What’s the deal with Judd Gregg?
The same conservapedia “In the News” sidebar that lombasted Bruce Springsteen as an overweight has-been lapping up Liberal dogma at the Superbowl also editorialized that Judd Gregg was pulling a Judas, a Benedict Arnold, a Quisling. I can only assume that the articles on these men all ascribed them as big fat Liberals.
I can’t say that Judd Gregg’s decision to join the Obama administration didn’t make sense to me. I assumed Gregg reached the decision that he was ready to pack up his partisan career and not run for another term (the first in a while that he would have had to sweat to keep the seat), and thought that a stint in the Obama Administration was a good use of his belief in “Public Service.” It wasn’t to be — I assumed he also figured that Obama was somehow the right man at the right time and Gregg would be ready to bend his Republican politics. Apparently not. Gregg learned that he was a Republican and Obama was a Democrat, the differences were present, and thus he’s back to the Senate.
There is something in this article worth considering as we move forward. I could immediately spot the reasons for strengthened partisan ties for the Democrats compared to the start of the Clinton Administration. Clinton came into office winning with a smaller percentage of the vote than Dukakis received, as I see Dukakis point out whenever he is interviewed. And the slow glacial Southern realignment that moved the South from having a bunch of conservative Democrats dangling away from the National Democratic Party to being the stronghold of the Republicans was not yet complete — the greatest break would come in 1994. But beyond that, the most troubling part for Obama and his group of Democrats comes in the comparison to Clinton who passed his Economic Bill with… a Senate tie broken by Al Gore. As opposed to Obama who needs to get to 60 votes. The Filibuster has been strengthened as a tool of Minority Restruction under the arms of Mitch McConnell. Really, someone needs to write a primer on the expanded role of the Filibuster as a matter of course — during the Democrats’ years in exile, it was used essentially to keep judges from being appointed, though even that was smashed at the behest of the handful of, um, “Conservative Democrats”.
I suspect Norm Coleman is tying Al Franken down in court as much to keep the Senate in behest of the Specter — Maine Senators Cabal, a team-up of 3 which serve just as well for this Stimulus Bill — actually this one probably is best served with some compromise — as impossible as that is with a Republican Party that apparently has a core 38 Senators not in on any a’dealing, but in the future the Democrats are going to have to actually force a Filibuster.