{"id":3053,"date":"2004-11-19T09:57:47","date_gmt":"2004-11-19T14:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3053.html"},"modified":"2004-11-19T09:57:47","modified_gmt":"2004-11-19T14:57:47","slug":"ben-nelson-rejects-karl-roves-overtures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ben-nelson-rejects-karl-roves-overtures\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Nelson rejects Karl Rove&#8217;s overtures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Looks like the White House will have to find themselves <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/cs\/CDA\/ssistory.mpl\/nation\/2908527\">a different token Dem<\/a> for Bush&#8217;s cabinet.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has turned down a Bush administration offer to become secretary of the Department of Agriculture, congressional sources said Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>The Bush administration is seeking a new agriculture secretary after Ann Veneman announced Monday that she was stepping down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just as well. As I mentioned yesterday, Nebraska&#8217;s governor, Mike Johanns, is a Republican who would have named Nelson&#8217;s successor.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly enough, at least one relevant source believes Nelson was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omaha.com\/index.php?u_pg=54&#038;u_sid=1262868\">never really under consideration<\/a> for the post.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nebraska&#8217;s other senator, Republican Chuck Hagel, said Thursday that he doubted whether Nelson ever was under serious consideration, and a second congressional source said no formal job offer had been extended to the Democrat.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Hagel said that after he and an aide spoke with White House officials both days, he didn&#8217;t think Nelson was under serious consideration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe this was a trial balloon to help Bush appear moderate; maybe Nelson leaked the possibility as a way of boosting his profile. Either way, if Karl Rove is looking for a Dem for Bush&#8217;s cabinet, he&#8217;ll have to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looks like the White House will have to find themselves a different token Dem for Bush&#8217;s cabinet. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has turned down a Bush administration offer to become secretary of the Department of Agriculture, congressional sources said Thursday. The Bush administration is seeking a new agriculture secretary after Ann Veneman announced Monday that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}