National Journal articles from July 2000

National Journal archives from July 2000

OOPS: THERE'S MUCH, MUCH MORE GORE AND RENO.
July 1, 2000... My column of June 24, embarrassingly headlined "Why We Should All Be Grateful to Janet Reno," seems to have been overtaken by events. It commended the Attorney General for having twice (in late 1997 and again in late 1998) spurned subordinates'...

ADVENTURES IN TECHNOLOGY: WHAT'S HOT AND WHAT'S NOT.
July 1, 2000... Internet mania is fading. I can vouch for this. Until recently, the standard response to my meekly skeptical views on whether the World Wide Web really does constitute a new industrial revolution was instant derision. These days people are...

We, the Mob.(online voting)
July 1, 2000... Just as the experiment in democracy called the United States of America was getting under way, the state of Pennsylvania practiced a particularly impassioned version. Whenever the unicameral legislature (created to avoid an aristocratic upper...

Ballot Boxing.(initiatives)
July 1, 2000... BALLOT INITIATIVES TO BYPASS GRIDLOCKED LAWMAKERS ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY POPULAR. BUT TO DAVID BRODER & CO., PLEBISCITES SUBVERT THE ROLE OF LEGISLATORS AS DEMOCRACY'S TRUE TRAFFIC COPS. If you're looking for an interesting place to...

Cast Away.(ballot initiatives)
July 1, 2000... THE GATHERERS ARE COLLECTING SIGNATURES, AND THE HUNTERS ARE LOOKING FOR MEAT, AS BALLOT INITIATIVES ON EVERYTHING FROM POT SMOKING TO BOBCAT SNARING WILL BE PUT BEFORE VOTERS THIS FALL. In the world of ballot initiatives, it appears that...

Hiding the Money.
July 1, 2000... CONGRESS IS SUDDENLY CRACKING DOWN ON SECRET POLITICAL GROUPS. BUT WILL NEW DISCLOSURE LAWS STICK? AND WILL THEY HELP? When New Jersey Republican Tom Kean Jr. decided to run for Congress this year, he anticipated that interest groups might...

NEW COX REPORT MAY TARGET GORE.
July 1, 2000... In late March, shortly before Vladimir Putin's election as Russian president, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., announced he had formed a panel of Republican lawmakers charged with the indelicate task of evaluating what went wrong in...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
July 1, 2000... House Passes Bitter Pill for Democrats After a rancorous partisan debate, the House on June 28 narrowly approved Republican legislation to provide prescription drug coverage to senior citizens. President Clinton immediately threatened a...

HOUSE-SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION.
July 1, 2000... Senate Panel Approves New Marriage Tax Bill *TAXES Republicans pushed a new bill through the Senate Finance Committee on June 28 to eliminate the so-called "marriage penalty" from the tax code. But an attempt to marry the politically...

Hot Bills.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Here is the status of major legislation on the congressional front burner: MEDICARE DRUG COVERAGE House: Approved H.R. 4680 on June 28, 217-214. Senate: Defeated a prescription drug coverage amendment to all appropriations bill on...

Hill People.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Senate Darla Silva came to Washington four years ago with a law degree and a cause--but no job. "I just thought it was someplace where I wanted to be, and I wanted to work in the area of children's issues," said Silva, who has just been...

CRACKING THE WHIP, SOFTLY.(Harry Reid, Senate minority whip)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... It's easy to underestimate Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. He's soft-spoken, low-key, and self-effacing--more plain vanilla than the typical member of the world's Greatest Deliberative Body. But Reid's nonthreatening approach is a nice fit for his role...

IN THE DIGITAL STATE, CONNECTIONS COUNT.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Electronic-government companies are trying to strike it rich on the Internet with a deceptively simple game plan: Put government services online, just one click away from the public. They're competing for contracts to provide digital government...

