Posted on 09/16/2004 4:28:29 PM PDT by Theodore R.
Clooney will get son's help in NYC, D.C.
By Courtney Kinney Post staff reporter
Democratic congressional candidate Nick Clooney will once again get some help from his movie star son at two out-of-town fund-raisers this weekend.
George Clooney will attend a fund-raiser in New York City Saturday and another in Washington, D.C., on Sunday to help raise money for his father's quest to win the 4th Congressional District seat.
Saturday's event will take place at Patsy's, a famed Italian restaurant in New York's theater district, and cost $500, $1,000 or $2,000 a head. The Sunday event will take place at Lounge 201 on Capitol Hill. A private reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. requires a $2,500 contribution from political action committees and a $1,000 contribution from individuals. Contribution amounts for a general reception are $500, $200, or $100.
Nick Clooney, a former Cincinnati news TV anchorman and columnist for The Post, is seeking to replace U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas, a Richwood Democrat who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year. Clooney faces Republican Geoff Davis, a business consultant from Hebron.
Justin Brasell, Davis' campaign spokesman, said it was hypocritical for Clooney to travel out of town for fund-raisers after scoffing last month at Davis' recent appearances onstage at the Republican National Convention in New York and at a rally for President Bush in Huntington, W.Va.
Clooney's spokesman, B.J. Neidhardt, said at the time that the race is about Northern Kentuckians, "not about the people of West Virginia or New York."
"It's odd that Nick Clooney would attack Geoff Davis for going to the Republican convention in New York and speaking at a Bush rally in Huntington -- and then turn around himself and go to New York to raise money," Brasell said.
Neidhardt said Tuesday that the difference is that the out-of-town fund-raisers are hosted by Clooney's family, not a special interest group or politician who expects something from him.
"Nick's son is helping him raise money whereas Geoff Davis is having special interests in Washington raise money for him," Neidhardt said. "He's going to be beholden to the special interests. It's Nick's son, and we're not going to be beholden to anybody."
The two sides have repeatedly traded barbs over campaign contributors. Clooney's side has said that Davis will be controlled by special interest groups and by GOP elites in Washington. Davis' campaign has said that Clooney claims to be a conservative Democrat, but his association with his son and other "Hollywood liberals" suggests otherwise.
Davis, who narrowly lost to Lucas in the 2002 race, will get some support this week from U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who will campaign for him Thursday in Ashland.
The 4th Congressional District is anchored in Northern Kentucky and stretches from Oldham County in the west to the West Virginia border. The district is arguably the most conservative of the state's six congressional districts. Lucas has held the seat since 1998.
I believe Nick Clooney is Rosemary's brother. You must be an old timer also if you remember her......great songs in the 50's!
All I can say is, he ain't getting my vote.
You are so right. This race will be the model for the Democrats all over the south. They hope it goes like this:
Run a celebrity. Pretend to be less liberal than you are. Get Hollywood money to advertise. Defeat a solid conservative.
I'm not going to vote for the man who would represent Hollywood's first district. Nick Clooney(George's dad)
I'm going to vote for the man who represents Kentucky's 4th district. Geoff Davis.
Rosemary Clooney died about two years ago. She was George's aunt. Rosemary worked in the Stevenson and Kennedy campaigns when she was still very young.
Clooney was such a good looking man.....until he opened his piehole and started sounding stupid.
Biography for Rosemary Clooney
Height
5' 6"
She was the daughter of Andrew and Frances Clooney and grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, where she and her sister Betty used to sing in her grandfather's election mayoral election campaigns, which he won three times. She made her singing debut on a Cincinnati Radio station WLW in 1941 at 13. On WLW she worked with band leader Barney Rapp, who had also worked with singers Doris Day and Andy Williams at the same station. She attended high school at Our Lady of Mercy in Cincinnati. In 1946 she appeared with her sister in Atlantic City, New Jersey at the Steel Pier with Tony Pastor's band. In 1949 she went solo and later appeared in White Christmas co-starring opposite Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Her first big hit was "Come On A My House" in 1951. She married actor José Ferrer in the 1950s and she had five children between 1955 and 1960. During her tempestous marriage to Ferrer she had a nervous breakdown in 1968 but went on to resume her career in 1976. Her life was dramatized in the 1982 TV Movie, 'Rosie', which starred Clint Eastwood's ex-girlfriend Sondra Locke.
Her son Gabriel is married to singer Debbie Boone, daughter of the 50s pop singer Pat Boone. Her brother, Nick, is an ABC news anchor in Cincinnati. She was standing in the Los Angeles hotel with Rosie Grier when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the hotel kitchen in 1968 after she had participated in his campaign rally. Her top hits include "Hey There" in 1954, "Tenderly," "This Ole House" and "Half As Much" in 1952.
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