What, do you suppose, is it like to work for a presidential campaign that is going absolutely nowhere? A clue could be found on fax machines across Washington on Sept. 6, when the Lugar for President campaign sent out a press release so bizarre that it cries out for comment and explication. It began: ” powerful special-interest group has rejected Senator Dick Lugar’s pledge not to raise income tax rates because Lugar also pledged to defend the United States “under conditions of war or severe domestic crisis.’ ”
That must be some evil special4nterest group, no? No. Turns out the target of the Lugar campaign’s wrath is none other than Americans for Tax Reform, a very, very Republican group. The press release goes on to quote “R.
Mark Lubbers, Lugar’s campaign manager,” who calls ATR’s executive director, Grover Norquist, a “petty inside-the-beltway pupeteer.” “The President of the United States is not a marionette,” thunders Mr. Lubbers, who would get more respect from us if he dropped the “R.”
The sad, exquisite irony is that the Lugar campaign has resorted to a public assault on Grover Norquist because he was the subject of a front-page piece in the Washington Post two days earlier about his role in the Republican revolution. So Dick Lugar is seeking press attention by going after a solitary political operative because that operative is getting more press than Lugar, a senator and presidential candidate. Yeow.
