| Obama - What About Republicans |
| Monday, 29 November 1999 19:00 |
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Walt McCormick at the telecom association could easily lose his job. So could Kyle McSlarrow for the cablecos,
Grant Seiffert for the manufacturers, David Rehr at the broadcasters, and Bruce Mehlman of the Technology CEO Council. They are highly partisan Republicans, several part of Republican “K Street Project” to take over the trade associations and their enormous pools of funds. Except for TIA, these jobs pay millions and they went to Republicans expected to raise large sums of money to keep their party in power. They typically have difficult relationships with the people coming into power, presumably exacerbated by their intense efforts to prevent an Obama presidency. Several personally gave McCain the maximum allowed by law, and at least one bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars.
McSlarrow renewed his contract earlier and will collect $millions through 2010 (Hearn.) A hard driving operative out of the Bush White House, Kyle has the advantage of being efficient and articulate. When a publicity hungry politician demanded gestures around censorship, Kyle cut a deal with NCMEC and sent out press releases nationally within four days. Rehr at the National Association of Broadcasters also has a contract extension, although they refused to provide details when MultiChannel asked. Walt McCormick is especially vulnerable because of poor results. I pulled the rest of this item because it's not a time to be cruel. I'll just say many in all parts of the industry will not miss him. Grant Seiffert must feel terribly underpaid in this group, with the others all well over $1M/year. It's not his fault TIA has lost most of its clout because in the last decade most of the telecom industry has left the U.S. The ones that remain are completely beholden to the Bells so TIA has little freedom of action. Before his constituency declined, he was very effective working with Republican lawmakers. Washington D.C. is now a Democratic town. These guys will have to convince their boards they are still effective.
What About Tom and Jim? Tom Tauke at Verizon and Jim Cicconi at AT&T are both heavy-duty Republican operatives in a town turned blue. Tauke was offered the job of Bush's campaign manager in 2000, but turned it down because he didn't want to take orders from Karl Rove (WP.) Cicconi was a wonder boy under Reagan and now is an old hand who provided important support for Bush's Supreme Court nominees. Tauke has a very generous style and many friends of both parties. He is better than any other politician I've met in arguing an unlikely point of view without abusing the truth. Tauke is very sharp at seeing how the wind will blow in the future, and making sure his sails are set right. When he saw Martin was serious about Net Neutrality, Verizon quietly backed away. Recently, the momentum for a “broadband policy” built up from Drew Clarke and Commissioner Adelstein, and it wasn't favoring the bells. |