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Although he’s laughing in a photo with GOP Senate candidate and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wasn’t laughing when the image wound up on Steele’s campaign Web site.
Hoyer asked the Steele camp on Friday to remove the photo. But it didn’t look like the Steele campaign was budging.
The photo is part of a rolling slide show of snapshots of Steele with different folks at events around the Old Line State. There’s even one of Steele, the presumptive GOP nominee, and Democratic Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume, as well as the one of Steele and Hoyer at a July Fourth event in Bowie, Md.
If you didn’t know that Hoyer is a Democrat who wants Rep. Benjamin Cardin (D) — not Steele — to be the next Senator from Maryland, you’d think Hoyer and Steele are two peas in a pod. Both are laughing in the photo, Hoyer with his tongue sticking out a little bit and holding Steele’s shoulder in a type of “buddy” grasp.
But obviously, the two are not buddies. And Hoyer apparently didn’t want the photo taken in the first place. He asked the photographer, a young aide to Steele, not to take any more pictures “but she did anyway,” Hoyer said in a statement provided to HOH.
Doug Heye, spokesman for Steele, claimed that Hoyer “yelled” at the 20-year-old staffer to quit it with the photographing. Hoyer said he simply “asked” her.
“The fact that Michael Steele includes a picture of the two of us at a Fourth of July celebration on his campaign website gives visitors the clear — but mistaken — impression that I somehow support his candidacy,” Hoyer said in his statement. “I absolutely do not.”
Heye said he didn’t see the big deal with the photo. (Naturally.) “From our perspective,” Heye said, “it’s just a picture of a lighthearted moment from the campaign where they’re laughing and enjoying each other’s company.”
Heye suggested that Hoyer was just “upset that his handpicked candidate, Cardin, is losing in the polls to Kweisi Mfume and being outspent by Joshua Rales,” the millionaire underdog vying for the Democratic nomination.
Hoyer, still fuming over the photo, shot back, “I believe this game played by the Steele campaign was truly an exercise in ‘bush league’ politics. Mr. Steele’s photo album should accurately depict his core base of supporters — namely George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Bill Frist. They are his principal sponsors and financial backers and therefore have earned a spot on his Web site.”
But at press time, it was Hoyer, not Rove, Bush or Cheney, who could be seen mugging for the camera with Steele.
Get Well Soon. HOH extends best wishes for a speedy recovery to Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), who announced late Friday afternoon that she will undergo surgery to have an ovarian mass removed.
Harris, star of one of the most interesting (you might say) Senate campaigns we’ve seen, said she’s scheduled to undergo pre-operative testing on the mass today at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and then have laparoscopic surgery July 17.
A biopsy will establish if the mass is malignant or benign, but a statement from Harris’ office said that Attending Physician John Eisold believes Harris’ condition is at low risk for malignancy.
“I know I am in good hands with the doctors at Walter Reed and am looking forward to a speedy recovery and returning to my duties in Congress and hitting the campaign trail,” Harris said.
Despite a pledge to spend up to $10 million in personal money, Harris’ campaign against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has struggled to gain traction and credibility. The last public poll showed her trailing the first-term Senator, 59 percent to 26 percent.
Kerry Hearts Gore. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) sure seems taken with Al Gore.
In the most recent of his regular e-mail dispatches to his 2004 presidential campaign alumni, Kerry lauded Gore as “a visionary on climate change” and said, “If he had not just been elected but also had been inaugurated as President, America today would be the world’s leading advocate, not the world’s leading opponent, of climate change.”
Kerry went on to encourage his alums to not just see Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” but to “go to his web site and read more about global climate change.”
“The fight for energy independence and the reduction of greenhouse gases is one that Al and I have waged for years and I will continue to wage until it’s won,” Kerry added.
One Kerry alum who received the e-mail was struck by Kerry’s effusive praise of someone he could end up campaigning against in the very near future.
“We’re all used to be inundated with notes from politicians telling us how great they are, that they’re the first and the best, and here was someone actually praising a guy he might be running against in six months,” the former Kerry campaign aide said. “It was actually refreshing.”
The Stork Strikes Again. Another redhead has landed! GOP Rep. Adam Putnam (Redhead-Fla.), who turns a mere 32 this month, became a father for the fourth time during the July Fourth recess.
A press release from Putnam’s office blared: “Twelfth District Welcomes Newest Resident.” His wife, Melissa, gave birth to Adam Hughes Putnam Jr., on July 2. Adam Jr., who weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces, joins three sisters at home.
Speaking of Storks. Jessica Boulanger, spokeswoman for House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), gave birth to a baby girl July 5.
Avery Ruth Boulanger weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces.
“She is just perfect,” crowed the proud father, lobbyist Todd Boulanger, in an e-mail to friends.
“Jessica,” he said, “is doing great and handled the delivery like a champ.”
Congrats to the happy parents.
Lauren W. Whittington contributed to this report.
Please send your hot tips, juicy gossip or comments to hoh@rollcall.com.
Energy and Commerce Committee: Barton Holds the Line for the GOP
March 15, 12 a.m.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) knows he’s outnumbered. He knows the Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he serves as ranking member, have the ability to “slam things through” when they want to. Read Full Article
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