Chairman Marc Racicot Announces New Leadership at RNC

WASHINGTON - On a conference call today with the membership of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Chairman Marc Racicot announced his intention to step down from the RNC next month at the Committee’s annual summer meeting in New York. President Bush has asked Ed Gillespie to replace Racicot as RNC Chairman. Gillespie will serve as senior advisor to the RNC until RNC members consider the President’s recommendation in July.

“It has been my great honor to serve my Party and my President as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Due to the inclusive message of President Bush, the hard work of the RNC and the dedication of millions of Republicans nationwide, I am confident our Party looks forward to another period of growth and electoral success,” said Racicot.

Gillespie, who managed the highly regarded 2000 Republican National Convention program in Philadelphia, served as a senior communications advisor to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign in Austin and during the Florida recount. In 2002, Gillespie was general strategist for Elizabeth Dole’s Senate campaign in North Carolina, in which Dole achieved the largest margin of victory of any Senate candidate in the state in over 25 years.

Gillespie formerly served the RNC as Director of Communications and Congressional Affairs under the leadership of Chairman Haley Barbour. Prior to that, Gillespie worked for over a decade as a top aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. He is a founder and principal of the public affairs firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates.

Racicot also announced Maria Cino will return to the RNC as Deputy Chairman, replacing Jack Oliver who recently accepted a senior position with Bush-Cheney 2004, Inc. Cino served as National Political Director for Bush for President in Austin, Texas and then Deputy Chairman for Political and Congressional Relations at the RNC leading up to the 2000 election. Cino leaves her current position at the US Department of Commerce where she is the Assistant Secretary and Director General of US and Foreign Commercial Service. Cino’s experience also includes her work as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the National Republican Congressional Committee during Republicans' historic return to the majority in 1994.

Additionally, the RNC announced that Christine Iverson has been named the RNC's Press Secretary for the 2004 campaign cycle. A former television news reporter, Iverson served as Communications Director for John Thune's 2002 Senate campaign. Previously, she was Communications Director for the House Republican Conference under Conference Chairman J.C. Watts and has most recently served as Communications Director of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Gillespie Named GOP National Chairman

By WILL LESTER
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican National Committee named Washington lobbyist and GOP strategist Ed Gillespie as its national chairman Monday to replace Marc Racicot, who will head the re-election effort for President Bush, said Republican officials.

Gillespie, 41, was a general strategist for Elizabeth Dole's successful Senate campaign in 2002 and served as a senior communications adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 - a major step up from his first GOP job in which he worked the party's phone banks.

A partner in the lobbying firm Quinn, Gillespie & Associates, Republican officials said Gillespie will not lobby, nor engage in any policy discussion with clients of his lobbying firm. He will forgo his salary, but he is not divesting his ownership stake in the company.

Racicot came under criticism when he was named RNC chairman in December 2001 because he would not agree to stop doing business with his lobbying firm, Bracewell & Patterson. He promised to be cautious about doing any work that could put the White House or the RNC in an awkward situation.

In the 1990s, Gillespie was a communications director for the RNC and a spokesman for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. Gillespie also worked closely with former RNC chairman Haley Barbour as a political consultant and a lobbyist.

Racicot, a former governor of Montana, moves to the campaign to re-elect Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. During his tenure as RNC chairman, the party regained control of the Senate in the 2002 midterm elections and improved its numbers in the House, bucking the historical trends that typically work against the party occupying the White House. The RNC used a strong get-out-the-vote effort with an emphasis on grass-roots contact with voters.

``The American people have come to know George Bush as a person and a leader, and we'll make that case - that he has been effective and honest and a very important force in a very troubled world,'' Racicot told The Associated Press during an interview Friday at the RNC's Capitol Hill headquarters.

Bush has asked Gillespie to serve as chairman, but his appointment won't be official until the full RNC votes at its summer meeting in New York in July.

The RNC also named Maria Cino to be its deputy chairman, replacing Jack Oliver who went to the Bush-Cheney campaign last month, and chose Christine Iverson as press secretary. Cino was national political director in the early stages of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and worked at the RNC and the Commerce Department. Iverson was spokeswoman for Republican John Thune, who failed to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson in last year's Senate race in South Dakota.

Associated Press Writer Jack Sullivan contributed to this report.

06/16/03 11:51 EDT

Racicot has been singularly ineffective.

Gosh. If only Dubya had been smart enough to check with you first, sauropod. Well, now I guess all of us who support Dubya can just give up on politics like you do.

I don't know how much of the responsibility go to Racicot, but he has over seen the Republican Party during a time when we took back the Presidency from a popular President's VP. Won back-to-back majorities in the Senate and House in 00 and 02. Raised more money for candidates than ever before...DAYUM I wish I was that ineffective. I have no idea what a...man like you would consider success.

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