Life After Jeffords
BARNES, FRED
Life After Jeffords Bush should stick to his guns. BY FRED BARNES THE BUZZ IN THE MEDIA after senator James Jeffords's switch put Democrats in control of the Senate was that President Bush must...
...Both the press and Democrats fault Bush for governing solely from the right...
...Health care issues are another matter...
...Instead, Bush will have to argue aggressively for his position, stir public support, and pick off selected Democrats...
...Vague White House threats might have contributed to Jeffords's decision...
...Lott demonstrated this when he ordered a vote, on the day Jeffords announced he was jumping ship, to confirm Ted Olson as solicitor general...
...The truth about the impact of Jeffords's move is that no political earthquake has occurred...
...The Jeffords defection reflects a broader trend in national politics—the growing division between the culturally and ideologically liberal Northeast and coasts and the conservative heartland and South...
...And no state has trended to the left more dramatically in recent years than Vermont This made it awkward for Jeffords, more a liberal than a moderate, to stay in a Senate GOP caucus dominated by conservatives such as Jesse Helms of North Carolina...
...Let Daschle order a filibuster...
...Twenty-seven years," he said...
...Thus, Jeffords supposedly felt marginalized...
...Lott was going to bring it up, too, only later this year...
...Daschle has a single goal, keeping the Senate in Democratic hands in the 2002 election...
...In recent years, says Sen...
...There's a final issue that Jeffords's switch highlighted...
...To pass a patients' bill of rights, a prescription drug benefit, or missile defense, a bipartisan coalition of some sort will be essential...
...Another myth is that the agenda in Washington now changes...
...Jeffords didn't negotiate the education compromise, but his presence spurred it...
...Trent Lott, outgoing Senate majority leader, was faulted for not paying enough attention to moderates...
...Democrats say Bush lost the popular vote and lacks a mandate, but is trying to impose a conservative program...
...Bush will have a harder time getting conservative nominees through a Senate Judiciary Committee run by Patrick Leahy of Vermont, perhaps the most partisan Democrat on Capitol Hill...
...And most Americans want the country defended against missile attacks and prefer judges who favor tough law enforcement...
...To achieve this, he's bent on denying Bush any victories...
...There's no built-in public majority for Bush's conservative approach, so he may have to deal with Daschle on these...
...Yes, there's one big change with Democrats taking over: judges...
...More often than not, Bush will have to overcome the opposition of Tom Daschle, the new majority leader...
...Lott was asked how long he'd been talking to Jeffords...
...He's not...
...The danger here is that Bush, fearing reelection trouble, could overreact and veer to the left...
...Jeffords voted with him...
...Just look at education, the environment, hiring quotas, the war on poverty, and trade with China...
...What Bush couldn't accept was Jeffords's demand to increase spending for education of the disabled by 15 times more than Bush had proposed...
...For Bush, the message is that liberal regions won't be wooed by compromises...
...He and Jeffords were both elected to the House in the early '70s and the Senate in 1988...
...They didn't when they controlled the Senate and the White House...
...Daschle plans to bring up a patients' bill of rights as the first order of business when he becomes majority leader...
...No, what changes is the schedule...
...The swing votes in the Senate, including John McCain, are important, but they already were...
...It's welfare...
...This is wrong on both counts...
...More than any senator, he's responsible for forcing Bush to reduce his tax cut by $300 billion...
...On taxes, Bush stuck with his conservative tax cut until nearly the end, when he compromised just enough to assure passage...
...Jeffords bolted anyway...
...Jeffords took up the he's-too-conservative cry...
...Bush and GOP congressional leaders bent over backwards to accommodate Jeffords and liberal Democrats on education, the senator's top priority...
...best strategy is still the one that produced his greatest success, the tax cut...
...He's never courted conservatives that way," says Santorum, a Lott ally...
...Because only that will prevent more Republican defections and it's the president's one hope for getting his agenda through Congress...
...And Lott blocked repeated efforts by conservative senators to oust Jeffords from his committee chairmanship...
...But if he begins with conservative proposals and then goes after moderate Democrats, he's likely to get a center-right result...
...But the stereotype exists, and Jeffords's departure buttresses it...
...Still, control of the schedule is very important...
...Only a minor, leftward adjustment is needed...
...One more downbeat side effect: Jeffords's announcement overshadowed Bush's tax cut victory, denying him any political momentum he might have gotten from it...
...That means governing from the right, not the middle...
...Daschle chose not to mount a filibuster or even noisy opposition as the first act of the coming Democratic majority...
...If Daschle had been officially in charge, he could have delayed the Olson nomination indefinitely...
...Democrats won't be able to swallow this either...
...Olson was confirmed, 51-47...
...The lesson here for Bush is that the Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...In other words, it goes to people who didn't pay income taxes and aren't getting a refund...
...And Jeffords didn't change that...
...The Senate is ideologically unchanged...
...Jeffords wasn't, and on judges or missile defense, Democrats won't be...
...He was the major force behind making the child tax credit "refundable...
...He's had a lot more success [in influencing the Senate] as a Republican member than any liberal Democrat has," Santorum insists...
...If Bush starts with centrist proposals and then compromises with Democrats, he'll wind up with center-left legislation...
...That's what happened on education...
...The irony of the switch is that Jeffords had more influence as a dissenting Republican than he's likely to have as a conforming Democrat...
...The public won't be pleased by blatant obstructionism...
...Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lott has given Jeffords more attention than any other senator...
...But mostly, it was the circumstance: a 50-50 Senate and a chance to make history...
...There's no clear path to victory for the Bush agenda, after taxes and education, but that was always true...
...He made sure conservatives never punished Jeffords in any way for voting with Democrats...
...The Democratic takeover unloosed several canards about Jeffords's motives and what lies ahead for Bush...
...He has to become more moderate...
...BY FRED BARNES THE BUZZ IN THE MEDIA after senator James Jeffords's switch put Democrats in control of the Senate was that President Bush must change his ways...
Vol. 6 • June 2001 • No. 36
