Posted on 05/27/2005 4:14:58 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
After all the glowing words surrounding the Senate "compromise" in which the Republicans folded their hand despite holding all the high cards, it is worth taking a look at who won what and why.
The biggest winner is Senator John McCain, who once again sold out both principles and party, to the applause of the mainstream media. Not only is he assured of good publicity, he has pulled the rug out from under Majority Leader William Frist, his probable chief rival for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination.
Winning a showdown with the Democrats by using the so-called "nuclear option" to stop the filibustering of judicial nominees would have given Senator Frist the kind of name-recognition that McCain already has and would be a major achievement to solidify the support of the conservative Republican base.
Now, after having been blindsided by the McCain mutiny, Frist looks ineffective as Majority Leader and questionable as a potential President of the United States.
Those who claim that Senator McCain has forfeited the support of the Republican base by selling out his party must not realize that McCain never had the support of that base in the first place, as shown by their votes in the 2000 Republican primaries.
Senator McCain has lost nothing. If Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' candidate in 2008, what alternative would the Republican base have? Vote for Hillary?
If nothing else, Senator McCain has undermined Senator Frist's authority as Majority Leader in the Senate and made himself the media's favorite Republican. Whether or not that can be cashed in for a 2008 Presidential nomination, McCain has raised his own stock and lowered that of Frist. He is in a position to rule or ruin.
Is Senator Frist a weak Majority Leader or does he just not have the troops required to get the job done? Senator Frist is a surgeon but he can't transplant backbone to Senate Republicans who don't have any.
A Senate Majority Leader today may or may not be able to rule with an iron hand, the way Lyndon Johnson did when he held that title half a century ago.
I don't know Senator Frist but I know someone in Tennessee who does know him and thinks highly of him. I am inclined to think highly of him myself, though I have met him in person only once, when we sat at a dinner table in the White House with the President of Kenya and Mrs. Bush, among others.
What struck me was Senator Frist's mentioning that he was familiar with Kenya from having been there during one of his trips to Africa to perform surgery on African children. Being a humane and decent man is not something to sneeze at but, in politics, the question about decent people is whether they are sufficiently on guard against people who are not so decent.
Senator Frist may have expected that he could rely on his friends in the Senate to stick by him in a showdown. But Harry Truman once said that, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.
Those of us who are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes in Washington cannot know how savvy or how tough Senator Frist is as Majority Leader. He may be getting all the mileage he can out of the kind of people who make up the Republican contingent in the Senate.
Being the leader of Republican Senators who include John McCain, Arlen Specter, and Olympia Snowe, among others with minimal or non-existent party loyalty, cannot be a picnic. Moreover, even if Senator Frist is an effective leader, that is not enough unless he also looks like an effective leader -- which he certainly does not at the moment.
As for any Presidential ambitions, the Republicans have often had more people who would make good Presidents than they have had people who would make good presidential candidates -- and that is what you have to be in order to reach the White House.
This is a low point. But it has long been axiomatic that "in politics, overnight is a lifetime." It is a long time before the 2008 elections. In political terms, there is still time before the next Supreme Court nominee reaches the Senate, even if that happens this year. How that time is used is what matters.
McCain has zero chance of a nomination. Only he & the MSM think otherwise. Watch out for a possible Santorum/Rice ticket!!!!
Frist has A LOT of skeletons in HCA closet too......
Santorum is toast in Pennsylvania. Democrat Casey (prolife) will clean his clock. Casey is popular and honest. Whatever the GOP has to get done they will have to do soon. The judgeships will have even a tougher go after this next senate election. Santorum was really stupid to back Arlin.
He should have backed Toomey.
When McCain was captured in Nam, didn't the NVA put him in the hospital, fix him up, and send him home?
Unfortunately for America the Republicans do not have a majority in the Senate. There are about a dozen senators who vote with the socialists on most legislation harmful to American freedom and Constitutional rule-of-law.
McCain, once an honorable man, should be up front and pull a Jim Jeffords and desert the Republican party for the socialist (Democrat) party where he will feel more at home.
History has shown us that traitors are never respected in the morning after their tratorist actions.
The most obvious Republicans to be held responsible for destroying the Republican majority were the seven who voted in favor of Democrat's efforts to block Bush's nominees. Republican voters should think long and hard before again voting for these turncoats.
If McLame wants the support of the base, he has to earn it.
When was McCain ever an honorable man? His entire history oozes sleaze and getting his own way.
WWhen the Democrats want to win,
they circle the wagons, as they did for Bill Clinton during impeachent. Republicans still lack that cohesiveness.
McStain must be neutered at all costs.
He has become a real threat to the country.
I would seriously consider voting for him in a race against Hitlery.
"Those of us who are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes in Washington cannot know how savvy or how tough Senator Frist is as Majority Leader. He may be getting all the mileage he can out of the kind of people who make up the Republican contingent in the Senate."
I believe this. I don't believe McLame at all about "Frist knew everything". I also think Frist's obituary is being written very, very prematurely.
We'll see within the next 6-8 weeks, but it is possible that Frist has everything well under control.
Yep.
If McLame seriously believes he has a good chance at being President in '08, there is something he is NOT going to allow:
Executive branch nominations to be blocked by 40 Senators.
I predict, as I've said yesterday:
To: Fishtalk
I will tell you what: behind the scenes, McCain will be going up to Dodd and letting him know that if he decides to filibuster Bolton, that he will support the rules change on filibustering ANY advise/consent action.
There will be no filibuster here, because if there is one, the BIGGEST LOSER of the past week will be McCain.
297 posted on 05/26/2005 11:53:37 AM EDT by AFPhys
Behind the scenes, McStain will be working furiously twisting arms before Cheney is sitting in the Big Chair. The next chance is the Demodog's, and McLame's last.
which bitch you voting for in '08--mccain or hillary?
I saw a report on Fox last night indicated that the President and/or Frist has sent Graham and DeWine to 'cut the best deal they could,' because they weren't sure they had the votes and didn't want to lose. I didn't believe it, but it is a nice way to soften the fall...
Depending on who his rivals are in 2008, he may not need it. A weak person who meets the criteria of the base may be creamed even in the primary. So far the field is weak. His fight may come more from a Rudy type candidate who is even less appealing to the base because of his pro choice stance.
I'm a long time Republican, but I hate McCain so much, that even if he did win the Republican nomination, I'd vote for Lucifer to keep McCain out of the White House.
My opinion of this viper is unprintable.
On the other hand, McCain has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination, expecially after this last episode.
His best crack at running for President is to try for an independent run like Anderson did years ago.
But why would a liberal vote for McCain the independent when they have socialists running the Democrat Party.
I think McCain has allowed his vanity, his ego, his arrogance, and his vindictiveness to cloud his judgement.
He MIGHT have had a chance at a run in 2008 on the Republican ticket by oulling a Hillery slide to the right, but he's ruined it now.
I would vote for Senator Allen, yep...just as soon as he assures me he is a CONSERVATIVE. Ladies and Gentlemen, I will NEVER vote for another person running under the guise of an "R" after their name unless they have a RECORD that shows it means something close to CONSERVATIVE.
I am not normally inclined to get angry, but I want something to happen soon to shake up the status quo. And I want leadership from somewhere.
How about, not vote at all?
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