Newsweek: Hillary Clinton to Crowd at Fund-Raiser in Los Angeles: Bush Was 'Selected' President, Not Elected; Says Bush's Machine Has Raised Far More Money to 'Ruin the Reputations of Our Candidates'

Bush Dispatching Money and Lawyers to Help with Brother Jeb's Florida Governor
Campaign; Former President Bush Got Updates from Jeb's Campaign Manager During
      Debate with Opponent Bill Mcbride, Then Relayed Them to Washington

    NEW YORK, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- At a private fund-raiser in Los Angeles
for Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
told the crowd that President Bush merely had been "selected" president, not
elected, Newsweek reports in the current issue. "You know, I'm a fan of
Clintonomics," she told the crowd while standing from a perch on the staircase
of movie producer Alan Horn's art-filled Bel Air home, "and this
administration is destroying in months our eight years of economic progress."
    (Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20021027/NYSU004 )
    Though she and her husband had raised more money than any other Democratic
political team this year, Clinton said, Bush's machine has raised far more "to
try to ruin the reputations of our candidates or, if they can't, to depress
the turnout" by making campaigns unpalatably nasty. "But, you know, you have
got to hand it to them," Clinton said with what sounded like a rueful
appreciation. "These people are ruthless and they are relentless."
    The combativeness -- and sense of familial pride -- is just as strong on
the other side of the clan war that lurks just beneath the surface of this
dreary, anxious and economically unsettled campaign season, reports Chief
Political Correspondent Howard Fineman in the November 4 issue of Newsweek (on
newsstands Monday, October 27). As this election season shows, the Clintons
and the Bushes have become the organizing principals of American politics.
    And the Bush family is gathering as one to defend Gov. Jeb Bush of
Florida, the president's embattled brother, targeted for a last-minute barrage
by the Clinton-era alumni who run the Democratic National Committee. The
president has visited a dozen times and dispatched tons of money and election
lawyers, Fineman reports. As Jeb debated Bill McBride on statewide television
last week -- C-Span showed it on tape delay -- former president George Herbert
Walker Bush, in Houston, fielded instant updates from Jeb's campaign manager,
Sally Bradshaw, in Florida. "Old 41" then relayed the battlefront bulletins to
the current President Bush, who was up at the White House helping baby brother
Marvin celebrate his birthday. They agreed to agree that "Jebbie" had won,
Fineman reports.

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SOURCE  Newsweek