The Majority Leader's War
BARNES, FRED
The Majority Leader's War Tom Daschle's strategy for defeating George W. Bush. BY FRED BARNES President Bush was in a pleading mood. The occasion was his weekly White House breakfast with...
...Remember when Trent Lott was majority leader and he tried to slip some small measure helping Mississippi into a bill...
...If there's a particular style that folks expect in a clever political operator, Daschle hasn't got it...
...He said that three times...
...Senate Democrats were forced to back Byrd, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, if only for self-protection...
...Daschle has kicked most major issues into 2002, expecting Democrats will have more sway...
...Daschle's aim is to limit Bush's achievements strictly to matters of war...
...The other Illinois senator, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, was opposed...
...In the end, Byrd and Democrats got zero as Senate Republicans blocked the added spending on procedural grounds...
...Bush says the energy measure, and especially its provision for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), is critical to national security...
...They can usually muster enough votes to block any Daschle initiative by filibuster...
...Daschle knows that if Byrd is dominating the Senate floor with a new spending scheme, it's not good for Democrats or for Daschle himself...
...A telltale sign is that one of Daschle's chief aides, Anita Dunn, offers anyone who's interested an updated compilation of all Republican charges from the press, TV, or television ads...
...But there was fallout...
...The most striking is a TV spot accusing Daschle of aiding Saddam Hussein by blocking oil drilling in ANWR...
...Limits on damages are anathema to trial lawyers, a group that generously funds Democratic candidates...
...Credit for success on other issues will be denied Bush...
...But the majority leader has difficulty controlling Byrd...
...Robert Byrd of West Virginia was proposing...
...On the stimulus bill, Daschle kept Democrat Max Baucus, the chair man of the Senate Finance Committee, from drafting legislation with Republican input...
...It's that he's intensely partisan wherever and whenever possible, even in wartime...
...It may not...
...Sure, looks can be deceiving...
...That's another story...
...Meanwhile, Democratic pressure groups will be appeased and the stage set for Democratic victory in the 2002 elections...
...The ad is not entirely frivolous: ANWR would produce the same amount of oil the United States currently imports from Iraq...
...Nowhere in the media, for example, has anyone raised the competence issue—that is, why doesn't Daschle get legislation passed...
...Democrats are counting on Bush's popularity to evaporate after the war just as his father's did post-Gulf War...
...At the moment, Daschle's problem isn't Republican leaders...
...In any event, he didn't honor Rumsfeld's (and Bush's) request...
...Daschle has a theory to justi fy his narrow definition of bipartisan ship in wartime...
...The less dependent we are on foreign sources of crude oil, the more secure we are at home," the president declared...
...Daschle, after all, is an obstructionist and none-too-secretive about it...
...Next year Daschle may have a bigger problem still with a victorious war president...
...He insists, for example, on health insurance for the jobless as part of a stimulus package, thus keeping the health care issue alive...
...We've done all of those pieces the Bush administration has indicated were important to this country and the agenda in the aftermath of September 11...
...While George Bush is popular, voter doubts are close to the surface," Carville, Greenberg, and Shrum said...
...It's not that he's unpatriotic or that his actions are indefensible...
...Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Daschle's most persistent GOP critic in the Senate, says Daschle has single-handedly destroyed the "air of bipartisanship" in Congress...
...In that event, bipartisanship may appeal to Daschle next year more than he thought it would...
...On terrorism insurance, a deal had been negotiated by Democrats Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and Republican Phil Gramm of Texas...
...His excuse was that the bill was divisive and would prompt a time-consuming filibuster...
...The attacks appear to have damaged Daschle not at all...
...Byrd, unrestrained, went ahead, devoting two weeks to pushing for more spending...
...Even many Bush voters were slightly dubious of him in 2000, but now everyone has learned more about Bush, virtually all of it favorable...
...You have to look long and hard to find a piece, on TV or in print, that's hostile to Daschle...
...Please don't load up the defense appropriations bill with billions of extra spending for "homeland security," as Sen...
...In Daschle's case, they are...
...He has lavish praise ("spectacular," "great") for Bush's performance in the war on terrorism and he's strongly backed Bush's war agenda...
...as Daschle had earlier promised the president...
...We should not give voice to these doubts in this period, but we should be prepared to highlight issues that allow those doubts to emerge later...
...Fitzgerald took the Senate floor, and kept talking when an impatient Byrd arrived with his final spending amendment...
...And despite Bush's willingness to restrict a rate reduction to middle-class taxpayers, Daschle objects to any cut in personal rates at all, in effect blocking a bipartisan economic stimulus...
...But that's not particularly meaningful these days since Daschle is busy obstructing, not pushing legislation...
...His problem is Democratic senator Robert Byrd...
...a senator asked...
...I think the America people have actually drawn a distinc tion between the war effort and domestic policy," he said on CNN No doubt he's correct about this: The public wants extravagant support for Bush on the war, but is unfazed by opposition to Bush on everything else so long as the president isn't attacked by name...
...Bipartisan bill sign-ings at the White House will be few and far between...
