Stu takes a look at the Democrats' challenge in this election year on CBS News' Washington Unplugged with Bill Plante and The Washington Post's Scott Wilson. You can watch the video below or click here.
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By Nathan L. Gonzales
With Republican and Democratic candidates scrambling for position in the special election in New York's 20th District, 2008 GOP nominee Sandy Treadwell is not jumping into the race, according to GOP sources.
Treadwell, who spent almost $6 million of his own money last cycle in his 61%-38% loss to Cong. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), expressed interest early on, and even released public statements saying as much, but will not ultimately throw his name into consideration. According to GOP insiders, he is currently out of the Empire State and is not making immediate moves toward another run.
Meanwhile state Sen. Betty Little (R) who has already announced her candidacy. And according to the Albany Times-Union, the Saratoga County GOP has decided to back Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco and the Greene County GOP is with 2006 gubernatorial nominee John Faso.
There will not be a primary for the special election, instead the party nominees will be chosen by a weighted vote among the county committees. Saratoga carries the most weight in the 10-county district.
Not only would Treadwell not have Saratoga County, but he likely wouldn't have his home county of Essex, where he is the former county party chairman.
"[Little] is our state senator, and before that she was our assemblywoman," Essex County GOP Chairman Ronald Jackson said Saturday night. "It's unlikely we'd support anyone else as long as she's in the race."
"I'd say she's the best candidate. She has the experience. And it would be a woman replacing a woman," Jackson added. The current Essex chairman also said that he spoke with Treadwell about a week ago about his interest in the race, but hasn't heard from him since.
Gov. David Paterson (D) recently appointed Cong. Gillibrand to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacany left by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, prompting a special election in the 20th Congressional District.
By Stuart Rothenberg
Now that the dust has settled on the Congressional vote on the supplemental appropriations bill and on the ruckus that anti-war opponents of the bill kicked up, it’s time to assess the political implications.
First, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill played the issue like a Stradivarius. They forced a vote on a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, putting Republicans on record supporting the status quo and President Bush, but allowed a subsequent vote to “fund the troops.” That gave their own Members from swing districts the opportunity to demonstrate their support for the military.
From a purely political point of view, Democrats had their cake and ate it too. Yes, the war is unpopular, and opposing it is a no-brainer. But the one thing Democrats need to avoid is looking like themselves during the 1970s and 1980s — weak and unwilling to support America’s men and women in uniform. Yes, they’ve spent the past few years speaking the right words on national security and the armed forces, but if they had refused to pass a spending bill, they would have at the very least opened themselves to attack from the GOP.
So, in ignoring the demands of the party’s left, Congressional leaders have kept their party right where they want it — against the war but also against terrorists and for the troops.
Second, some Democrats are openly unhappy that Congress cooperated with the president. Presidential hopeful John Edwards argued that Congressional Democrats should pass the same deadline bill again and again until Bush signed it, and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan announced that she will no longer be the face of the anti-war movement and was distressed that “Democrats caved in to George Bush.”
While a bit more confrontation with the president probably wouldn’t have gotten Congressional Democrats into trouble and would have pleased the party’s left, the Democratic House and Senate leaders wisely played things safe by allowing a bill to pass that Bush could sign.
Why take a chance alienating swing voters when the party already made its point by sending the president a deadline bill that he vetoed?
Anti-war critics of the Democratic Congressional leadership have nowhere else to go, both now and in November 2008.
Liberal bloggers apparently are angry with Democratic Rep. Mark Udall’s vote for the supplemental, but they’ll support him in next year’s open-seat Senate race in Colorado. Similarly, the 2008 Democratic nominee for president will be more appealing to anti-war liberals than the Republican nominee will be, so the Democratic Party risks very little, at least at this point, in disappointing its most ideological, confrontational element.
Third, the vote on the supplemental was far more dangerous for the party’s presidential hopefuls than for the Democrats’ Members of Congress.
House and Senate Democrats are able to deal with Bush’s war, since they have no commander in chief authority and are not viewed by most Americans as the initiators of U.S. foreign policy. The Congressional opposition can score political points merely by complaining about the president’s policies and demanding a change.
Indeed, that’s how the Democrats won their majorities in 2006. The party had no unified agenda on Iraq — the Democratic call for a deadline didn’t spread across the party until after November’s results — and it gained control of both chambers by making the election a referendum on the president and his Iraq policy.
But presidential elections are different. They are to a much greater extent a choice between leaders and visions. Past performance, of course, is a factor, and were Bush running for re-election, the 2008 election would be a referendum on him, as 1992 was a referendum on his father and 1980 was a referendum on then-President Jimmy Carter’s leadership.
Even if voters are unhappy with a failed foreign policy, they are likely to want a president who is perceived as strong and tough when it comes to foreign policy. Of course, that doesn’t mean they will want a unilateralist. Or that they won’t vote for someone who calls for more international cooperation. But they won’t vote for someone who isn’t viewed as willing to fight for U.S. interests.
For Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), both of whom voted against the bill that eventually passed, the fight over the supplemental was (and is likely to return again as) a problem. Clinton spent a long time trying to establish her international credentials for toughness, and her gender probably is an added burden as she tries to fill the commander in chief role. Still, Americans apparently view her as personally tough, which makes it easier for her to convince voters that she’d aggressively defend American interests as president.
Obama has a similar problem, in part because of his lack of international experience. Moreover, his general message of hope and unity doesn’t inevitably lead voters to see him as tough internationally and able to protect Americans from terrorists.
Edwards’ strong position against the war, combined with his recent remarks questioning the phrase “war against terror,” put him in a precarious position as he campaigns for the nation’s top job. He talks angrily about the war, but he still lacks a great deal of international experience. While voters may find him appealing as a leader against Bush’s Iraq policy, the former North Carolina senator may not be nearly as convincing as commander in chief.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 7, 2007. Copyright 2007 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Stuart Rothenberg
“This bill would allow 12 million-plus illegal aliens to remain in this country indefinitely and provides them, as well as their immediate families, a path to citizenship. This is amnesty. ...”
No, that’s not the view of Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, a leader in the fight against illegal immigration. They are the comments of Randy Pullen, the Republican Party chairman in Arizona, the home state of Sens. John McCain (R) and Jon Kyl (R). McCain is a leading advocate of a comprehensive immigration bill and the co-sponsor with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) of last year’s unsuccessful proposal, and Kyl is one of the lead spokesmen for this year’s compromise plan.
Pullen went on to say he was “very disappointed” in the new proposal, arguing that the compromise would “do more to encourage illegal immigration than to discourage it.”
The initial reaction to the bipartisan compromise on immigration, which was hammered out by a diverse group of Senators including Kennedy, Kyl and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), makes it clear that passage of any bill will be difficult, and the upcoming presidential election is an additional problem for those supporting the compromise.
Hours after the compromise was announced, one Senator told me it already had fallen apart and been Scotch-taped together. That’s not a good sign.
Four months ago in this space, I wrote that Congress and the White House needed to get busy to pass an immigration bill, and they needed to do it quickly. Time is an enemy, especially given the early start of the presidential race.
In early January, immigration seemed to be the one big issue Congress and President Bush could deal with, since everyone agrees that action to stop the flow of illegal immigrants is crucial, and substantial elements of both parties favor a comprehensive approach that involves a greater commitment to border security and a temporary worker program.
But as with everything, the devil is in the details, and while everyone seems to want to address the conundrum of illegal immigration, everyone also seems to have his or her own idea of what must be done and what is unacceptable.
Grass-roots conservatives and their leaders in Congress aren’t merely playing politics when they complain that the compromise is “amnesty.” You don’t have to agree with their use of the term, but that’s how they see any plan that gives workers who are in the U.S. illegally a route for citizenship. (Supporters of the compromise obviously take exception to that characterization, but so far they have been drowned out by the “amnesty” chorus.)
That’s why Republican presidential hopefuls such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, both of whom temperamentally are more inclined toward compromise than confrontation, have not embraced the compromise on immigration.
The issue of immigration reform, which once seemed so promising for Republicans, has now turned nasty for the party. As Roll Call noted recently (“Immigration Deadline Slips,” May 22), Republican Senators who have had a role in the compromise have been booed at state party events.
Indeed, grass-roots Republicans who oppose anything but a strong security bill are likely to be more incensed at Republican officeholders who compromise with Democrats than they will be at Kennedy, whom they have long believed is a lost cause. After the party’s 2006 losses, some Republicans think purification of the GOP is the answer, not working with a Massachusetts Democrat.
You can easily imagine what the talk-radio hosts are saying as they express their outrage and promise to punish those who are pushing the plan. They know they aren’t going to defeat Kennedy or Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), but you can bet that they’ll declare war on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
The president, meanwhile, seems totally irrelevant to the immigration debate. The midterm elections, the Iraq War and the administration’s other problems have stripped President Bush of any influence he once had. So instead of uniting Republicans and putting the onus on Democrats for favoring lenient treatment of lawbreakers, Republicans are spending much of their time firing at each other. Democrats, wisely, prefer not to get in the line of fire.
Of course, the Democratic Party is divided over the issue, too, but since Senate Republicans hold the key to any measure, Democrats, including those in the House, have been able to pass the buck, at least for now. While many Democrats would like to see a bill passed by Congress and signed into law, they know that, politically, they are best off if, at the end of the day, they can take credit for dealing with the issue but let Republicans take the blame for the details.
Supporters of the immigration compromise face the same problem that health care reformers faced more than a decade ago. There are so many facets to the bill, so many things to consider and deal with, that changing one part of the bill to add support means losing others who are already on board but can’t swallow proposed changes.
While a Senate compromise could hold together and pass the chamber, this bill has a long, long way to go before being enacted into law. And in Washington, D.C., it’s always better to bet against a big bill making it through the legislative gauntlet and being signed into law than it is to predict passage and enactment.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on May 24, 2007. Copyright 2007 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.
