Gephardt: the Kevin Bacon of Obama’s campaign
Former U.S. Rep. and Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-St. Louis County, endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president and campaigned heartily for her.
But as the Politico web publication underscores, rival — and apparent Democratic nominee — Barack Obama has a Gephardt legacy as well.
Many of O’s staffers got their start working for the Redhead from the South Side.


From the Missouri Political News Service:
Quote[s] of the Day: Lobbyist Gephardt Not Following Dem Talking Points on Energy
We told you last week how “Tricky” Dick Gephardt (son of a milk truck driver!) is now a corporate lobbyist who advocates vociferously for “clean coal technology. We guess Dick doesn’t get the Democrat talking points anymore, or he simply ignores them in favor of his new corporate masters. Here are some choice quotes from Dick’s speech:
“There is never going to be a day when we do not need oil in this country. The question is: How much and can you replace some of that oil through domestic sources of energy? And, the answer is yes, we can, and we can do it and solve global warming at the same time.”
“The first thing we need to do is deal with the facts. Sometimes when we talk about energy we go off on some wild tangent and someone will say, ‘Well if we just put wind mills everywhere we would not have to worry about any of this.’ Well that would be great if it was true, but it just is not true.”
“Then somebody says, ‘Well let’s get bigger solar panels and that will solve the problem.’ Well, it isn’t true. Can we make strides in solar? Absolutely and we are doing that, but that is not the answer to the problem. The truth is to meet our energy needs, which are growing by the minute, we’ve got to have coal and we’ve got to have nuclear.”
“We will never solve the global warming issue just in the United States. We are a little bitty country in a great big world.”
http://mopns.com/2008/07/23/quotes-of-the-day-lobbyist-gephardt-not-following-dem-talking-points-on-energy/