by publius
I’ve been away and am catching up with news. But I did see Peggy Noonan’s interesting observation about the Protect-Bush-First thinking within the Washington GOP establishment:
But maybe Mr. Bartlett's attitude illustrates a larger reality. The Bush people don't seem to spend much time on loyalty to the party per se, only to their guy. Who after all is looking out for the Republican nominees, for the group of them? They are the future of the party. The Washington GOP apparatus is focused on the president[.]
One example of what the Nooner is talking about is the Senate’s strange filibuster-everything strategy. Frankly, I think it’s counterproductive and helps Bush at the expense of the national party.
Unlike the Democrats last session, Senate Republicans don’t need to filibuster to stop a bill. Bush is their safety net -- he can veto everything that comes out. But even though it's unnecessary, the Senate GOP keeps right on filibusterin’. I can think of at least two reasons why. First, it protects Bush from the embarrassment of having to veto popular bills. Second, it helps the party more generally by keeping popular Democratic bills under the public radar. Filibuster votes, after all, generate less press than vetoes.
The latter strategy, however, may be too clever by half. One byproduct of bottling everything up is that the only bills that make it out are those with overwhelming congressional support -- bills like stem cell research and SCHIP. And because Bush’s vetoes (thanks to the Senate) are so rare, they draw disproportionate press attention to issues that inflict the greatest political harm on Republicans -- particularly among swing voters.
A better strategy would be to simply let everything -- or much more -- go up to Bush for a veto. For one, the more vetoes Bush issues, the less significant they become. They’ll start falling back from page A1 (top right column) to wherever the Post puts Walter Pincus articles (A52 I believe -- right behind the Home Depot coupons). Second, allowing the bills to go to the White House would let vulnerable Senate Republicans support popular legislation, while simultaneously (and perhaps ostentatiously) distancing themselves from a deeply unpopular president. In short, Bush could take more of the heat.
And that brings me back to Nooner. Given how many vulnerable Senators there are, I don’t understand why the White House won’t take one for the team. If they cared more about party and less about protecting Bush, they would call Susan Collins and say, “Go ahead and vote for cloture. Send it up and we’ll take the heat. It’s more important to keep the seat than protecting Bush from getting his hands dirty.” But instead we get endless filibustering -- mostly for the protection of a President who will never be on the ballot again.
One last point -- while I’m through talking about Malkin for a while, the Democrats have to be secretly thanking her -- and her comrades -- for significantly escalating an issue that helps Dems every second it’s in the news.
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