CONVENTIONAL wisdom suggests that New York can score both party presidential nominating fests in 2004. And certainly Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been massaging the Republicans and the Democrats to bring their silly hats and noisemakers to the Big Apple. But my more hard-nosed political sources suggest the honeymoon with N.Y.C. is almost over and we could well end up with no conventioneers at all. The GOP (or at least President Dubya) is leaning toward Miami. Bush is keen to give his brother Jeb, the Florida governor, a boost and also to make sure that this time around everyone from the Sunshine State gives him an undisputed victory in the presidential ballot.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Ted Kennedy continues to put his considerable weight behind his home town of Boston for the convention site and the accompanying windfall. Ted's elder statesman status will help Beantown, as will the fact that some Dems don't want to stage their show here because, by 2004, it will be even more Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's town. The anti-Hillarys would like to keep her on neutral ground.
Reminder - we have discussed here the possibility of a Guild get-together at the GOP convention, wherever it may be.
'PRESIDENT George Bush regularly joshes around with reporters and gives them nicknames that suggest an easy familiarity. Privately, however, his advisers confide that he considers most of them to be preening, two-faced, left-wing egotists who are out to get him.
"For their part, the White House news-pack - particularly the network broadcasters - suck up shamelessly to the president and his aides, while privately ridiculing them. Certainly, most have a natural inclination to look down on the homespun Texan."
This is from media reporter Toby Harnden in Great Britain.
WELL, I know a lot about homespun Texans. But how "homespun" can a fellow educated at Andover, Yale and the Harvard Business School, really be? His grandfather and father were Connecticut patricians. It's like putting on cowboy boots the moment one leaves the Austin city limits. You just do it for the fun of it.
Unfortunately, Texan, part-time lesbian and Dem suckup Liz Smith, who wrote this, is woefully wrong in her last sentence. Does she really think the cowboy hat, the pickup and the ranch are just an act with GWB? He strikes me as being infinitely more comfortable and at home in jeans and boots in Crawford than in a tux at a state dinner.