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Erskine Bowles and the Politics of Anti-Personality
The New Republic ^ | 09.09.02 | Jason Zengerle

Posted on 09/11/2002 9:54:35 AM PDT by callisto

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1 posted on 09/11/2002 9:54:35 AM PDT by callisto
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To: mykdsmom; Constitution Day
With primaries so late this year it's never too early to brush up on the competetion.
2 posted on 09/11/2002 9:56:15 AM PDT by callisto
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To: callisto
After reading this article with it's painfully accurate picture of Bowles, I have a suggestion for the DNC for their 2004 "DreamTeam" ------ Gore & Bowles!!! Wouldn't they be a dynamite duo???
3 posted on 09/11/2002 10:11:06 AM PDT by Elkiejg
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To: callisto
Although the 57-year-old Democrat has never held elected office, he spent much of the 1990s in Washington as a member of the Clinton administration

Automatic disqualification.

4 posted on 09/11/2002 10:20:22 AM PDT by What Is Ain't
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To: callisto
Bowles is toast. He just doesn't know it yet.
5 posted on 09/11/2002 10:25:50 AM PDT by Windom Earle
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To: callisto
Bowles is just like Bob Smith...They're both DORKS!
6 posted on 09/11/2002 10:28:40 AM PDT by Johnny Shear
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To: callisto; Tony in Hawaii
Thanks! I will hit the ping list.

BOWLES BLOWES!

7 posted on 09/11/2002 10:29:00 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: Elkiejg
Gore-Bowles: that sounds really appetizing, doesn't it?
8 posted on 09/11/2002 10:30:47 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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To: *Old_North_State; **North_Carolina; mykdsmom; Lee'sGhost; KOZ.; borntodiefree; azhenfud; ...
IRKSOME BOWELS Ping!

Please FRmail me if you want on or off my NC ping list.


9 posted on 09/11/2002 10:32:00 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: Constitution Day; Elkiejg; Windom Earle
>I>IRKSOME BOWELS

LOL! 2004 "DreamTeam" ------ Gore & Bowles!!!

Elkiejg...The Republicans could never get so lucky as to have the DNC pick that team of contenders!

Bowles is toast. He just doesn't know it yet.

Here's a MEGA BUMP towards the day of his realization of that fact, Windom!

And Erskine, please keep wearing those dorky glasses!!

10 posted on 09/11/2002 10:37:39 AM PDT by callisto
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To: Constitution Day
Hi CD-
I will probably get lambasted for saying this....but-

You know, after reading this article and talking to several people, Bowles would probably be the best Senator for NC as far as getting things done for NC, etc. Unfortunately, we have to ignore local (NC) needs in favor of National interests and vote for Dole since she will line up with Bush instead of Daschle.

Not a great reason to vote for her but I guess we have to....
11 posted on 09/11/2002 11:02:24 AM PDT by Cottonbay
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To: Cottonbay
Are you kidding? Bowles best for NC. The would be (the jobs senator) senator whose family business (Springs Idustries)just closed another plant and moved it to Mexico and laid off the 350 workers who I am sure would agree he would look out for NC.

A joke; Right?

12 posted on 09/11/2002 11:23:35 AM PDT by captnorb
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To: All
From the Winston-Salem Journal:

Bowles, Dole are nominees in high-profile Senate race

Though Bowles has never run for political office, he gained the backing of Democratic leaders, including former Gov. Jim Hunt. He also won endorsements from the state AFL-CIO, 50 mayors and environmental groups.

"Bowles served on the board of a drug company where questions of accounting practices emerged and was a partner in a firm that made two failed investments that prompted Connecticut to sue over losses to its state pension fund.

Blue and Marshall also blamed Bowles for heavy job losses in the state's textile industry because he once supported the North American Free Trade Agreement."

"Bowles accepted the offer to debate [Dole], but he said he still wants to run "issue ads." He said he wants to sit down with Dole in person Thursday to work out the details, and possibly hold the first debate next week."


13 posted on 09/11/2002 11:26:46 AM PDT by callisto
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To: Cottonbay
after reading this article and talking to several people, Bowles would probably be the best Senator for NC

Cottonbay, have you been talking to local Democrats lately? :)

Just remember, Bowles comes from Greensboro so you will probably hear more good (term used lightly) things about him here than elsewhere.