...First he wanted $20 billion, then $15 billion, then it was cut to $7.5 billion before returning to $15 billion...
...Democrats should back the fight against terrorism, they said, but also lay claim to domestic issues such as the economy, jobs, and health care...
...The attacks started with conservative groups and Republicans in Congress...
...On these—the energy bill, say, or terrorism insurance—Daschle is anything but bipartisan...
...Bush's insistence that more than enough had already been appropriated was ignored...
...He takes a minimalist approach...
...The occasion was his weekly White House breakfast with congressional leaders...
...The result was a double defeat: Durbin caved and Byrd lost...
...My explanation is twofold...
...These were the strongest words Bush has uttered at any of the breakfasts...
...Second, there's the adoring press corps...
...Democratic strategists James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, and Robert Shrum said roughly the same thing last month in their analysis of a new national poll...
...The episode was illuminating about how Daschle functions as wartime majority leader...
...He's calm, soft-spoken, and easygoing...
...The press always landed on him...
...I'll have to veto it, Bush said...
...This sounds like Daschle's marching orders, though he says he hasn't read the strategists' analysis...
...Yet when at least two Democrats— Senators Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana—were prepared to back ANWR drilling, Daschle removed the bill from the energy committee and took personal charge of it...
...Not quite...
...Finally, Republicans informed Daschle the only way Fitzgerald would yield the floor was for Durbin to withdraw his O'Hare amendment...
...And Daschle was unable to avert the embarrassment...
...On the contrary, they've made his standing among Democrats higher than ever, and it was pretty high to begin with...
...There's trade promotion authority, the faith-based initiative, a ban on cloning, election reform, and the passel of war-related bills waiting for Senate deliberation, and waiting and waiting and waiting...
...McCain didn't, and the press didn't either...
...How can we help you...
...He delivered quick Senate approval of the counterterrorism bill, "use of force" resolution, $40 billion supplemental appropriation, airline bailout, and aviation security bill...
...Daschle may have been one of those groaning...
...Yet legislation approved in the House with its 5-vote Republican majority piles up in the Senate and the press looks the other way...
...Daschle annulled their agreement because it barred punitive damages in lawsuits involving acts of terrorism—damages taxpayers might ultimately have to pay...
...Daschle managed to get an item in the defense appropriations bill that turns an old gold mine over to the state of South Dakota but assigns any legal liability growing out of the mine's cleanup to the federal government, aka the taxpayers...
...But what if Bush, still popular, decides to use his political capital on domestic issues...
...The public doesn't seem to have taken much notice...
...The question is why has the anti-Daschle campaign failed so miserably...
...Byrd's bid to jack up spending for homeland security turned into a fiasco...
...It's fellow Democratic senator Robert Byrd...
...Don't lard the defense bill with "pork," Rumsfeld answered...
...Daschle is doing exactly that...
...Daschle had to plead with GOP senator John McCain not to attack the measure as pork...
...Hughes told a group of Gannett reporters that Daschle has created a "void of leadership" in the Senate...
...His remarks were pointed at Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle...
...Democratic senator Dick Durbin of Illinois tried to amend the defense bill with funds for doubling the number of runways at O'Hare Airport in Chicago...
...Just last week the White House was informed faith-based won't be taken up this year, Daschle is busy obstructing, not pushing legislation...
...Byrd glared at Fitzgerald...
...Neither is time sensitive, but both are important to Democratic constituencies...
...Daschle, Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press, "has decided...
...Around that time—late November—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld briefed all 100 senators on the course of the war on terrorism at a closed-door meeting at the Capitol...
...For a month now, Republicans have gone after Daschle, charging him with obstructionism...
...So was his appeal for the Senate to wait until Tom Ridge puts together a homeland security plan early next year...
...Karl Rove, Bush's senior aide, has promised he will...
...Daschle feels obligated to work with Bush only on matters directly connected to the war effort...
...Since September 11, Daschle has intervened to upset bipartisan cooperation on the energy, terrorism insurance, and economic stimulus bills...
...In fact, he has fiercely opposed Bush and has prevented other Democrats from pursuing bipartisan agreements...
...The president and I Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...First, there's his appealing manner...
...A majority leader normally is judged by the standard of what he produces, not by what he impedes...
...More recently, White House aides Larry Lindsey and Karen Hughes and Vice President Dick Cheney have joined in...
...have worked as closely together as I've worked with anybody over the last several years," Daschle said on Meet the Press...
...Of course the bill is also the bane of the environmental lobby, a Democratic constituency bent on protecting ANWR from oil companies...
...His problem isn't Republican leaders...
...How should we regard this crass maneuvering by Daschle...
...That brought groans from the audience of senators...
...And instead of bringing up legislation sought by Bush for a vote before adjourning this week, Daschle substituted the railroad retirement and farm bills...
...How about on matters Bush says are war-related but many Democrats claim aren't sufficiently related...
...to become more of an obstructionist...
...Not surprisingly, the resulting bill left off Bush's top priority for juicing the economy, acceleration of income tax rate reductions slated over the next five years...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 15
