TRADE TALK
It was inevitable that John Bolton’s nomination
would get caught up in the Democrats’ desperate attempts not to
become superfluous to the legislative and advise-and-consent
process.
According to several Democratic staffers on the Foreign
Relations Committee, talk inside their offices had Sen. Joe
Biden discussing with Republican colleagues on both that
committee and Judiciary the notion of “trading” Bolton’s
confirmation for a vote on all if not the majority of President
Bush’s judicial nominees who are being blocked by Biden and other
Dems. Depending on how negotiations played out, Bolton’s nomination
would either have died, or moved ahead after the dumping of at
least three Bush judicial nominations.
“It sounds like it was the Senator’s attempt to break the
deadlock,” says one of the Democratic staffers. “But nothing came
of it, and that’s a good thing. There are quite a few people here
who want to see Bolton squirm, as well as some of the Republicans
who have to vote for him.”
Biden’s bid at brinksmanship would have required the lifting of
a “hold” by Sen. Barbara Boxer, as well as at
least two other Democratic Senators who, according to Senate
Democratic leadership sources, also placed holds on the nomination
in the hours after it was released by the Foreign Relations
Committee.
In the end the hold(s) are comparatively minor parliamentary
tricks that the Republican leadership can overcome through
procedural votes, though they present an initial headache that
cannot be easily resolved, as the White House would apparently
like.
On Thursday, rumors were swirling in the Capitol, and in the
press, that the White House was trying to strong-arm Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist into placing the Bolton
nomination ahead of the judicial confirmation vote.
But from a practical perspective, such a move would bog down the
Senate further for possibly another week of debate and delay,
drawing the judicial fight into early June, a situation many
Republicans would find unacceptable, given the level of debate and
negotiations undertaken in the past few weeks on the judicial
front.
“The White House understands that there are some things that
just can’t be turned back and the judicial fight is one of them,”
says a Republican staffer for a member of the Judiciary Committee.
“The White House was one of the entities pushing us on this. They
can’t expect us to change horses midstream when we have gotten this
far.”
On its face, the Biden gambit makes little sense, but it
highlights a certain desperate air among Democrats feeling
marginalization blues.
Biden, along with Sen. Ben Nelson and several
other Democrats, has been attempting to play some role in the
process and to avoid the appearance of being steamrolled by
Republicans.
That was why Nelson was pressing his leader, Sen. Harry
Reid, to accept what appeared to be the best deal on the
table with Republicans on the judicial nominees: confirmation of
Judges Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers
Brown, and Bill Pryor at the least, and
the loss of Judge Henry Saad and William
Myers to Democratic obstruction.
According to Senate Republican sources, Reid’s attempt to smear
Saad by unethically discussing raw interview data from the judge’s
FBI background check, has hurt Saad’s standing. “No one deserves to
go through what Saad has been put through,” says a Republican
Judiciary source. “Our concern is that if we keep fighting, the
Democrats will look to further smear him. On the other hand, to
toss him over the side may embolden the Democrats to use similar
tactics with other nominations.”
But Reid is trying to get a better deal for his party, one that
would give them a real win in the fight. According to Democrat
leadership sources, Pryor is the name Reid mentions most often as
the nominee he would like to take down.
DROWNING DEAN
Democratic political strategist par excellence
James Carville is often credited with saying:
“When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an
anvil!”
Now it appears that Carville and other Democrats may be
preparing to use his “Anvil Rule of Politics” against one of their
own.
With the DNC being out-fundraised almost 3 to 1 in the most
recent reporting cycle, there are already rumblings the DNC
chairman Howard Dean may not last a year in his
position.
Much of the concern was laid out in a Bob Novak
column earlier this week: poor fundraising and
crazy talk from Dean, not the least of which was Dean’s recent
endorsement of Socialist Rep. Bernie Sanders in
his bid to replace Vermont independent Sen. Jim
Jeffords, and policy talk on Social Security that wasn’t
in the Democratic playbook.
“We’re not far from the talk of dumping Dean becoming action,”
says a knowledgeable Democratic operative, who has worked on both
Capitol Hill and at the DNC. According to this source, none other
than Democratic loyalist Carville, as well as other senior
Democrats, have been talking about how to blunt Dean and get a more
positive message and messenger out into the public eye.
“The problem is Dean hasn’t really been in the public eye,” says
the Democratic operative. “At least not nationally. The appearance
on Meet the Press [this coming Sunday] will really help
clarify for people just how desperate we need to be.”
Critics of Dean inside the DNC say the former Vermont governor
rarely sticks to the party talking points that are presented him,
and he chafes at being overly prepped by staff before party
events.
“He is popular with some of the younger party types, but
established Democrats here in headquarters can’t stand him. From
their perspective, he’s a disaster,” says the operative. “When it
comes time to raise the money, that won’t be a be a problem. We’ll
just trot out Bill [Clinton] and scary pictures of Bush and Frist
and DeLay. But in terms of building state and national party
organizations, that is something we’re committed to financing, and
that is where the real problems are.”
