President Bush extended his stay at Camp David last weekend to arrive back at the White House Monday afternoon, missing the annual anti-abortion March for Life that morning in Washington to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
Bush was at the White House on Jan. 22, 2001, for the first March of his presidency but sent a written statement rather than attend in person. For the next five years, he was out of town for the event: Charleston, W.Va. (2002), St. Louis (2003), Roswell, N.M. (2004), Camp David (2005) and Manhattan, Kan. (2006). His routine is to address the event by phone.
A footnote: Only two of the many Republican presidential hopefuls attended this year's March for Life: Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. On Sunday, Brownback visited the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill, mingling with marchers from Iowa (the first state in the presidential nomination process).
Dollars for Rudy
Texas Republican contributors are being solicited to spend $30,000 for dinner with former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston Feb. 1 to finance his "presidential exploratory committee." The "private" dinner will follow a 6:30 to 8 p.m. cocktail reception, costing $2,100 a person and $4,200 for couples.
The best-known host of Giuliani's Houston event is billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens Jr., chairman of the private equity firm BP Capital Management. Also on Giuliani's Texas fund-raising team are Tom Hicks, whose company owns the Texas Rangers baseball team; oil industry executive Jim Lee; and lawyer Patrick C. Oxford.
A footnote: A Giuliani fund-raiser will be held Jan. 29 in Pacific Palisades, Calif., at the home of Bill Simon, the 2002 Republican candidate for governor of California, costing $2,300 a person and $4,600 per couple.
To find out more about Robert D. Novak and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
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