands the political stakes. John McCain is going to be the nominee, and conservatives don't want Hillary or Obama in the White House. They will support John McCain."

Some advisers, though, think a Thompson meeting would be even better for McCain. According to McCain sources, the two men spoke briefly last week several days after Thompson exited the presidential primary field. With no conservative left in the race, McCain is looking for ways to build support among the conservative base he knows he will have to tap into if he is to win in the general election. The thinking among some McCain strategists is to have McCain look at Thompson's tax reform and judiciary policies and endorse one or both of them. That seems doubtful, given that McCain has not been supportive of broad tax cuts in the past, nor is he sympathetic to conservative judicial nominations.

McCain does not expect an endorsement from Thompson, nor has he sought it, according to McCain insiders, but a mutual understanding, with Thompson's ability to speak to conservatives and say that McCain intends to adopt more conservative policy positions when elected might go a ways to allaying conservative fears.

GOING TOO FAR
In the past week both Florida Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist wavered on their promised endorsements for Sen. John McCain, before finally having their fill of the heavy-handed arm-twisting of the Mitt Romney campaign.

"It finally got to the point for both of them that they just got fed up with the constant harassment," says a source close to both men who has worked for them as a political consultant. "They weren't going to endorse Romney and under the right circumstances, one or both of them might have chosen to sit the primary out, but the Romney people just made it intolerable."

In the middle of last week, it appeared that both Martinez and Crist would sit out what has become the battleground state for the Republican nomination for President.

It is believed that the Romney campaign has been able to use its candidate's unfettered wealth to run a successful absentee ballot program, something the other campaigns have not been able to do as well. Those absentee ballots may swing Romney to victory, and keeping Martinez and Crist on the sidelines was part of the strategy for victory.

Another subtext: the diminishment of Rudy Giuliani in a state that he had pegged as his pivot for Super Tuesday. He didn't have a shot at either endorsement, and his campaign has long been warring with the Crist crowd, in part because after Giuliani worked hard for Crist's election as governor, he was repaid by having a Crist staffer leak to the McCain camp an important Giuliani fundraising PowerPoint presentation early last year.

The Romney camp appears to have picked up much of the ideologically conservative support from the Thompson team, including the bulk of his "Lawyers for Thompson" operation. But it doesn't appear that any members of Thompson's longstanding inner circle who started the "Draft Thompson" movement about a year ago will sign on with another campaign.

HOWARD'S ENDS
Former Sen. Fred Thompson has made it clear that he will not endorse another candidate in the near future, if at all. Last week, staffers for Sen. Tom Coburn were on Capitol Hill encouraging others to sign on with Coburn's candidate, John McCain, saying that Thompson was endorsing the candidate. Coburn, who months ago had made a promise to Thompson to endorse him but never did so, hasn't spoken to Thompson in months.

One source of the Thompson endorsement rumors is believed to be former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, who has been fielding phone calls about Thompson from other campaigns and media outlets, and has done nothing to tamp down the rumors. "He's enjoying what he knows will be short-lived relevancy," says a member of Baker's law firm in Tennessee. Baker, who was an honorary national chair of the Thompson campaign, officially endorsed McCain on Saturday.

Thompson is expected to speak publicly about his future plans at a later date, and rumors had him and his wife, Jeri, down in Nashville looking at houses over the weekend.

YES, VIRGINIA
Look for former Virginia Gov. George Allen to begin putting in place the light infrastructure for a possible run for governor again. Allen, who traveled with Sen. Fred Thompson in South Carolina, is believed to have some volunteer staffing commitments in place to at least begin the process of setting up a statewide organization for the 2009 gubernatorial elections.

WHATEVER IT TAKES
State leaders of Big Labor -- including the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- have told supporters of several local tax-increase measures in California that they are willing to commit "whatever it takes" to ensure the ballot measures pass on February 5, 2008, according to a state AFSCME member.

Right now, several large localities in California, including the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Richmond, and San Bernardino, are pushing utility "modernization" ballot measures that would essentially raise consumer taxes on Internet and cell phones users.

The unions are getting behind the measures because the bulk of the tax dollars raised from the change in local tax laws would go toward civil service costs related to public safety and municipal operations -- in other words, their membership.