From the K Street Corridor.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... A Risk to Hedge Funds on Capitol Hill The Managed Funds Association represents hedge funds--those unregulated investment pools for the merely wealth and the really, really rich. Though many funds have fallen on hard times recently, the...

A CULTURE WARRIOR, ON THE ATTACK.
July 1, 2000... You would think that Janet Parshall was a nun, a certified pastor, or at the very least, a woman with an array of theology degrees. After all, during her many regular television appearances and on her daily, three-hour radio talk show, Janet...

DEFENSE THINK TANK TRIES FOR A MAKEOVER.
July 1, 2000... Bruce G. Blair knows a thing or two about doomsday scenarios. Fifteen years ago, he wrote a paper for Congress on the dangerous flaws in U.S. war plans for launching nuclear missiles in a hurry. The Pentagon concluded that Blair's paper was too...

SWING LOW, SWEET PRESS CORPS.
July 1, 2000... Over here in the press booth, we're down in the dumps. Listless, deflated, fogbound, can't sleep, no appetite. Nothing seems to help. Green tea is useless, Zoloft gives no loft. Those on the Gore-Bush beat are in the worst shape of all. The...

BRACING FOR A HARD LANDING.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Vicente Fox, the National Action Party candidate in the July 2 Mexican presidential election, is a physically imposing man. He has a patrician air lightened by the engaging manner of a naturally outgoing politician. Over dinner this spring...

THIS DONNA IS NO DIVA.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... For the moment at least, Vice President A1 Gore seems to have gotten his campaign apparatus in shape. The ascension of Commerce Secretary William M. Daley to the chairmanship of Gore's election team, a post he had previously declined, is widely...

Campaign Circuit.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... OK, Dick, What Would You Really Say? What would Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri say if Vice President A1 Gore asks him to be his running mate? Gephardt's associates insist that the House Minority Leader is focused on winning back the...

IGNORE ALL THE CHATTER ABOUT THE No. 2 SPOT.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... The speculation surrounding prospective running mates is flying fast and furious these days, yet all the guessing ignores two simple truths. First, people vote for a President, not a Vice President. President. It rarely matters who is...

Campaign Confetti.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Log on to Reform Party hopeful Pat Buchanan's Web site and a small splash screen all but screams at you. "WEST VIRGINIA PETITION EMERGENCY!" read the emblazoned phrase at the beginning of the week. On Wednesday, that gave way to "ACTION ALERT!"...

SPOT CHECK: AD OF THE WEEK.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... Democratic National Committee Produced by Democratic Victory 2000 30 seconds Cable and satellites have changed the face of televised political advertising. Gone are the days when ad gurus created campaign spots for the network news breaks...

Hotline Extra.
July 1, 2000... Studying Spanish You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: Hispanic voters are the "soccer moms" of the 2000 elections. And according to The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly, "Republicans, especially Governor Bush," think the...

HOPING FOR A 15 PERCENT SOLUTION.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2000... This year's flurry of third-party activity is causing headaches for both prospective major-party nominees. The challenges are coming from Ralph Nader, nominated by the Green Party, and Pat Buchanan, who is campaigning to become the Reform...

Poll Track.(Brief Article)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2000... Congressional Performance STATUS QUO, AND PRETTY LOW New Harris Poll numbers indicate that the public's low opinion of Congress and congressional leaders hasn't changed much in the past two years. The biggest change was in the...

White House 2000.(Brief Article)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2000... WHAT'S IN A NAME? When a generic presidential matchup question was posed in a Battleground poll for Voter.com, 46 percent of respondents chose the Republican candidate, and 42 percent went with the Democrat--a result that falls within the...

People.
July 1, 2000... Interest Groups Will new digs and a fresh face help polish the image of the U.S. Family Network? That's what the controversial nonprofit group is hoping for with its recent relocation from a private town house to the Ronald Reagan Building...

