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Enron Mail |
Last night I attended the National Republican Senatorial Committee's
reception at Senator Frist's home in DC. (Frist is the NRSC chairman this cycle.) Enron, including Jeff and Linda, had been invited to the reception, the purpose of which was to introduce ex-RNC chairman Haley Barbour as the NRSC's National Finance Chairman. Present were over a dozen Republican senators, including Minority Leader Lott, Whip Nickles, and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Bunning (KY), Fitzgerald (IL), Cochran (MS), Inhofe (OK), Bond (MO), Crapo (ID), Voinovich (OH), Allen (VA), and Chafee (RI). The "news" from our perspective is that Haley Barbour singled out Ken Lay for praise as the first person to step to the plate and agree to help with their new "Majority Makers" program. This is the effort that Barbour will head up to raise $21 million for this election cycle by concentrating on events outside DC that would target businesses and business leaders without a DC presence. Barbour said that Ken had agreed to organize and chair a Houston fundraiser to raise $1 million toward the $21 million total. Ken was the first name he mentioned. The only others were the DeVos family in Michigan and Julie Finley, a major GOP fundraiser based in DC. Needless to say, I was suddenly quite "popular" after Haley made his remarks to the assembled group. Haley said he looked forward to working with us on this project. As you know from a previous e-mail, Pat Shortridge had earlier seen our mutual friend Mitch Bainwol, the executive director of the NRSC, who had told Pat at lunch last week that Haley had spoken with Ken, but last night was the first I had heard a dollar figure -- and a big one at that -- linked to the effort. While it was not stated, I assume from the location and size of the event's goal that the President would be involved (but this is only an educated assumption on my part). Later I saw Karen Hughes of the White House staff, but I do not think she was present when Haley made his comments.
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