This coming week promises to be critical for both Republicans
and conservatives in moving forward into the second half of George
W. Bush’s administration.
If conservatives are to shape an agenda and drive true change in
the GOP, who Republicans select to lead their caucus in the House
of Representatives and how the Senate vote on Supreme Court Justice
Samuel Alito goes down will speak volumes. The
coming week may well determine not only the outcome of mid-term
elections this fall, but national party’s future prospects moving
into 2008 and beyond.
In the House, supporters of Reps. John Boehner,
Roy Blunt, and John Shadegg
aren’t sure what will play out in the coming days. Blunt, who tried
big-footing and bluffing his way to the House Majority Leader slot,
has quieted some. “We just don’t know where we stand,” says one
House Republican member who has thrown his support behind Blunt.
“We thought we had the numbers, but Shadegg and Boehner have hung
tough. I don’t think, if we ever had the numbers to win, that we
have them now.”
What the principles in this race seem to understand is that this
election is not just about Majority Leader; in reality, it is a
race for the House Speakership.
Boehner in particular has made clear his desire for that post,
and his campaign and organization — including policy papers — are
evidence of the planning that was being put into such a
campaign.
“Whichever one of these guys wins the Majority Leader job will
be primed for the Speakership when Denny
[Hastert] retires or steps aside,” says a longtime
House leadership aide. “People have been wondering about Denny’s
desire to hang in there, and there were rumors that we might be
looking at a bigger election than we are already looking at.”
That was one reason why rumors have persisted that a deal exists
between Reps. Boehner and Shadegg should the election play out as
they hope: Boehner runs a close second to Blunt, with Shadegg
denying Blunt enough votes to force a second ballot, and Shadegg
then throwing his support behind Boehner. Presumably, Shadegg would
then be positioned to become majority leader if Boehner became
Speaker.
If nothing else, Boehner, Shadegg and other conservatives have
done a good job of tarring Blunt with the “insider” label and as
someone with more of a Jack Abramoff taint than
Boehner has. That has given the man from Ohio a slight edge for
weeks, and an advantage coming into the week.
Beyond the House majority leader slot, there may be other
positions opening up sooner than expected. Deborah
Pryce is thought to be in danger of losing her leadership
position as chairman of the Republican Conference, possibly to
Marsha Blackburn, one of the leaders of the
anti-spending movement late last year.
Blunt has not indicated whether he would step down as Whip, a
position he still holds, though should he lose the House leader
race, expect to see mounting pressure for him to step aside.
Beyond the “insider” label, Blunt has been hit — rightly,
according to House Republicans — for allowing Rep. Tom
DeLay’s well-oiled Whip organization to become less than a
smooth operation.
“One of the first things the new leader will have to deal with
is a caucus that has become far less united than it was even a year
ago,” says another House member. “We’re all going to have to fall
behind our new leader and focus on fixing our caucus. The Democrat
caucus isn’t in any better shape, in fact it is probably worse. But
this has to be about us first.”
IN THE SENATE, while Democrats put out word that they support a
filibuster against Samuel Alito, Republican Leader
Sen. Bill Frist has a war room set up to launch
the “Constitutional Option” and put Alito in the seat he rightly
earned by enduring the lectures of the Democrats on the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Sen. John
Kerry announced his plans for a filibuster from the slopes
in Davos, Switzerland. At the time that he spoke with his staff in
Washington about just how he should be positioning himself, he was
in the midst of also coordinating an afternoon of skiing.
The filibuster drive wasn’t a Kerry plan, though. That credit
rightly goes to Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose staff has
been the most active in both attempting to smear Alito and to throw
roadblocks in the nomination process. According to Senate Judiciary
Committee staff on the Democrat side, Kennedy’s people have been
looking at how to filibuster Alito for weeks, watching vote counts
and trying to pick off enough liberal Republican support to make
any Democrat defectors a wash for Republicans.
In the end, though, little of the Democrat shenanigans matter.
Frist and his leadership team appear poised to trigger the
parliamentary strategies that will have Alito in his Supreme Court
seat by the beginning of February.