DRILLING FOR BLAME.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2000... At this point, the eventual political fallout of soaring gasoline prices is not all that clear. Not when one candidate is part of the incumbent Administration. And the other candidate used to be an oilman. Experts say there are lots of...

Uproar Testing.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... Teachers have always given tests, and kids have always complained about them. But the reactions to the new state testing systems go way beyond the usual and have become a backlash. Many of these reactions are well founded. And if we don't pay...

HOW THE `CONSERVATIVE' SUPREME COURT LEANS TO THE LIBERAL SIDE.(Statistical Data Included)
July 8, 2000... On July 2, when Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, said on NBC's Meet the Press that the current Supreme Court is "centrist-left," many a Washington journalist (among others) sniggered. Hadn't Hatch read the papers or watched any televised news...

CAN THE DEATH PENALTY BE SAVED FROM ITS SUPPORTERS?
July 8, 2000... At about 6:20 on the morning of Feb. 14, 1982, someone abducted Brenda Rucker from the Fina gas station in Ormond Beach, Fla., where she worked, raped her vaginally and anally, burned her with cigarettes, and killed her by shooting her nine...

The Ultimate Bomb Shelter.
July 8, 2000... PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PLAN FOR NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE IS DISLIKED BY BOTH THE LEFT AND RIGHT, IS STILL YEARS AWAY FROM WORKING, IF EVER, AND COULD BE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE APOLLO MOON PROGRAM. The yearning for a defensive shield to...

JOINT CHIEFS ON MISSILE DEFENSE: YES, BUT ...
July 8, 2000... THE MILITARY CHIEFS WILL SUPPORT NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT ERODE THEIR BUDGETS FOR NEW WEAPONS TO FACE THREATS THEY VIEW AS MORE IMMINENT. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of the nation's top-ranking military...

BOOTLEG A-BOMBS.
July 8, 2000... SO, IF YOU'RE A ROGUE STATE OR A TERRORIST, WHY SPEND ALL THAT MONEY ON AN ICBM WHEN YOU COULD SMUGGLE A SUITCASE NUCLEAR BOMB INTO THE UNITED STATES? The debate about defending America against nuclear attack now focuses on shooting down...

Capitol Hill's Big Dig.(Statistical Data Included)
July 8, 2000... CAN CONGRESS KEEP ITS BIGGEST BUILDING PROJECT IN DECADES, AN UNDERGROUND VISITOR CENTER, UNDER CONTROL? In 1972, Congress set aside $48 million to build some new offices for itself but apparently wasn't too wedded to that sum. By the time...

BEAM ME UP FOR THE GOP.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... The courtship of Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. by House Republican leaders might seem over, now that the offbeat Ohio Democrat, known for his "Beam Me Up" floor speeches, has declared his intentions to support J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., for...

BLOWS FOR THE HAMMER.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... TOM DELAY HAS LOST A FEW BATTLES IN RECENT WEEKS. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is generally thought to deserve his nickname, The Hammer, but lately the House majority whip has taken something of a beating himself. The last week in June,...

WHY ARE HOSPITALS ASKING FOR LESS?(Statistical Data Included)
July 8, 2000... For years, when hospitals applied to the federal government for Medicare reimbursements, many charged rates that were too high. Sometimes the excess charges were the result of fraud or abuse, or often they were simply errors. The practice is...

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT PONDERS ITS FUTURE.
July 8, 2000... RACE RELATIONS On Aug. 26, Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, and Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, will lead a march on the White House and the Capitol calling for action...

ANYONE BUT US.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... This election year, let's not just choose a new President. Let's elect a new media. After all, the incumbent media, the liberal one, is terribly unpopular. Its poll numbers are pitiful. It's not accurately reflecting the views of the American...

WHY MERGERS REQUIRE MORE HOOPSMANSHIP.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... BOTH WASHINGTON AND BRUSSELS SCREEN MORE AND MORE MERGERS. The rejection late last month by U.S. antitrust authorities and their counterparts in Europe of the multibillion-dollar takeover of Sprint Corp. by WorldCom sent a chilling signal...

