THE DEPUTY
There is a growing buzz among conservative Republican House members
about giving Rep. John Shadegg a stated role on
new Majority Leader John Boehner’s team, not so
much because Shadegg is a nice guy with conservative credentials,
but because there is mounting evidence that current Majority Whip
Roy Blunt, the fellow whom Boehner defeated to
become leader, is not playing nice.
“We’ve done just about everything we can to create an
environment that would allow Boehner and Blunt to work and
co-exist,” says a Republican House member. “Blunt knows we view him
as important to the team, but if he isn’t committed to this leader
and his vision for reform, then we have to surround that leader
with people who are committed.”
The talk last week was of Shadegg being elevated to a position
akin to Deputy Leader, a post the House Republican Conference does
not currently list. One school of thought has the new post serving
not only as a buffer between Boehner and Blunt, but also as a
possible slot that would make Blunt’s position such that he’d
probably resign the post of Whip.
“If Boehner actually invested the position with stated duties,
like overseeing the Whip’s operation, then it’s doubtful Blunt
would stand by and take it,” says a GOP staffer who has worked
previously in leadership offices. “A lot of the tension that we’re
hearing about is about ego, and Blunt’s can’t take much more of a
pounding, unless he’s a glutton for punishment.”
It didn’t have to be this way, though it was probably
inevitable. In the fight to permanently replace Rep. Tom
DeLay, Boehner and Blunt campaigned in widely divergent
manners. Boehner kept a comparatively low profile, and his
surrogates did little trashing of Blunt to fellow members or the
media. They assumed that Blunt’s high-profile pursuit of the post,
his constant release of endorsements during the first week of
campaigning, and the media attention it garnered would force
reporters to take a harder look at Blunt than at the competition.
That strategy paid off.
Matching that with the addition of Shadegg to the equation,
Boehner simply outflanked the man who claimed to be only second to
DeLay in whipping votes in the Conference.
In the immediate aftermath of the election, Boehner made a point
of visiting Blunt in his offices, of publicly stating his support
for Blunt to remain in the Whip position, and claiming the overall
Conference leadership would hold moving on in this election
year.
But Blunt hasn’t made life easy for Boehner. The private
meetings are said by staff who heard about them after the fact to
have been chilly and awkward.
Blunt has been perceived to be an unenthusiastic participant in
leadership strategy sessions, say others who have attended those
meetings, prompting some Republican members to approach Boehner
about whether there shouldn’t be a change made now before serious
legislative battles take hold.
Boehner has been quiet on the subject, and has been seeking
advice from some members about what his options are now that
Congress is back in session. According to some leadership staff, he
is hesitant to do anything that would create the appearance that
the Republican Conference is again in disarray or engaged in
infighting, particularly with mounting evidence that Democrats are
in worse shape in that regard.
Conservatives are insisting that Shadegg deserves to be given
some leading role in the coming months, particularly in an election
year when it is more critical for the base to be energized and out
voting.
THE CALIBRATOR
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner got good marks
for a recent appearance in New Hampshire, where he test drove a
slightly revamped stump speech from the one he has been giving
around the country for the past six months.
Not surprisingly, the speech’s new touches reflect polling
Warner’s advisers have undertaken coming out of the President’s
State of the Union address, as well as strategy sessions with
national Democratic political advisers.
Warner has also quietly been snapping up former staffers for
Al Gore and Bill Clinton to fill
jobs in his leadership PAC and his campaign for what is expected to
be a presidential nomination bid.
LABOR COSTS
Word that the Labor Department is finally getting detailed
financial disclosure data from labor unions under requirements of
the 1959 Landrum-Griffin labor reform act is making officials at
the AFL-CIO and National Education Association (NEA) nervous. Over
the weekend, columnist Robert Novak reported that
initial disclosure documents from the AFL-CIO showed that the union
spent $49 million, or 27 percent of its annual budget, on political
and lobbying activities. That’s about 50% more than it spent on its
actual membership. NEA numbers are believed to be close to the
AFL-CIO’s on a percentage basis.
What some Republicans will be interested in tracking is how much
of that almost-50 million dollar figure went to fund the shadow 527
organizations that attempted to help Democrats, particularly
presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, during the
2000 election cycle.
