OLIVER HOMECOMING

By Andrea L. Buchanan ~ Southeast Missourian

They were scrambling for seats at the 32nd annual Lincoln Day Dinner Saturday as more than 300 people filled tables and looked for additional seating in the stands at the Arena Building.

State Rep. Rob Mayer's, R- Dexter, said the crowd shouldn't have been surprising, calling Cape Girardeau "the heart and soul of the Republican Party in Southeast Missouri."

Sponsored by the Cape Girardeau County Republican Women's Club, the dinner featured Republican candidates and incumbents from a variety of offices.

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Talent was one of the featured speakers. He spoke Saturday as a challenger for Jean Carnahan's seat in the U.S. Senate.

"I have never been more determined to do anything in my whole life than to lead this party to victory in November," Talent said.

The keynote speaker was Jack Oliver, a Cape Girardeau native who raised record amounts of money in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

Oliver, 33, is deputy director of the Republican National Committee, working directly under former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, the RNC chairman, and fellow Missourian Ann Wagner, the national co-chair. His father, John Oliver, is an attorney in Cape Girardeau

Jack Oliver joked that he had been trying for 33 years to convince his father that he really does work for a living.

When he arrived with then-candidate George Bush in Cape Girardeau in 1999, the Texas governor asked Oliver why they were visiting.

Jack Oliver said he told him "I'm trying to convince my father I have a real job."

He described the president as a strong, principled man.

Perhaps the most eloquent moment in his connection with the president was Sept. 14, he said. "That's the day the world saw what you all believed in. I remember sitting in the Washington Cathedral and watching this man unite people of different faiths."

Then the president flew to New York and stood at Ground Zero and spoke again. "In that speech, he inspired a nation that inspired a world," Jack Oliver said.

He told the crowd why he thinks Bush is the right president for this moment in the country's history: "On Sept. 11, the world changed, but the man didn't."

He said Bush didn't run for president to be something; he ran to do something.

He cited the president's tax cut and the new tax code as reflective of American values.

"Thanks to George Bush, death and marriage are no longer taxable offenses," he said.

Rep. Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill was master of ceremonies.

abuchanan@semissourian.com

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