STATIC OVER THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... Thanks to aggressive lobbying and a grass-roots crusade spirited by the Christian Right, religious broadcasters are poised for a victory that would allow them to continue airing only church-related programming on hundreds of public-radio and...

Justice Probes a Middleman.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... When Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, comes to the United States, James H. Giffen, a New York merchant banker and a key adviser to the oil-rich state, is invariably at his side. Last Dec. 17, for instance, Giffen arranged a...

Hotline Extra.
July 8, 2000... The Buzz About Keating George W. Bush still won't divulge which Veepstakes candidates are on his list, but there's a possibility that he might announce his pick before the Republican convention, which begins July 31. Although...

A MILITARY MESSAGE FROM NORMANDY.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... This June day is sunny and almost cloudless, with a nice breeze from the English Channel sweeping over Pointe du Hoc. But in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, the sky was overcast and the winds were bone-chilling. Then, German soldiers...

IS THAT BUSH OR CLINTON?(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... BOSTON--Both Al Gore and his Republican rival, George W. Bush, are showing once again that pols are firmly convinced there's no reward for subtlety. Gore has been trumpeting his part in revitalizing the economy with a "prosperity and progress"...

Administration.(Brief Article)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
July 8, 2000... The news that computer hard drives containing sensitive nuclear secrets were missing from a vault at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.--hard drives that later turned up stashed behind a copying machine--got...

Poll Track.(Brief Article)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
July 8, 2000... * Scandal Watch RENO'S STAND Attorney General Janet Reno said in a Senate hearing on June 27 that the facts did not justify appointing an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Al Gore's 1996 fund-raising activities....

People.
July 8, 2000... Hill People "I was here before the President, I'd just like to say," said Kenneth W. Furlough, 31, a former policy analyst and advocate for Time Warner who is now a legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla....

THE COURT STILL AMAZES AND OUTRAGES.(Brief Article)
July 8, 2000... LATE JUNE'S FLOOD OF SUPREME COURT RULINGS LEFT CONSERVATIVES CHURLISH. "The Soopreme Court follows th'iliction returns," Finley [Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley once said. Maybe not. At least, there was no evidence of any political or...

Letters.
July 15, 2000... THE MCCAFFREY BATTLE RAGES ON Barry McCaffrey's account of the Battle of Rumaila in his interview in National Journal [6/3/2000, p. 1762] unintentionally provides an effective self-condemnation. If Mr. McCaffrey's views reflect those of...

PRAYER AND CREATIONISM: MET WITH SUPREME HOSTILITY.
July 15, 2000... It may now be unconstitutional for a public school teacher or student leader to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class. Or at a football game. Or at a graduation. Or to recite the Declaration of Independence. Or to sing the national anthem....

A STRANGE TALE OF OUTRIGHT POLITICAL INVERSION.
July 15, 2000... Complaints about the convergence of Left and Right in American politics come mainly from the Left, naturally because nearly all of the shifting has been from that direction. "Convergence," a pleasantly evenhanded term, is really a euphemism for...

Merger Mania.(Statistical Data Included)
July 15, 2000... FEDERAL REGULATORS AND LAWMAKERS ARE STRUGGLING TO STAY ON TOP OF THE SURGE IN MERGERS. Washington's antitrust watchdogs are besieged. As a tidal wave of mega-mergers reshapes the country's corporate landscape, the government lawyers and...

FOR ANTITRUST LAWYERS, THE BEST OF TIMES.
July 15, 2000... Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells suffers from an embarrassment of riches. The global law firm's 120 antitrust lawyers in New York City and Washington generated an astonishing $65 million in fees in 1999, up from approximately $30 million in 1997...

