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But they sure can make conference calls. If you’ve been hankering for some Republican inside baseball, this is the post for you.
I’ve spent most of the afternoon on conference calls with Republican congressmen who are vying for leadership roles in the 110th Congress. Since I had previously dismissed such events as “reliably dull as dishwater,” you’re no doubt wondering why a man with a life as rich and full as mine (giggle) would spend his afternoon in such a fashion.
Two words serve as explanation: Leadership matters. One of the biggest problems we had in this past election cycle is that no one on the Republican side could articulate the Republican agenda or defend the Republican record. The problem was particularly acute in Congress where much of the leadership had to defend its transparently inept handling of the Mark Foley matter while being utterly incapable of offering any positive message.
You could see a similar problem across the aisle. Imagine how well the Democrats would have done if they had a potential Speaker who they didn’t have to put in Witness Protection for the last two months of the campaign. (On our own side, we of course had Liddy Dole chairing our efforts in the Senate who should have been put in witness protection.)
Now that the electoral bloodbath is complete, the remaining Republicans are jockeying to direct the ship that Captain Hastert and company have already crashed it into the iceberg. Naturally, the old guard represented by Roy Blunt and John Boehner, has no interest in relinquishing power without a fight. It is for this reason that the vote for the new leadership is scheduled for this coming Friday, a scant ten days after the election and while there are still a couple of congressional seats whose election results remain in doubt.
The timing of this vote is almost scandalous. The only possible explanation for this rush to vote is so the old guard can get back in before the upstarts have a chance to organize. While Boehner and Blount may well be the perfect guys for the leadership positions they seek, this shady maneuver is strongly redolent of a sclerotic leadership that has grown more attached to its own power than to matters of principle. The contestants should slug it out on a level playing field, not one that is tilted in the direction of the incumbents.
THE CONFERENCE CALL FUN BEGAN yesterday with a chat with Roy Blunt (R-MO). Unfortunately, I had the wrong access code for this confab (seriously) and thus was unable to benefit from any of Representative Blunt’s pearls of wisdom. Oh well. Life is full of disappointments.
In the hour I saved not being on the Blunt call, I was able to read a small portion of Andrew Sullivan’s epic 4600 word response (J-Pod says he counted them) to Jonah Goldberg’s review of “The Conservative Soul.” I think answering the critics in this fashion is a tad pathetic, but Andrew’s not alone in the practice. One of my favorite authors, Thomas P.M. Barnett, does precisely the same thing. Like Andrew, Tom finds reviewers who like his books to be invariably insightful and often brilliant individuals. Reviewers who criticize his work are dismissed as dullards who more often than not are lacking in moral fiber and marred by intellectual dishonesty.
But I digress. I was able to attend today’s full slate of conference calls. Batting leadoff was the blogosphere’s consensus choice for minority leader, Mike Pence (R-IN). Pence was charming, likable and funny. I especially liked the analogy he made between running for minority leader and running for senior class president, a race he modestly pointed out that he won. He did, however, make the point that he didn’t get much support from the cheerleaders, and I could feel his pain. (Mrs. Soxblog was the head of her high school cheerleading squad, but the scars from my high school failures remain.)
One discordant note came when Pence insisted that there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between him and the president on the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Since the president’s views on the war on Iraq and especially the larger war against radical Islam have become rather opaque over the last couple of years, I don’t have a clue as to what he meant by this. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask him to clarify this position, and none of the questioners asked him to do so either. A rush to cite blind solidarity with a White House that over the last week has seemed oddly determined to get things in the Middle East very wrong is not a selling point for me. Not right now, anyway.
Regrettably, the entire Pence conference call was marred by one blogger who typed furiously throughout and yet refused to mute his or her phone. This typing and a toddler screaming in the background made the call tough to bear and the comments tough to hear. I publicly accused John Hawkins of Right Wing News of being the culprit; I have been on many of these calls with Hawkins and while I’m watching Sports Center or eating a donut, Hawkins is always furiously typing away. Although he vehemently denies the charges, I remain unconvinced of his innocence.
The conference call with Dan Lungren (R-CA), candidate for Conference Chairman, was a huge pick-me-up. Those of you with elephantine memories might recall that the then unknown Lungren was mentioned as a leading candidate to be Bob Dole’s running mate in 1996 when he was California’s attorney general. At the time, the talk of ushering an unknown to national prominence seemed at least a little strange, and, in the wake of the 1988 experience with Dan Quayle, positively daft.
This conference call made it clear why many party insiders thought so highly of Lungren. He’s a star. Articulate, smart, humorous and well-informed, Lungren dazzled. He was especially impressive when talking about the threat posed by Radical Islam. He made it perfectly clear that he understood the stakes, something that I’m sure most Democrats don’t get and I fear a lot of Republicans don’t either.
Lungren also called foul on the hurried nature of the voting. In addition to the fact that the election process will take place this Friday, each candidate for leadership will have only ten minutes to make his case to the conference. He cleverly juxtaposed this with the fact that each Republican congressman will have twenty minutes to choose his office space.
Captain Ed has qualms that Lungren may not be adequately pro-life. Even if the Captain’s charge is true, we need men like Dan Lungren in Republican leadership. And that comes from someone who is adamantly pro-life.
Following Lungren, we were visited by the ghost of 1994 in the person of John Shadegg who is opposing Roy Blunt in the minority whip race. Shadegg came to office in ’94, and the fire of that revolutionary year still burns within him. Shadegg rightly pointed out that if as a party we return the same leadership to office, we’ll send an unmistakable message to the public. It won’t be a good one.
Shadegg also brimmed with big ideas. He knows that we need to bring our health care system back to free market principles. He knows that given the sense of entitlement that has sprouted around health care, as a nation we’ve become trained to feel not responsible for our own health needs. Taking on this matter is critical, and a long process.
Shadegg understands the need to take Congress back in ’08 when the first-time Democratic victors from last Tuesday will be most vulnerable. Overall, it was a very impressive performance. Almost inspiring.
The last visitor of the day was Jack Kingston (R-YouTube), one of Dan Lungren’s opponents for Conference Chairman. Jack is a great guy, and has a missionary zeal for spreading his message through new media. In my opinion, however, he doesn’t bring nearly the seriousness or gravitas to the role that Lungren would. (The formidable Adam Putnam remains to be heard from on this race, so stay tuned.)
During the Kingston call, the congressman brought up his recent appearance on HBO’s weekly Bill Maher Moron-fest. Longtime readers of this site know that I consider the Maher show to be the dumbest hour on television, featuring ignorant Hollywood types holding forth on issues like they actually know what they’re talking about. On Kingston’s appearance, the Hollywood heavyweight on the panel (in every way) was Alec Baldwin who I thought had moved to Paris when Bush won reelection in 2004.
Kingston thinks that bringing our message to these forums are a vital part of 21st century political communication. I think attending forums such as the Bill Maher Show should be beneath the dignity of a U.S. federal office holder. Or a local dog catcher. But that’s just me.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS STUFF is very important. And you have a say. Drop your congressman an email and tell him who you think should be in leadership. Tell him why. You’re the Republican base and you’re frowning. Your congressman doesn’t like that. Give him the chance to put a smile on your face.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com
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