WASHINGTON — Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ choice for president, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, dropped out of the 2012 contest in August, but Sanders is still at work in key primary and caucus states.
Sanders, daughter of 2008 presidential contender andformer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was one of Pawlenty’s senior political advisers. Time named her one of the “rising stars of American politics” in 2010.
Now, she’s been hired as campaign manager for the ONE Vote 2012 Campaign.
ONE is a nonprofit group, co-founded by U2’s Bono, that fights to end extreme poverty and to eradicate preventable diseases.
Sanders knows a thing or two about winning elections. She was campaign manager for John Boozman during the Arkansan’s successful 2010 U.S. Senate bid, and she helped her father win the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
The Hawkeye State remains on her radar.
She said in an e-mail that she will be overseeing all of the ONE field teams in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and possibly Florida, “as well as working with Presidential campaigns to educate them and make them aware of the foreign aid that is good and helpful to our country as well as others,” Sanders said in an e-mail. “Our biggest focusis on importance of fighting global poverty and disease, framing it in part as a national security issue, as well as a moral issue. We will be launching a new ONE vote website on Nov. 1st with the launch of the ONE Vote 2012 Campaign.”
Eye doctor John Boozman is a member of what’s been called“the world’s most exclusive club” - the U.S. Senate - but he’s also keeping abreast of the latest developments in the world of optometry.
The Rogers Republican traveled to Hot Springs, where the Arkansas Optometric Association was meeting last week, to take continuing-education classes so that he remains an optometrist in good standing.
Among the classes offered - “Current Controversies in Cataract Surgery.”
Arkansas optometrists are required to take 20 hours of continuing-education courses per year.
Boozman, who had a successful practice in Northwest Arkansas before heading to Congress, was recently named 2011 American Optometrist Association Optometrist of the Year, and Capitol Hill colleagues sometimes seek his advice when their eyes are acting up.
When Congress delves into agriculture policy next spring during debate on the farm bill, Arkansas’ Rep. Rick Crawford, a Republican, hopes rice has a seat at the table.
Crawford and Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California on Thursday convened the first meeting of the House Rice Caucus.
“With a new Farm Bill being written next year, I wanted to gather together representatives from other rice-producing districts to ensure the longterm viability of rice growing in American,” said Jonesboro’s Crawford, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee.
Farmers in Crawford’s congressional district produce more rice than in any other area in the country, according to the USA Rice Federation.
Two of Arkansas’ other House members, Republican Tim Griffin and Democrat Mike Ross, also are members. Arkansas’ Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican, has not joined, according to a release from Crawford’s office.
A bill filed Thursday by Ross, called The Strengthening Community Safety Act, would make grants available to communities to fill in the gap while full-time members of local police forces and fire departments are deployed as members of the National Guard or Reserves.
Ross’ bill would create a three-year program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that would reimburse localities that saw a 5 percent or greater increase in training, overtime and equipment expenses as a result of a first responder being deployed.
“We should never hesitate to hire National Guard members or Reservists because their deployment might cost our community more money,” Ross said.
Arkansas’ Sen. Mark Pryor, also a Democrat, has introduced similar legislation in the Senate.
As members of Congress headed back to their districts for the weekend, former President Bill Clinton paid a visit Friday to the nation’s capital, where he was the keynote speaker at a George Washington University event that celebrated the nation’s economic performance during the 1990s.
According to The Hill, a Washington trade paper, several veterans from the Clinton administration were expected to attend, including Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary; Erskine Bowles, Clinton’s former Chief of Staff; Gene Sperling, who was then and is now the director of theNational Economic Council; and former Democratic Rep. Marjorie Margolies of Pennsylvania, who lost her seat after she cast the deciding vote to approve Clinton’s 1993 budget. Margolies is now Chelsea Clinton’s mother-in-law.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 10/30/2011