THE M&A GAME'S GLOBAL FIELD.(mergers and acquisitions)
July 15, 2000... "Catch a wave, and you're sittin' on top of the world." And these days, the Beach Boys' surfer ballad is dead on at such establishments as Unilever and Bestfoods, at Vivendi and the Seagram Go., and at dozens of other corporations riding the...

AGRICULTURE: MERGERS SQUEEZE FAMILY FARMS.
July 15, 2000... It's about 75 degrees, with a slight summer breeze, and Ron Brunk has decided to take it easy in the swing that hangs from the front porch of his Eldora, Iowa, farmhouse. "It's really nice," the 66-year-old hog farmer sighs into his portable...

HEALTH CARE: AN ERA OF CONSOLIDATION.(Statistical Data Included)
July 15, 2000... Once there were Aetna, Prudential Health Care, NYLCare Health Plans, and U.S. Healthcare. Then there was just Aetna U.S. Healthcare. The product of a series of mergers, Aetna U.S. Healthcare is now the nation's largest health insurer, providing...

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: LOTS OF STATIC FOR THE FCC.
July 15, 2000... Imagine for a moment that you are a top executive at a huge telecommunications firm. Like so many other wheeler-dealers, you are determined to pull off a merger that would catapult your company into the upper echelon of entertainment and...

TRANSPORTATION: GIANTS ON LAND AND IN THE AIR.
July 15, 2000... It's usually one of the last things passengers hear after their plane touches down. "We realize you have a choice when selecting air carriers, and we'd like to thank you for choosing our airline." Indeed, the 1978 deregulation of the airline...

A LOW OCTANE RESPONSE FROM THE GOP.
July 15, 2000... OK, Monday morning political quarterbacks, imagine this situation: Your party --the GOP--narrowly clings to control of Congress shortly before the November elections. At the top of the ticket, the Republican presidential candidate holds a...

Hill People.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... Senate Nicole S. Bennett, a Capitol Hill denizen since 1996, is heading off to join SpeakOut.com, an "issues" Internet portal. She leaves the Democratic Steering and Coordination Committee, where she most recently served as an associate...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
July 15, 2000... Tax Cuts Gain Ground in Both Chambers Congressional Republicans enjoyed a busy and successful week on the tax relief front. By a solid 269-159 vote, the House on July 12 once again approved a "marriage penalty" relief bill. The House also...

ASKING FOR LOWER HURDLES.
July 15, 2000... If some of Washington's better-known good-government advocates have their way this fall, President Clinton may leave a legacy for his successor designed to cure some of the excesses of the appointment-and-confirmation process faced by thousands...

A NEW BREED OF MONEY MANAGERS.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... For Yellow Corp., a major trucking carrier, Washington policy-making hits home in a big way, affecting everything from vehicle emissions standards and ergonomics rules to regulations on how long truckers can drive without rest. But because...

From the K Street Corridor.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... Mexico Matters Lobbyists understand the game. Represent a foreign country, make plenty of money, and say goodbye to the client if the leaders who hired you are booted from office. Given those rules, Vicente Fox's recent victory over...

THE HOTTEST LAWYER IN TOWN.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... Patton Boggs managing partner Stuart M. Pape recognizes that when Joel I. Klein, the head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, decides to leave government, the stampede will begin. "I am hard-pressed to think of a law firm that would...

PEACE WAITS FOR A JERUSALEM ANSWER.
July 15, 2000... "For the State of Israel there has always been and always will be one capital only--Jerusalem the Eternal. Thus it was 3, 000 years ago--and thus it will be, we believe, until the end of time." --David Ben-Gurion First Israeli prime...

GENE PATENTS: JARRING, BUT LEGALLY SOUND.
July 15, 2000... The landmark announcement by private and government scientists on June 26 that they, have mapped the entire human genetic code conjures up fearful images of rapacious companies gobbling up patents on this gene or that and selling DNA secrets to...

