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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Reagan (the son) endorsing Kerry (well, stem-cell research)
From John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
 |  Ronald P. Reagan: Not like father like son. |
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|  VIDEO |
 Election Day could be moved in case of terrorist attack.
 John Kerry and John Edwards head out on their own.
 Critics: Same-sex marriage ban meant to divert attention
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republicans spent a week formally honoring the late Ronald W. Reagan in June. This month, they'll likely spend a week (at least) tearing down his near-namesake, ballet-dancing son, Ronald P. Reagan, following news that he's going prime time in Boston.
Reagan will talk about stem-cell research. No word on what night, or whether he'll be joined by his mom. But since he probably won't share the spotlight with Bill Clinton (Monday), John Edwards (Wednesday) or John Kerry (Thursday), we bet he goes Tuesday, the same night as Ted Kennedy -- which means Wednesday's headline would read, "Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan address Dems in Boston." Bizarre.
A Bush-Cheney official pounced on Reagan last night, shortly after the story broke. The official said it's "not surprising" that a "committed liberal" (that would be Reagan) would be speaking in Boston. "Zell Miller will be speaking at the GOP convention," the Bush-Cheney official told CNN. "He will appeal to Democrats and independents."
True, so true. As he proved 12 years ago speaking to the Democrats in New York, the Georgia governor-turned-senator can deliver quite a stemwinder. But last time we checked, Miller's name wasn't Ronald Reagan.
Camp Kerry was also spinning the Reagan booking last night, saying it shows that Kerry/Edwards "won't put ideology in front of sound science and let politics get in the way of what is best for the American people." One adviser said the move would appeal to independents, while Bush "is spending time on his base politics, which was the reason for his stem-cell restrictions in the first place."
Camp Kerry is promising "lots of surprises, like Ron Reagan" tomorrow in their convention roll-out. Chair Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and a Hispanic man, will be joined by vice chairs Jeanne Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor and white woman, and Juanita Millender-McDonald, a California representative and black woman, at a presser in DC.
But for now, KE04's remaining unusually tight-lipped. They only released Reagan's name (last night, in an embargoed e-mail broken by another network) because the late former president's son talked about his planned speech during an interview with Knight-Ridder, and the Kerry folks wanted to share the wealth. (The Grind, of course, first reported Camp Kerry's interest in booking Reagan last month.)
Also today, Kerry-Edwards launches what it calls the largest-ever Spanish-language TV ad buy. (You can do things like that when you're raising $1 million a day on the Internet alone, which KE04 says they've been doing since Edwards joined the ticket. "In a word, it's been great," spokesman David Wade gushes to CNN's Mike Roselli.)
Sticking to his script, President Bush will highlight the war on terrorism today during a visit to the government's nuclear weapons and research complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Bush plans to make remarks at 11:25 a.m. ET regarding the war on terrorism and efforts to defeat terrorists and stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. He's expected to see where nuclear weapons equipment from Libya is being stored. This is Bush's fifth visit to Tennessee this year.
It's a slow week for Kerry, at least compared with last week. He's doing a series of preconvention fund-raisers and rallies in Boston today and has some roundtable discussions in the morning.
Same-sex debate
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the Senate resumes debate today on the same-sex marriage amendment. A Senate vote, which would call Edwards and Kerry back to DC, could come later this week.
Following in the footsteps of first ladies who stake out more moderate positions on social issues than their husbands, Lynne Cheney said yesterday on CNN's "Late Edition" that the same-sex marriage issue should be left to states.
Also on the gay marriage front, MoveOn.org will start airing a new TV ad calling the amendment divisive and distracting. Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican, said she won't support the amendment.
The Post on DeLay and his PAC
And finally today, we're also watching for fallout from The Washington Post's lead story on Tom DeLay and the ongoing probe of his PAC's fundraising practices.
The Post leads with a May 2001 e-mail in which Enron's top DC lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson told Ken Lay that DeLay was pressing for a $100,000 donation to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.
DeLay requested that the donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail.
The e-mail surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Enron and is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.
