JawsBlog

Apparently RNC Chair Nick GIllespie faced off against DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe this morning on Fox News Sunday. Here’s a recap according to the Rightsided Newsletter (the last paragraph is priceless)

The two national party chairs had a brief segment on FNS this morning, and there were no real fireworks of which to speak. DNC Chairman Terence McAuliffe talked of the situation “if John Kerry is the nominee,” but he made clear that the “threshold will be when someone gets 2,162 delegates.” He said that the DNC is “not authorized” to spend any money until they have a nominee. He’s not as aggressively seeking to break free of his leash as he was last week on Face the Nation. McAuliffe accused RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and the White House of attacking Kerry’s patriotism, something of which we’ve seen a lot of late. Gillespie explained that he was merely pointing out that Kerry’s record in the Senate was one of voting against weapons systems and military funding. In response to charges that Kerry served in Vietnam while Gillespie did not, the RNC chairman countered: “I was ten when Senator Kerry served in Vietnam.” Wallace asked McAuliffe about the National Journal’s rating of Kerry as the most liberal U.S. Senator of last year. [Political Annotation] Terence did not counter; rather, he pushed the matter aside as irrelevant: “This campaign is not about labels…. This campaign is about George Bush.” Note that, pointedly to Terence for one, it is not about John Kerry, either. This reflects a larger sentiment within the party: unwillingness to rally behind their probably nominee except in opposition to President Bush. McAuliffe smugly confronted the host, asking him if he were “going to ask any questions about George Bush? I know this is FOX News and all, but…” Wallace answered that he had asked about national security, but McAuliffe had chosen to answer in regards to John Kerry, not the President. McAuliffe’s question backfired.