ALL THE WORLD'S A CHRYSLER BUILDING.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... In order to better appreciate our thoroughly modern media, let us turn our gaze to the Chrysler Building. The jewel of the Manhattan skyline was in the news this week, and it was a stray for our times. The Detroit News & Free Press reported...

GOP MAY TAKE ON FRONT-LOADING--OR NOT.
July 15, 2000... Republicans weathered a potentially divisive--and decidedly front-loaded--presidential nominating contest, and their standard-bearer-to-be, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, currently leads Vice President Al Gore in trial heat polls for the general...

Campaign Circuit.(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... Republicans Party On Republicans are planning plenty of musical diversions for their convention week in Philadelphia. On the afternoon of July 30, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., will host a "Loll Hop" for some...

SENDING A MESSAGE TO SWING VOTERS.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 15, 2000... George W. Bush's appearance at the NAACP's annual convention provides a good example of why he's ahead in the presidential race. Aside from the brief period leading up to the Feb. 19 South Carolina primary, the Bush campaign has relentlessly...

Hotline Extra.
July 15, 2000... The Bus Stops Here Was "Hop on the bus, Gus" one of the suggestions in "Fifty Ways to Lose Your Nomination"? Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., seems to think so. He has announced plans to pull his Straight Talk Express campaign bus from its...

ERNEST TALK. AND THEN WHAT?(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... As speculation intensifies about running mates for George W. Bush and Al Gore, each candidate, naturally enough, says he wants first and foremost someone who is qualified to be President. Before the United States became a dominating player on...

Poll Track.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 15, 2000... * Issue Spotlight A SLIGHT SLIP Confidence in the American economy has declined a bit amid continued concern about a slowdown. Although the weekly ABC News-Money Magazine Consumer Comfort Index rose slightly, buoyed by the strength of...

People.
July 15, 2000... Interest Groups Jose A. Fuentes, the former attorney general of Puerto Rico and current co-chair of George W. Bush's campaign there, has joined the Washington lobbying firm of Morgan Meguire. Fuentes, 45, who grew up in Puerto Rico, said...

WANNA RUN? WHERE YA FROM?(Brief Article)
July 15, 2000... People don't vote for Vice President. Dan Quayle proved that. In fact, when's the last time a running mate actually affected the outcome of a presidential election? You'd have to go back 40 years, to 1960, when John F. Kennedy's controversial...

DOES THE COUNTRY NEED LEGISLATORS WHO WEAR BLACK ROBES?(Editorial)
July 22, 2000... "A democratic vote by nine lawyers." That was one of Justice Antonin Scalia's angry dissenting flourishes last month. He was talking about the Supreme Court's decision on "the pure policy question" of whether the procedure that opponents...

AL GORE: FIGHTING FOR REFORM WITHOUT CHANGE.(Editorial)
July 22, 2000... You're frightened, I know. Nervous, twitchy. Things just change so fast these days. Sometimes you feel scared. I understand. We all feel scared sometimes. Well, give me your hand. Listen. Let me tell you about Al Gore. Al Gore is running...

The Great Gun Divide.(Editorial)(Statistical Data Included)
July 22, 2000... IT IS AN EMOTIONAL DEBATE OVER WHERE WE CAME FROM AND WHERE WE WANT TO GO. INSTEAD OF COMPROMISE, WHICH VOTERS SAY THEY WANT, THE NATION GETS STALEMATE. WILL WE EVER REACH CONSENSUS? This past month in the Kentucky town of Burkesville, a...

IN THE NRA's SIGHTS.
July 22, 2000... Right after Labor Day, the National Rifle Association plans to air a series of blistering, half-hour anti-gun-control messages in about a dozen key states. The cable television segments, which have been running in other states for almost a...

PLENTY OF FIREPOWER.
July 22, 2000... Over the years, the National Rifle Association has often prevailed in political battles by relying on the grassroots muscle of its 3 million or so members and an enormous campaign war chest. But in 2000, the NRA faces a newly energized,...