Cape Politics

Seashore Park Chair helping Mitt leave town

Our own Ron Kaufman is on the move again 

The chair of the Cape Cod National Seashore Park Advisory Committee, Ron Kaufam, is helping our occasional Governor in his quest to follow George Bush at the White House. Mr. Kaufman is a lobbyist with close ties to the Bush administration, and he took control of the CCNSP Advisory Commission a year ago March, despite opposition from the Cape Cod environmental community and park supporters.

Romney's activites last week in the Republican Governors Association conference in Carlsbad CA where he took over the chair provide a glimpse of just how vast his political network is.  According to today's Globe, "Consider the new staff leadership of the governors' group. Romney's new executive director is Philip A. Musser, a former senior official in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development who has worked for the Republican National Committee, the Bush-Cheney reelection team, and Senator Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996. Musser's new political director is Gentry Collins, a specialist in Iowa politics who played a key role in President Bush's victory there in 2004. 

"Musser hails from the same lobbying firm, Dutko Worldwide, as Ron Kaufman, the Republican national committeeman from Massachusetts with considerable ties to the GOP establishment in Washington. Kaufman seemed to know just about every mover and shaker at the conference. He halted one group's conversation last week just by walking into the room, when someone said, ''Hey everybody, it's Ron Kaufman!'"

According to Ron Kaufman, Bush won the White House because Americans loved "Ozzie and Harriet….We really did. People want Little House on the Prairie to be real, and the Bushes represent that." 

Hey, he used to fly over Cape Cod on his way to Nantucket 

The former superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore had serious concerns about the recent appointment of Republican lobbyist Ron Kaufman to head the park’s advisory commission. "What appears to be a blatantly political appointment is in my view totally inconsistent with the purpose of the commission and clearly in conflict with the historical approach," said Andy Ringgold, superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore from November, 1989 to April, 1995. When Kaufman's appointment was announced he was quoted when asked whether he had ever visited the cape and said that he had often seen it from the helicopter on flights to Nantucket, presumedly a much more GOP-friendly vacation destination.

Mega-lobbyist Ron Kaufman made a big connection when he married the sister of ex-lobbyist Andy Card, who became the present President Bush’s chief of staff. Both men are both from Holbrook MA. After Kaufman directed the campaign of the first President Bush, that president appointed him deputy White House personnel director.

In this role, Kaufman recruited the first chair of the Indian Gaming Commission. That agency regulated the casino plans of the Pequot Wampanoag Tribe, which later hired Kaufman to lobby (the Pequot got their casino and still retain Kaufman). Kaufman is an “informal advisor” to the second President Bush and was appointed co-chair of the 2004 Republican National Convention Site Selection Committee. Kaufman is also a former finance chair of the Republican Governor’s Association where Romney is at play today.

At Dutko Group Kaufman reported that 52 clients paid him more than $2.7 million in 2002. His four largest clients were Tufts University, the Michigan Biotechnology Institute, construction giant HNTB Companies and the American Herbal Products Association’s Ephedra Committee. Ephedra is a stimulant used in herbal weight-loss and performance-boosting remedies that have been linked to psychosis, strokes, heart attacks and deaths.

The Dutko site describes Ron Kaufman thus: "Since joining the Dutko team in 1994, Ron has helped lead the firm’s federal practice while also launching the firm’s innovative state and local government affairs practice, Kaufman*Nelson*Pattee (KNP), now Dutko State and Local. Under his leadership, Dutko became the only firm in Washington capable of offering clients a 50 state public affairs strategy – especially important at a time when decision-making was moving from the federal government to the states. Currently, Ron is actively involved in establishing Dutko’s overseas operations: Dutko Global Advisors.

In addition to his duties at Dutko Worldwide, Ron is the Republican National Committeeman for Massachusetts, serves as Chair of the RNC Budget committee, and as a member of the Rules Committee, Executive Committee, and Convention Site Selection Committee. He is also active with the Republican Governor’s Association, where he is the Co-Chair of the Finance Committee. Ron continues to serve as an advisor to former President Bush."

That's quite a resume for a Cape Cod Advisory Committee Chairman, but there has been no suggestion that if our local Native Americans get federal recognition Mr. Kaufman will help them put a casino in the Cape Cod National Seashore Park. The Globe had a kewl take on Mitt & Ron here.