In the race to succeed him, Haley Barbour has professed neutrality. But the outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee is quietly using the same formidable political skills that got him the job to influence who gets it next.
RNC counsel and Barbour confidant David Norcross got off to an early start in the chairman’s race with encouragement from Barbour partisans on the 165- member national committee. Norcross’s campaign is being managed by Bill Harris, who ran Barbour’s campaign in 1993, Next Barbour quietly “dispatched” two of his law partners, Lanny Griffith and Chris Henick, to work on behalf of New Hampshire governor Steve Merrill at the Republican Governors’ Association meeting in Michigan. Not content with only two chances, Barbour opened a third front when John Grotta, another loyalist, and Bill Greener, who was Barbour’s man at the San Diego convention this summer, began to run the campaign of Colorado national committeeman Jim Nicholson.
RNC committee members openly speculate Barbour’s plan is to use these consultants to bring their supporters from the different camps behind his eventual “favorite” as the January 17 election nears. But by the time of the Northeast meeting in Philadelphia on December 18, more than a few committee members were muttering about this “consultant” strategy, tired of the influence of what they see as a Washington-based crowd that underperformed in the ’96 elections. This may well allow “outsiders” Tom Pauken, Texas chairman, Bob Bennett, Ohio chairman, and Chuck Yob, Michigan national committeeman, to pick up more votes than anticipated.
In particular, conservatives on the committee are rallying behind Pauken to a greater degree than many expected, and some observers now put him in the first tier of candidates along with Haley’s trifecta.
