Senator Hillary Clinton, according to a report in the Washington Post, has sought to create a new health care subcommittee which she would chair that would become the focal point of Democratic policy creation. Her proposal would create the subcommittee within the Senate Health Committee chaired by Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy, who has returned to Washington, has rebuffed this proposal, insisting that policy remain with the full committee. From the Washington Post:
But sources say Kennedy is cool to the idea. So is his top health care aide, Michael Myers, Kennedy’s staff director on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Myers tells the trade publication InsideHealthPolicy that Kennedy will continue handling health care policy at the full committee level. Asked if that meant Clinton would not be tapped to head a new health subcommittee as rumored, Myers said that was correct.
Clinton’s approach would have circumvented other more senior members of the committee, and has created a bit of inside sniping at her.
“In the end,” Myers told InsideHealthPolicy, “it’s President Obama who’s going to lead the effort for us.”
Democratic sources close to the health committee saw Clinton’s entreaty to chair her own subcommittee as an attempt to hijack health care policy, an issue dear to Kennedy’s heart and one he has championed for decades.
She won’t get a subcommittee chairmanship as a consolation prize for losing the Democratic presidential race, they say.
Ouch! Hillary’s first attempt to elbow her way to the health care table is rebuffed. You can believe that there will be more to come on this.
Who is really doing all this anti-Sarah leaking. Today’s Herald speculates that Mitt Romney’s camp may be responsible for some of the late hits on Governor Palin. The Mittster sent out old friend Eric Fehrnstrom to deny these outrageous reports. From the Herald:
“It’s a completely absurd allegation that is totally divorced from the truth,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said.
Is Mitt looking to move Governor Palin out of the way as he salivates after the 2012 Republican nomination? Who knows, but Governor Palin hit back at her tormentors, calling them “jerks”. Good for her!
MSNBC is reporting that Senator Joseph Lieberman has opened talks with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell about joining the Republican caucus in light of his failed talks with Majority Leader Harry Reid. Lieberman apparently considers the Reid offer of some sub-committee chairs or the chair of a lesser full committee to be “unacceptable”. With his leverage now gone Lieberman stands alone, although the Republicans would obviously welcome him, they won’t agree with him much. Joe thinks that his support for the Democratic majority for the past two years somehow gives him a pass over his overt bashing of Barack Obama. The Democratic caucus disagrees.
Since his Democratic primary loss to Ned Lamont there have been some raw feelings between Lieberman and other Democratic caucus members. Lieberman will likely be much more comfortable in the Republican caucus, and that is where he belongs. Be careful of that swinging door Senator.
The first press conference by President-elect Barack Obama, with the accent on the economy. The bad news continues to gush in, led by the dour news from the big three automakers. President Obama is going to have his hands full.
Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia yesterday resigned as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Byrd, at 90, is the longest serving member of the Senate in U.S. history, and has been on the committee for 50 years. There had been some talk that Byrd might have been replaced by the Democratic caucus had he not stepped down. From the Washington Post:
In a statement, Byrd cited the victory of President-elect Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as the moment that caused him to recognize the need for new leadership at the committee, which doles out more than $1 trillion a year in federal spending.
“A new day has dawned in Washington, and that is a good thing. For my part, I believe that it is time for a new day at the top of the Senate Appropriations Committee,” Byrd said.
The committee will begin a youth movement, with 84 year old Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii),taking over as chair. West Virginia has been blessed to have Byrd at Appropriations and the state takes a bit of a hit with this move.
Governor Patrick, in light of the Wilkerson scandal, calling for an overhaul of state ethics laws and demanding fast action within 30 days of the new legislative session. I take him seriously, and believe him to have the best intentions moving forward. Will the legislature agree? Aside from posts attacking the Governor in general what about the substance of what he has put forward? Is there substance? And who can be against ethics reform?
The newly strengthened Democratic majorities will begin to plot changes within their own caucuses, with the ouster of Senator Joseph Lieberman as the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as the potential first order of business. Lieberman met yesterday with Harry Reid, with a decision on his status due by November 18th. Lieberman, if he is stripped, will then have to decide whether he stays with the Democratic caucus. But some dealmaking appears to be going on here, with Lieberman potentially holding on to some sub-committee chairs to help salve what is coming. From the Washington Post:
Senior aides suggested that revoking Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would be the likely penalty. He would receive a subcommittee chairmanship on that panel and retain his subcommittee chairmanship on the Armed Services Committee, they said.
It appears that Michigan Democrat John Dingell will be challenged for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Henry Waxman of California. Dingell is a Michigan Democrat who has been a champion to the auto industry, fighting his own party on a host of issues, including CAFE standards and global warming issues. He has been a thorn in the side to Speaker Pelosi, and it may be that the Speaker would not mind that change at all. Look for some heavy infighting on that issue.
The other issue that will bring some politicking to the forefront will be the vacancy created by Rahm Emanuel’s departure to be Chief of Staff. Emanuel is the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, considered to be fourth in the pecking order of the House. That will create a stampede for the job, with the inside track held by current caucus vice chair, John Larsen of Connecticut.
