Novak: GOP Depressed

Novakula reports on the mood in the Republican Senate caucus following the failure of the immigration bill. Republicans who stuck with the administration and voted for the bills are furious with majority leader Mitch McConnell, who abandoned them during the fight. And they are exhausted and demoralized, especially after the harrowing experience of reaping what their party sowed over immigration:

It is difficult to exaggerate the pessimism about the immediate political future voiced by Republicans in Congress when not on the record. With an unpopular president waging an unpopular war, they foresee electoral catastrophe in 2008, with Democratic gains in both the House and Senate and Hillary Clinton in the White House. That's the atmosphere in which these lachrymose lawmakers have for several months faced an increasingly hysterical onslaught from constituents demanding the death of the "amnesty" for immigrants they heard vilified on talk radio...

"This isn't a day to celebrate," McConnell said in his postmortem. Indeed, Republicans drove another nail in George W. Bush's political coffin and undermined hopes for winning the growing, and winnable, Hispanic vote. Contending that the time "wasn't now" for immigration, McConnell added: "It wasn't the people's will. And they were heard." He was blaming Republican failure on his fellow citizens, which seldom works in politics.

Now, don't let schadenfreude get the best of you: politics has a way of turning the depressed into the triumphant suprisingly quickly. But for the purposes of brightening a Monday morning (er...afternoon), you're allowed to feel a little bit of pleasure in the Republicans' pain.

Labels: Republicans, Robert Novak, U.S. Senate

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 11:47 AM 0 comments

  "Better the Minority at 49, than the Majority at 51"

Paul Weyrich is thanking his lucky stars that Bill Frist never went nuclear. In a post at Human Events Online, Weyrich, the influential conservative activist, is impressed with the way GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is using the filibuster to hold the line on Iraq, and to frustrate the Democratic majority in general:

McConnell correctly stated that the House is geared toward the majority and the Senate is geared toward the minority. Sen. Reid was so frustrated after he failed to achieve cloture that he shouted at reporters that he was in charge of the Senate, not the Republicans. I've got big news for you, senator. That is not true. Shortly after the election I spoke with a veteran senator. He expressed the view of most of his colleagues. Better in the minority at 49, than the majority at 51.

McConnell, says Weyrich, has won over conservative activists with his efforts to kill the Lobbying Reform Bill and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation - and especially with his determination to win confirmation for 17 appellate court judges before the end of the Bush term. Now, having undermined the Iraq resolution, McConnell has reinvigorated his caucus. Ironically - but predictably - this was only possible thanks to the failure of Bill Frist in 2005 to amend Senate Rule 22 to end the filibuster on confirmation votes:

Analysts such as Mike Hammond, former Counsel to the Senate Steering Committee (the caucus of conservative Senators) argued that if Senate Rule 22 were amended for confirmation votes it well could carry over into the legislative arena and end the filibuster. Frist was hesitant and waited too long. Sen. John S. McCain (R.-Ariz.), who was no great friend of the majority leader, pulled the rug out from him by putting together the Gang of 14. Because of that move Rule 22 was preserved.

A number of liberal observers, during the days of the Republican Senate majority, argued that Democrats should agree to abolish the filibuster altogether. I'm sympathetic to that argument, though it's moot now, and McConnell will use his minority protections ably to block the Democratic agenda. This is less bad now than it would be with a Democratic president in 2009, when we might otherwise have a chance to finally get something done.

But, and here's the good news, Weyrich is pretty pessimistic about the future of the conservatives' Senate redoubt, his sole hope hinging on McConnell's ability to "explain" his obstructionism to the American people:

If McConnell can pick up the kind of allies I witnessed his having harnessed, and if (and this is really the hard part) he and the GOP Leadership, which includes the just re-elected Sen. John Kyl (R.-Ariz.), can explain this in plain English so that ordinary folks can understand it, he just might stave off what could be a disastrous Senate election in 2008. It presently is looking as if the GOP will emerge with 46 votes but if the presidential election goes the wrong way and brings out a heavy liberal vote McConnell would end up with only 42 senators.

Now that's a cheerful thought!

Labels: filibuster, Human Events, Paul Weyrich, U.S. Senate

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 8:28 AM 0 comments

  Have You Tried Staying the Course?

Via Stephen Spruiell at the NRO Media Blog: Republicans fear they're losing the PR war over the Iraq debate. Mitch McConnell has been maneuvering to try and get Senator "Surge" McCain's rival resolution to the floor - as well as Judd Gregg's White-House-backed attempt to get Senators to promise not to cut off funding for the war.

But Mitch is getting bogged down on the public relations front:

The day after Senate Republicans effectively blocked debate on an anti-"surge" resolution, some in the caucus are growing increasingly alarmed over indications that they are losing the public relations battle to the Democrats. The Los Angeles Times says that although Republicans continue "to insist...that they simply want a fair debate," by yesterday some Republicans were concerned "the public would misunderstand their stance." The Capitol Hill publication Roll Call describes a concerned Senate Republican leadership yesterday struggling "to shift their focus away from complaints about parliamentary procedure and onto which party is best supporting the troops." Republicans, adds Roll Call, "found themselves on the losing end of the public relations fight as they woke up to headlines across the country pinning the blame squarely on them. 'It doesn't matter what's going on the floor. It's all about media,' one senior GOP aide said Tuesday."

Hm... take that last sentence, substitute "in the war" for "on the floor," and you've suddenly arrived at the Michelle Malkin Theory of Iraq. Coincidence?

Labels: Iraq, Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 10:45 AM 0 comments

  F*cking John F*cking Elway

Running for Senate as a Republican in Colorado?

Actually, it's better that I grew up hating that man. It was much worse when the sports hero I grew up worshipping turned out to be a flaming lunatic wingnut.

Labels: 2008, John Elway, The Harsh Truth About Your Childhood Heroes, U.S. Senate

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 7:03 PM 0 comments