Posted on 09/08/2001 8:08:32 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Senator James M. Jeffords, who shook Washington's political foundations when he became an independent, won an ovation at the spiritual base of Vermont Republicanism when he told the annual Calvin Coolidge dinner that "one person can make a difference, and I did."
Mr. Jeffords has been much the taciturn Yankee in the weeks since announcing his defection from the party of his ancestors on May 24, but he said on Friday night that the Senate Republican leadership was determined to "wipe out the moderates' influence." He became an independent, he said, to restore that influence and to emphasize the need for the two parties to work together.
In a brief news conference later, he conceded that the Democratic- controlled Senate had not achieved much bipartisanship either, but argued, "I think it's a little early."
"I think there is a general realization that to get things done, we have to work together," he said.
The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, devoted to the memory of the native Vermonter who was president from 1923 to 1929, invited Mr. Jeffords to speak in honor of his close friend, the late Senator John H. Chafee of Rhode Island. Only two members of the foundation who were present, former Senator Robert Stafford and Franklin S. Billings Jr., former speaker of the Vermont House, had ever met Mr. Coolidge, who died in 1933. But they are among those seeking to improve his historical image, which now largely consists of a few anecdotes recalling his brevity of speech.
As part of that effort, the foundation awarded Mr. Chafee, who died in 1999, its first Calvin Coolidge Award for "character and moral values," public respect, practicing bipartisanship and commitment to family values, the environment and historical preservation, an issue Mr. Chafee addressed in his final speech before he died.
Offering praise for qualities he said he did not find in today's Republican leaders, Mr. Jeffords said Mr. Chafee knew "that compromise was honorable, and usually necessary" to enact legislation.
"In a city that was known for partisan rancor," he said, "John was a champion of consensus and bipartisanship." He cited Mr. Chafee especially as the "leader of the so-called mod squad, a group of moderate Republicans, mostly from New England."
Mr. Chafee's death in 1999 sharply reduced the influence of this faction, Mr. Jeffords said, but he had hoped that the new balance of power in the Senate after the 2000 election — 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats — would give them leverage again. For a time that seemed to work, he said. On the budget resolution, moderate Republicans joined Democrats to trim President Bush's tax cut proposal and add money for education. But when the measure went to a House-Senate conference, he said, "all of our work was stripped out."
Republican leaders made sure no moderates served on the conference committee, "which was totally controlled by the right wing of the Republican leadership," he said. That was a "clear signal to me that the Republican leadership had no interest nor need to work with the moderate wing of the party."
Faced with this situation, he said, "something radical needed to be done," and he quit the Republican Party and gave the Democrats control of the Senate agenda.
Accepting the award, Zechariah Chafee, an assistant United States attorney in Rhode Island, said his father regarded Mr. Jeffords as "a public servant who steers by the compass of his own conscience."
Mr. Jeffords told the dinner audience that while he did not know many Republicans who agreed with his step at the time, "I knew John would have."
Talking to reporters later, Mr. Jeffords said he did not know if Mr. Chafee would ever have left the Republican Party. "It would have been only as a last resort," he said.
While his reception on Friday was favorable, Mr. Jeffords's remarks did not please everyone. One who sat quietly was Lola Aiken, widow of George Aiken, the former governor and senator of Vermont. She told a Rutland Herald reporter that no provocation could have forced Mr. Aiken to leave his party.
Asked how he was being treated by fellow senators after his switch, Mr. Jeffords said things were "pretty much back to normal." But, he conceded, "there's a few that don't speak to me."
Yes, Mr. Jeffords, that's the goal.
Congratulations Jeffords, you narcissistic creep. You must be very proud of yourself. Now, please, just shut up, Stupid.
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"Vermont's Jim Jeffords? Who seceded from the Republican union to become an Independent and thus give Dubya the senatorial finger?
"So who's the one lone single individual solitary sole soul who, they're saying inside the Beltway, exercised most influence on this guy about whom nobody much cared a lot before? The one who hustled him to switch parties and stick it to the president?
"Guess. Just guess. You'll never guess.
"That sly political dog Bill 'go for the kill' Clinton. Our former Maximum Leader who obviously did some maximum boasting about it." ---Cindy Adams
In all fairness to Coolidge, however, he foresaw and predicted the pending stock market crash. However I find it strange that he would quit and leave it to Hoover to try and avert the pending crisis. Now there is a man of achievement who history has totally misrepresented. A shame such a good man had to "go down with the ship".
Go here to see what it was like back when Vermont elected REAL Republicans:
Born of the Fourth of July: The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge
;-)
Then you have Arlen Specter, who is slightly better, with an average of 41 (perhaps arguably moderate...though left of center for the Scottish law expert). Snowe and Collins have 51 and 56 ratings, and Chafee a 44. Now, their records are nothing for conservatives to celebrate, but Jeffords has no business claiming to be among them as "moderates". Voting with the opposition party over 70% of the time is ridiculous.
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