It should be some interesting times in Congress for political junkies.
With North Carolina finally called for Obama and Missouri for McCain I must now step forward and do some bragging (in a modest way) about my electoral map selections. I picked 49 out of 50 correctly, with Indiana being my only misstep. I had picked McCain to win Indiana, but Obama won the state by one percentage point. I have attached my map and the actual map below it. Obama won 364 electoral votes, and I had him at 353. I will now become even more insufferable, and may take an extra victory lap to drive Jules crazy!
A major piece of the fallout from the election results will be the re-shaping of the national Republican party in response to the disaster they have just undergone. And that re-shaping will have plenty of finger pointing and bad blood, which is just a great thing for the media (and some blog sites). The sniping between the McCain and Palin camps has already begun in earnest, with a heavy barrage aimed at Palin by McCain campaign insiders. That barrage has also been directed at Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign policy advisor and direct link to the neo-cons who became a key foreign policy advisor to Palin. Scheunemann has been accused of leaking to neo-con guru Bill Kristol unflattering things about the McCain campaign. Lets look at some of the juicier tidbits. From the New York Times:
As a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s now-imploded campaign tells the story, it was bad enough that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska unwittingly scheduled, and then took, a prank telephone call from a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France. Far worse, the adviser said, she failed to inform her ticketmate about her rogue diplomacy.
I have attached portions of that call for your entertainment.
The massive bill for wadrode for Governor Palin also caused some anger in the McCain camp.
The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.
On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Ms. Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said. Instead, in a public relations debacle undermining Ms. Palin’s image as an everywoman “hockey mom,” bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue. The bills included clothing for Ms. Palin’s family and purchases of shoes, luggage and jewelry, the advisers said.
Scheunemann, the neo-cons man in the McCain camp, has come under severe fire.
Advisers in the McCain campaign, in suggesting that Palin advisers had been leaking damaging information about the McCain campaign to the news media, said they were particularly suspicious of Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s top foreign policy aide who had a central role in preparing Ms. Palin for the vice-presidential debate.
As a result, two senior members of the McCain campaign said on Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had been fired from the campaign in its final days. But Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, and Mr. Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, said Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had in fact not been dismissed. Mr. Scheunemann, who picked up the phone in his office at McCain campaign headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, responded that “anybody who says I was fired is either lying or delusional or a whack job.”
Some pretty interesting stuff, but the adults in the Republican Party have now begun to speak about what will be needed to rebuild the brand. There will be real differences in approach, but the demographic problems of the party are clear to some. From Politico, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty:
Pawlenty, the son of a truck driver who worked his way through college, is also passionate about the need to put a new face on the party.
“Demographically, culturally, technologically and economically the country is changing,” he noted, while the GOP is “stuck in a 30-year-old feel in tone and image.”
“We need a more forward-leaning, newer, younger, more diverse party. That does not mean that our values and principles get thrown overboard.
“But you can’t be a majority governing party getting almost no support from African-Americans, modest support from Hispanics, with a major gap with women, and decreasing support from modest income Americans.”
The party, Pawlenty concluded, “needs to be freshened up.”
Pawlenty is a smart guy, which is why he is likely to be marginalized in whatever emerges as the new G.O.P. The number two Republican in the House, Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, will be losing his job, and the Republican Caucus Chair Adam Putnam of Florida stepped down in advance of the angry mob descending upon him. It appears that House minority leader John Boehner will survive, but he will likely be in a weakened position within his caucus. The Democrats will have their own problems, but for now the Republicans are in disarray. Much more to come in the days ahead.
Chicago congressman Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton White House veteran and confidant of President-elect Barack Obama, looks to be the choice to become the next White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel is a noted political infighter, with a pugnacious personality and a first rate political mind. He is considered to be a pragmatist who can move the political ball, and is not afraid to spill some political blood along the way. The White House will be a more interesting place with Rahm Emanuel as the gatekeeper.
Obama has also designated a transition chief, tapping Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to run the transfer of power. From the Washington Post:
The “Obama-Biden Transition Project” will be overseen by former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta; Obama friend and senior campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett; and Pete Rouse, Obama’s former Senate chief of staff and top campaign aide, officials said today. It will occupy offices in Washington and in a federal building in Chicago.
The transition co-chairs will work with an advisory board stacked with Clinton veterans and Obama and Joe Biden allies and confidants. On the list: former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner; Obama friend and former Commerce Secretary William Daley, University of California-Berkeley law school dean Christopher Edley; Obama law school friends and advisers Michael Froman and Julius Genachowski; former Gore domestic policy adviser Donald Gips; Governor Janet Napolitano; former transportation secretary Federico Peña; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice and Sonal Shah of Google.org.
Mark Gitenstein and Ted Kaufman, old friends to Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., will serve as co-chairs of his transition team.
Later today, the Obama team will launch http://www.change.gov, a transition news Web site.
The Obama team showed enormous discipline during the campaign, and I would expect the same ruthless efficiency during this transition. With Rahm in charge you can count on it. Governor Dean’s tenure at the DNC may also prove to be short lived with Emanuel in power.
Bill Manzi.com 