14 posted on 09/11/2002 11:29:18 AM PDT by callisto
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To: callisto
How come we never read that Dole is running against multimillionaire businessman Erskin Bowles? How did he accumulate such wealth? I this some freepers should investigate.
15 posted on 09/11/2002 11:38:54 AM PDT by CPT Clay
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To: Cottonbay
Bowels is twice the womanizing slime ball clintoon is, and about as good a liar as Edwards is. NC should be proud these folks wish to lie for us.
16 posted on 09/11/2002 11:58:57 AM PDT by boomop1
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To: CPT Clay
How come we never read that Dole is running against multimillionaire businessman Erskin Bowles? How did he accumulate such wealth? I this some freepers should investigate.

Case file #1:

Bowles’s Good "Luck": Dems spare U.S. Senate candidate from an embarrassing lawsuit.

"Bowles doesn't consider himself responsible for helping to destroy over $100 million in pension money for state workers in Connecticut. He says that he was only "there part-time on and off for a couple of years." Bowles continues his defense by noting that "over a 20-year period" — when Bowles was not a Forstmann Little partner — "[Forstmann Little] had a return of their investment of over 35 percent." In other words, he embraces the period when he wasn't a partner, but dismisses the time span during which he was one.

But Bowles's salary alone belies his claims that he was a part-timer: $4.3 million per year.

By all accounts, Bowles was seen as an asset to the firm, someone who had extensive experience with higher-risk/higher-return investments, a model that Forstmann Little had largely eschewed for most of its history."

17 posted on 09/11/2002 12:05:26 PM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: Constitution Day; All
A little background research on Bowles and his beliefs.

Not your Business as Usual Conference

One of North Carolina's most successful investors, Bowles is former Managing Director of Carousel Capital in Charlotte and former General Partner of New York equity firm Forstmann Little. Additionally, Bowles has a long record of service to North Carolina and the Nation, serving as head of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt's Rural Prosperity Task Force, chief of staff to President Clinton and as the former head of the Small Business Administration.

Bowles majored in business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following graduation in 1967, he served in the Coast Guard reserves and then enrolled in Columbia Business School, earning his MBA in 1969. Immediately after business school, Erskine went to work for Morgan Stanley & Co.'s corporate finance group in New York.

In 1973, Erskine was named vice-president of corporate finance at Interstate Securities in Charlotte. Two years later, he founded the firm that would become Bowles Hollowell Conner, one of the country's leading investment banking firms specializing in middle market transactions.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton asked Bowles to head the Small Business Administration. Bowles reorganized the agency and significantly increased the number of loans awarded to businesses owned by minorities and women. He also reduced the agency's basic loan application from a one-inch thick document to just one page.

Bowles served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the president from October 1994 to December 1995. One of his chief responsibilities was the coordination of the government's response to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Bowles returned to Charlotte in 1996 and helped found the merchant bank Carousel Capital. But in December of that year, President Clinton asked him to return to Washington to serve as his Chief of Staff.

In this position, Bowles helped negotiate the first balanced federal budget in nearly 30 years while protecting such Democratic priorities as Social Security and pushing through President Clinton's proposal to hire 100,000 new teachers and to provide health insurance for millions of uninsured poor children.

In November 1998, Bowles resigned as chief of staff, returned to Charlotte and resumed his responsibilities as managing director of Carousel Capital. In January 1999, Bowles also became a general partner in the New York equity firm Forstmann Little. That same year, Bowles was also asked by North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt to head a Rural Economic Prosperity Task Force to study the economic conditions of rural North Carolina. After holding hearings around the state, the task force recommended several proposals to bring affordable high-speed Internet access to rural communities and businesses; and to create a rural redevelopment authority to provide equity funds to help rural businesses grow and create jobs. All five of the task force's proposals are now being implemented.

Remarks by the President and Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles

Bowles comments regarding the Tobacco Industry

"MR. BOWLES: Sam, I'd be delighted to forego my vacation. As a matter of fact, seriously, I talked to Senator Lott today, and I told Senator Lott that we would be here in the month of August, that we would be here in the month of October, and we were prepared to move forward with this bill and continue to fight at every step of the process."

Q Well, what do you say, Mr. Bowles, to those who say there was a $350 billion deal that the state attorneys general made, and that in the process of getting legislation you added on another $150 billion which made it simply intolerable to the tobacco industry?

MR. BOWLES: I think that's incorrect. I think what we did was make this bill have a higher probability of doing something about stopping teenage smoking. Every study I've seen has shown that you need at least $1.10 increase in the price of tobacco in order to do something serious about stopping kids from smoking. So this bill that we had had full FDA authority in there; it had $1.10 increase in the price of tobacco; it had the right kinds of things in there to stop marketing to kids; and it had the right things in there to lessen the chance that kids would have access to tobacco. So it had the kinds of things that we felt were important.

