Wednesday, July 07, 1999
McConnell will steer Bush's Ky. bandwagon
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Louisville Republican known as a prolific fund-raiser and cunning political strategist, has agreed to chair George W. Bush's presidential campaign in Kentucky.
Mr. McConnell said Tuesday that Mr. Bush, the governor of Texas and the son of former President Bush, is scheduled for a fund-raiser July 23 in Louisville that could raise as much as $1 million.
“That's going to be the main event for the Bush campaign in Kentucky this summer,” Mr. McConnell said in a brief interview after speaking to the Covington Rotary Club.
Mr. Bush has also announced that four Republican members of Congress from Kentucky — U.S. Reps. Ron Lewis, Ann Northup, Hal Rogers and Ed Whitfield — will serve as co-chairs of the campaign.
“Gov. Bush will win Kentucky because of his conservative values, his belief in limited government and his ability to relate to people from all walks of life,” said Mr. Rogers, of Somerset.
Dozens of member of Congress, Republican governors and GOP state legislators from across the country have already endorsed Mr. Bush, even though there are several other candidates — including Newport native Gary Bauer — seeking the party's presidential nomination.
Mr. Bush has also raised far more money — $36.3 million — than any other Republican in the race and double the amount raised by Democrat Al Gore, the sitting vice president.
Even Mr. McConnell, a successful fund-raiser during his own three Senate campaigns and head of a GOP political committee that raised and spent nearly $80 million last year working to elect Republicans to the Senate, is impressed by Mr. Bush's campaign fund.
Mr. McConnell noted that Mr. Bush has 75,000 individual donors so far, and has amassed his campaign funds without the benefit of using direct mail to solicit donations.
There are some Northern Kentucky Republicans who are backing, at least for now, other GOP candidates. Mr. Bauer, for example, has the support of the archconservative wing of the Republican Party.
Three Northern Kentucky couples were on the host committee for a June 11 fund-raiser in Cincinnati for Elizabeth Dole.
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