THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS BATTLE FOR CAPITOL HILL

Today's Roll Call has an unintentionally funny piece on McCain and Romney battling it out for support among the GOP House caucus. (Knowing that only 13% of Republicans in Congress believe in Global Warming, it's scary to be soliciting support from this group in a serious way to begin with.) But that's the way the game is played.


A couple weeks ago, Romney announced that Louisiana closet queen Jim McCrery would be his whip-master in the House. McCrery has been able to round up nearly 2 dozen Republicans to support Romney and they're not all in the closet or even gay. They represent all segments of the kooky and fanatic subset of humanity that is the GOP House caucus. From Florida, for example, comes one of the best examples of Republican corruption still neither in prison or indicted, Tom Feeney, as well as living proof that it doesn't take a 3 digit IQ to be a congressmember, Ginny Brown-Waite. McCrery announced that the Republicans now on board would have the honor of being Romney's "initial whip team... We’ll be utilizing these 22 Members to bolster support for Romney here on Capitol Hill," he said. The newest members of the Whip Team are Rodney Alexander (LA), John Linder (GA), Ralph Regula (OH), Bill Shuster (PA) and Mike Simpson (ID).


According to Roll Call "Romney has been most apparent in his efforts to reach out to Capitol Hill, due in part to his need to counter McCain’s natural advantages there and the Arizonan’s status as the frontrunner. Romney also is working to quell concerns among social conservatives about the evolution of his views on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. [McCrery initiated a sham marriage with his secretary after he was revealed that the homophobic congressman likes rolling in the hay with young men. I guess that's not gay marriage.] Romney was well-received at the Republican Study Committee’s retreat Friday in Baltimore, where he addressed House conservatives. 'He has adequately addressed those issues in the private meetings,' McCrery said, adding that the whip team will be spreading that message to their colleagues who have not had personal meetings with Romney... 'We’re happy with his explanation of where he is now on those issues,' McCrery said." Not all the homophobes who make up a good portion of the GOP base were satisfied by McCrery's assurances, although another high profile closet queen, disgraced former Speaker Denny Hastert, is also one of Romney's whip girls.

Meanwhile McCain is striking back-- with Cubans. After announcing his six-person House whip team last week, he proudly announced the support of three Cuban-American Members, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, as well as another right-wing nutcase from Florida, Ric Kelly from DisneyWorld.

Despite being generally hated within the GOP Senate caucus, McCain has more support there than Romney-- perhaps because the senators would so love to be rid of the egomaniacal diva who has never understood being part of a team and is always out for himself. But his House team also includes many veteran lawmakers-- although few are self-respecting far right firebrands. Romney's got some of the real loons like Jack Kingston (GA), Marsha Blackburn (TN), and Mike Rogers (AL).

There are also 4 Republican congressmen supporting Giuliani.