Q Is this an indication, sir, that the President may have lost some clout with Congress because of his legal and personal problems?

MR. BOWLES: I don't see how.

Bowles speaking on "soft money" campaign contributuions:

Bowles, in a recent interview, said he backs the reform measure but could not abide by any new restrictions until they become law. "I just don't want to fight with one arm tied behind my back," said Bowles, a former chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

His joint account with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has changed names several times and now is called the North Carolina Victory Fund. It pulled in $66,000 through March 31, according to reports with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

Included in that amount were several big contributions. Philadelphia education consultant Peter Buttenwieser gave $10,000, as did Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television. Both are heavy Democratic backers.

If they had written a check to Bowles' regular campaign, the donors would have been limited to $2,000 -- the maximum permitted per election cycle.

White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles Speaks On Tobacco Legislation

At the same time, multimillion-dollar marketing and advertising campaigns have been designed to get our kids to light their first cigarette. I believe that is an outrage.

As chief of staff of this administration, I can tell you that protecting our children from the threat of tobacco is right at the top of President Clinton's agenda....This is a matter of priorities. It is not a matter of politics.

We also anticipate seeing some gaps in the bill. The McCain bill does not try to comprehensively address the questions of how best to use tobacco revenues to protect the public health and to help our children.

A CHAT WITH DEPARTING WHITE HOUSE STAFF CHIEF ERSKINE BOWLES

For much of 1998, he has worked to keep the White House functioning smoothly amid the distractions of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Q: You lament your inability to renew the Presidential fast-track trade negotiating authority. What happened?

A: I made a mistake there. I so believed in the benefits of free trade that it was inconceivable to me that the opponents could mount a jihad against it and make this one vote the only vote that mattered. That was a misjudgment I regret. Had I understood the extent of the opposition, I would have gone for half a loaf instead of the whole thing.

Q: So what's the future of trade liberalization now?

A: It's good, but some things will have to be done in order for fast-track-type legislation to pass. First, the business community is going to have to do more in terms of educating the public and their workers about the benefits of opening up markets and bringing down trade barriers. They have also got to be more flexible in the areas of [accepting] labor and environmental [side agreements]. If you have some compromise that's not too extreme, then I think you could pass bipartisan legislation.

Q: Can you achieve Social Security reform next year given the partisan divisions in Congress?

A: If [Republicans] are going to spend their whole time investigating, investigating, investigating, you can take the probability of all those things happening and diminish it.

Erskine Bowles Flunks Economics
This article is worthy of a complete read, itself.
18 posted on 09/11/2002 12:41:09 PM PDT by callisto
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To: boomop1; captnorb; callisto
First, let me say that now I believe we have no choice but to vote for Dole. Personally, I voted for Snyder yesterday just because I was mad at the way our National Party picked Dole before our primary. We are big supporters of the RNC and Bush but we have not made any contributions since they "annointed" Mrs. Dole. We anticipate doing so now...

My point was that Bowles certainly knows about the problems and issues in our state. He also knows most of the people in the state who make decisions. Mrs. Dole just moved here and has not been able to learn everything about NC that Bowles knows. If Bowles were a Republican (he does hold some decent views that we would all agree with) NC would be better served locally, without sacrificing the Republican national agenda.

My real gripe is that the no conservative Republicans in NC, from NC, would step up (and/or be able to attract the necessary funding) to run an effective campaign. All of the potential firepower from RNC was directed to Mrs. Dole- too early in my opinion.

I will now support Mrs. Dole. I have met her in person once and talked to her on the phone several times. She is perfectly nice and I recognize that we HAVE to support her because she will help the Republicans on the national level.

Callisto- I was actually talking to quite a few Republicans- from Greensboro and Charlotte who reluctantly (and honestly) share this view.

Captnorb- In fairness, I am not sure that Bowles has anything to do with his wife's family company. I don't even think he is on the Board of Director's. That Board has to make the best decisions for the survival of Springs Industries and their Shareholders- that is capitalism. The reason those particular people are being laid off is the Bankruptcy of Burlington Industries.

I am not saying Bowles is without fault. In fact, I believe it was HIGHLY HYPOCRITICAL for him to resign his memberships in several elite clubs (some of which presumably have no women, black, and/or Jewish members) weeks before he announced his intentions to run.

However, when all is said in done, we have no real choice- GO DOLE!!
19 posted on 09/12/2002 7:19:00 AM PDT by Cottonbay
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To: Congressman Billybob
An NC politics ping.
20 posted on 09/12/2002 7:34:44 AM PDT by okie01
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