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MISSOURI REPUBLICANS KEEP KEY RNC POSTS
The following piece by Jon Sawyer appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
on Thursday, December 6, 2001.
WASHINGTON - The Republican National Committee is getting
a new name at the top but for Missouri Republicans, anxiously anticipating
next year's elections, what counts is that a couple of savvy Missourians
remain at the party's front and center.
President George W. Bush made official Wednesday what had been rumored for
days - that he has chosen former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot as his choice
to succeed Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore as GOP chairman.
Missouri state chairwoman Ann Wagner was with Bush and Racicot at the Oval
Office, and she will continue in her current position as the party's co-chairwoman.
Also staying on: the party's vice chairman and day-to-day manager, fellow
Missourian Jack Oliver.
"It was an awesome setting, a wonderful moment, an awesome president," Wagner
said in an interview later Wednesday. "I am grateful for his support and
very enthusiastic about the nomination of Governor Racicot."
Oliver came to the RNC after serving as Bush's finance chairman during last
year's campaign and earlier stints working in the campaigns of Attorney General
John Ashcroft and Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.
"You'll find that Governor Racicot is a Bush team player," Oliver said. "He
understands how the Bush team works, he's a very articulate spokesperson
and he understands the importance of speaking and traveling all across the
country to spread the president's message."
Wagner said she did not think it would be a liability that Racicot comes
from a thinly populated and relatively homogeneous part of the country. She
also brushed aside questions about the propriety of Racicot combining the
chairmanship with a lucrative practice in energy law that has included clients
like newly bankrupt Enron Corp.
"I don't think anyone should be barred from serving as party chair just because
they work for a living," Wagner said.
Oliver said the new lineup at the top of the party carries a special message
for voters back home.
"It says that Missouri will again be a target swing state for the Republican
Party as we try to take back the Senate and to take over the Missouri House
of Representatives," he said.
John Hancock, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said,
"This speaks volumes about the importance of our home state in national politics."
Hancock called former Rep. Jim Talent's pending challenge to Sen. Jean Carnahan,
D-Mo., "arguably the most competitive Senate race in the country" and said
that after redistricting, party control of both chambers of the Missouri
Legislature is up for grabs.
State House Minority Leader Catherine Hanaway, R-Warson Woods, said she believes
Wagner will continue the emphasis on outreach to women that has marked her
first year in the national party but that she will take on additional responsibilities
as well - among them reaching out to Catholics and other constituent groups.
"She's also likely to be more a part of the senior management team," Hanaway
said.
Wagner and Oliver both insisted that Gilmore had resigned for purely personal
reasons, brushing aside widespread reports that Bush and political director
Karl Rove had been disenchanted by Gilmore's reluctance to follow White House
directives.
Wagner said Gilmore's resignation Friday came as a complete surprise. She
was about to leave for Taiwan with a group of Republican Party activists,
she said, and ended up coming to Washington instead.
The change in Wagner's whereabouts didn't get communicated to the 600 Republican
women activists who attended a luncheon Tuesday for Talent at the Radisson
Hotel Clayton.
Wagner spoke to the group by videotape, explaining that she could not attend
in person because she was in Taiwan.
"I was supposed to be in Taiwan," Wagner said of the mixup.