The immediate problem that Huckabee poses for McCain strategists is how to get him out of the presidential race without offending him. While Huckabee cannot possibly get enough delegates to be nominated, he worries the McCain camp by threatening to win an occasional state, as he did recently in Kansas. Huckabee attempted to upset McCain in Virginia, though McCain wound up winning the primary there by a comfortable nine points.
Arnold's Appropriator
Republican lobbyists and other campaign contributors were surprised this week to receive a $1,000-a-ticket invitation to join California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington Feb. 25 for a morning fund-raiser in behalf of Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young of Florida.
A California governor raising money in Washington for a Florida congressman is highly unusual. As a senior member and former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Young influences spending important to California.
Young is a close ally of another Californian, Rep. Jerry Lewis, who succeeded Young as chairman and is now ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee.
Murtha's Beneficiaries
The annual payback dinner by defense contractors who benefit from earmarks by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, will be held Feb. 27 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington.
Murtha, a close adviser of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is one of the leading earmarkers in Congress. The earmark recipients will be paying the $1,500 a person admission to "An Evening with Jack and Joyce Murtha."
Although the dinner is timed to coincide with the anniversary of Murtha's first special election to Congress in 1974, invitations for it were mailed just before the annual deadline for earmark applications.