"It's kind of surprising that anti-tax groups haven't been pushing harder against these initiatives," says a Southern California political consultant. "We're talking about millions in new tax revenue off these little changes, and it's all being done through the backdoor."

Essentially, what the localities are trying to do is extend a 40-year-old utility tax on phone service to services that most consumers use over the Internet or on their cell phones or Blackberrys.

"The old utility taxes are between 10 and 7 percent per month, and show up on the bottom of phone or cell phone bills," says the consultant. "Some municipalities are actually lowering the rate with their ballot initiatives, but changing the definition of what a 'phone service' is to include things like data services, so while the rate may appear lower, most taxpayers who use those services will actually see the amount they pay in taxes go up. Some may even see their cell phone tax bills double."

Data services include things like text messaging, music and video downloading, and down the road, many policy experts in the field believe even e-mail could be taxed under a "data service" definition.

The city of Pasadena, for example, is calling its initiative, Measure D, a utility tax "modernization" plan. While the rate of the utility tax would remain at about 8 percent, the city would impose the tax on consumers who use text messaging or who download music or movies online.

"These pols are being clever. They tell the voters 'We aren't raising taxes and we aren't taxing the Internet,' and they are being accurate, but in fact, they are taxing what you use the Internet for," says state assembly staffer. "They are being accurate, but they aren't being honest with the voters."

Adding insult to injury, the campaigns in support of the tax-increase initiatives are being financed by the municipalities and the labor unions, in other words, by taxpayer dollars.

AFSCME, according to the state union official, is prepared to commit more than a million dollars to get the local initiatives passed. "It could mean three to four times that in money back in union-member pockets," says the official. "This is worth the investment."

ROMNEY CHECKS McCAIN
If Sen. John McCain was anticipating endorsements from Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist in the Florida primary, he's in for a disappointing surprise, according to Romney campaign aides.

"If those guys want a political future in this state, they will sit on the sidelines," says one Romney adviser. "We have some of the biggest Florida fundraisers with us right now, and if Mel or Charlie went with McCain, we'd make them both pay when it came time for them to get donor dollars for another race."

Martinez was telling friends he was prepared to endorse McCain last week, and the McCain campaign was privately crowing about both Martinez and Crist endorsements. But Romney supporters in Florida have been putting pressure on both pols to sit on the sidelines in this primary state, threatening to make life difficult for them financially if they go with another candidate.

"This is so typical of the Romney people thinking they can buy their way to a victory," says a McCain aide in Tallahassee. "We think in the end we'll get both endorsements. It just might take a little extra effort."

CATHOLIC COACHING
St. Louis University head basketball coach Rick Majerus sought and received permission from the Jesuit president of the school before he attended and spoke at a rally for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to school sources. Majerus has touched off a firestorm for saying at the event that he supported abortion rights for women.

St. Louis University is a Jesuit University. Under guidelines put forward by the Vatican, the school is expected to hire a faculty that teaches and promulgates Roman Catholic dogma. Majerus, in his capacity as head coach, is considered a member of the faculty.

"He's not a theology or philosophy teacher," says a Jesuit instructor at the school. "Coach Rick doesn't have to adhere to Vatican policies in that regard. This was free speech. We couldn't stop him, nor would we."

It's the "nor would we" part of that sentence that is getting the school's president, Rev. Lawrence Biondi, in hot water with St. Louis, Mo., Archbishop Raymond Burke.

Burke, a favorite of Pope Benedict, is not new to this kind of controversy; in fact, he seems to enjoy it. Back in 2004, he was the bishop who stood up to Sen. John Kerry and said he would not give the politician Holy Communion due to the presidential candidate's support of abortion and stem cell research.

MIKE ANGRY AGAIN
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee was said to be livid about leaks that he was losing senior advisers due to pay cuts or no paychecks at all, and blamed his campaign manager, Ed Rollins, for the problems.

Rollins was the adviser who pressed Huckabee into spending millions in the Michigan primary, when Huckabee wanted to spend the money in Florida and on Super Tuesday media buys. Now, Huckabee doesn't have the money to do both.

Rollins, along with other senior advisers, was also the one to push the highly negative push polling calls in South Carolina -- even on the day of the primary vote.