"Reporter's Notebook": Republicans Unhappy About Bush's Handling of Enron Situation?
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now with his "Reporter's Notebook": our own Bob Novak. Bob, first of all, I understand some Republicans are not happy with the Bush administration handling of the whole Enron business.</s>ROBERT NOVAK, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Judy, on "NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS" over the weekend, the Senate Republican leader, Trent Lott, said, to my surprise, that he didn't think that the administration had been forthcoming. And I did some checking around. I hear this from a lot of Republicans. They don't feel that this is a serious problem in the long run for the administration, but they think the White House is making it worse by being so secretive and not putting out information when they should have put everything out in the first place.</s>WOODRUFF: Specific information they have in mind or just...</s>NOVAK: Just contacts. Everything is dribbling out and seeming to appear they are giving something to hide, more of a public- relations problem than hiding some scandal.</s>WOODRUFF: On the Democratic side, some sense of a rivalry between two prominent fellows over there?</s>NOVAK: This is a startling thing. The Senate democratic leader, the majority leader, Tom Daschle, had asked to address the House Democratic Caucus. He had been given permission. And suddenly, in the last couple of weeks, I learned that the House minority leader, Dick Gephardt, canceled that invitation. Some of Gephardt's closest friends were really shocked. I think one of the problems is that the House Democrats don't want to get too close to the Senate Democrats and in what is perceived -- or what the Republicans are trying to describe as tax increases. Also, of course, Gephardt and Daschle may be rivals for the 2004 Democratic presidential domination.</s>WOODRUFF: Yes, some of us have taken note of that. All right, concern among some Republicans, Bob, over the new party chairman and finance chairman. Now, you have talked about some of this before.</s>NOVAK: The former governor of Montana, Marc Racicot -- I have said this before -- he is going in as Republican national chairman while staying on the payroll of a lobbying firm. And although they rubber-stamped the president at the Republican National Committee meeting in Austin last weekend -- rubber-stamped the president's recommendation of Governor Racicot, a lot of them are still not happy. They think it is a bad deal. Now, Governor Racicot appeared with the Democratic chairman on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. And they thought he did a fairly good job, kind of a mixed verdict of it. But the verdict is still out on whether that is going to work. One of the breaks that Governor Racicot had is, the Terry McAuliffe has had a lot of ethical accusations placed against him. And he kind of held off in criticizing Racicot on "Meet the Press." Now, Lou Isenberg (ph), the finance chairman...</s>WOODRUFF: For the Republicans.</s>NOVAK: Fort Republicans -- is a liberal's liberal. And he has given contributions most recently to Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon. He is from New Jersey. He didn't help Bret Schundler, the Republican nominee for governor in the last election. And in the meeting in Austin, there were actually no-votes, people saying no when his name came up on a voice vote for finance chairman. That is like somebody voting no in the old Soviet Politburo, for the Republican national chairman to say no to a president's request. But President Bush wanted Isenberg (ph) because he can raise money and he can raise money from the more liberal community.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, finally, a slap at Tom Daschle from his home state having to do with his position on tax cuts?</s>NOVAK: This is straight from the South Dakota House of Representatives, which even CNN does not cover that much. They had a resolution against deferring or canceling the Republican tax cut. And there is only 20 members in the -- 20 Democrats in the 70- member South Dakota House of Representatives. Twelve of them voted for this resolution, which indicates that, in South Dakota at least, being anti-tax cut does not work very well, even if it looks like you are slapping their favorite son, Tom Daschle.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, we are going to leave it there. Bob Novak, your "Reporter's Notebook," we love looking at that.