Oh, damn! It looks like I managed to post a reply into the wrong thread of the two that I was following. Sorry about that!
See what a fever will do to you!
Never mind! I didn’t actually do that. My brain is really screwed up now…
I better take my marbles and go home for a while!
One of my issues with this thread is the strange disassociation of politician from the body politic.
I’ll be frank. It’s a bit of moral simplicity to displace our moral problems onto “politicians.” Very nice. And fundamentally unhelpful.
Now, as for Scylla’s radical scepticism, well I interpret our character of the moment’s motivations as not being terribly different from my own. A hard move to adopt perhaps, but ultimately more useful.
jshore said:
and then said:
I have nothing to add. 
Both jshore and Ned have brought up the point that it made perfect sense for Jeffords to time his move when the Senate was at 50-50, because he found himself making a difference in votes promoting a Republican platform that is against his beliefs.
So why was he a member of the Republican Party? What in President Bush’s platform is a departure from the Republican platform of, oh, the last 20 years?
I’m all for divergent interests in both parties, and for legislators voting their individual conscience. But why did Jeffords align himself with the party? As has been pointed out, he campaigned for Bush just six or seven months ago! And whatever you want to say about Bush, he has stuck to the points of his campaign as well as any president in recent memory.
I think it was the threat of the dairy trade being removed Milo. Jeffords wasn’t elected to be a republican or a democrat, he was elected to protect the interests of his voters. Which mostly consists of protecting that agreement, not being a republican or democrat.
here’s more on him . keep in mind, too, that both parties have people who are more centrist than extreme. here was a Republican centrist who apparently saw a more significant turn to conservative in action than he was comfortable with. Since he was on record as condemning the Gingrich “Contract w/America” this shouldn’t have been a surprise.
As to why he was a Republican - come on- in all the debates around here there are folks who define themeselves as Republican, but dont’ subscribe to every piece of ideology, yourself included, if memory serves.
for example, while folks like to call the dems the ‘tree hugging crowd’, it is not really the case, is it, that the republicans outlaw anyone who has concerns about the environment, right?
“And whatever you want to say about Bush, he has stuck to the points of his campaign as well as any president in recent memory.”
Actually there is one promise (kind off) which Bush has broken bigtime: all the talk about “being a uniter not a divider”. If that meant anything at all it meant making a genuine effort to engage centrists from both parties beyond the minimum necessary to get a bill passed. Bush is no more a “uniter” than Clinton or any other politician. Even Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy make deals when they have to and Bush has done absolutely nothing more than that.
I believe Jeffords was ready to support Bush if he agreed to an increase in funding for special-needs education; not unreasonable given how much Bush talks about education. When Bush didn’t play Jeffords decided to leave.
I don’t find the fact that Jeffords stayed with the GOP under Reagan and Bush all that terribly damning. During the campaign Bush had made a genuine pitch that he was a different kind of “compassionate” conservative and also stressed his bi-partisan approach. Jeffords had good reasons to be disappointed.
Of course the 50-50 split and Jeffords’s strong bargaining position played a role; this is politics after all. But that doesn’t mean that the move was inherently dishonest.
In any case as others have noted, Jeffords’s ultimate responsibility is to his constituents and it is extremely likely, given their liberal leanings, that they support this move.
The same would hold true if Zell Miller were to decide to bolt.( I don’t know why he hasn’t done this already. Perhaps he too is waiting for the moment of maximum bargaining power).
In any case this is just is just the first of several likely flips. It appears from the latest news reports that Torriceli is toast sooner or later. Thurmond will probably pass away soon. Zell Miller is always a candidate for defection. Then there are Helms and Byrd in poor health.
The significance of this defection is a little overrated. I would be astonished if the Dems maintain control till the 2002 election.
I suspect the Senate flips of the next one and a half years will be a unique and extraordinary episode in American history much like the recount drama.
**
wring, I think it’s slightly different to be a politician and a member of a political party, take money as a member, use staff as a member, tell people before they vote you’re a member, etc., than to be just a regular guy or gal who typically aligns with the ideologies of a particular party.
Hell, it’s even different than someone voting a straight party ticket in every election.
And then this party to which you were aligned as a politician all of a sudden became intolerable in a couple of months? Without one skosh of a platform shift?
(I suppose the dairy compact might be a big enough deal in a state that small. But I’m still skeptical of that.)
As has been repeatedly pointed out, he has not changed his stances on any issues, merely his party label. The only ones who care about it are the other politicians…his service to his constituents remains unchanged, he will continue to vote as they expect him to, and so long as that’s so, who cares if other Republicans are miffed? Screw 'em!
Oh wait…that’s right…he just did!
BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…
But Milo, according to the SDMB timeclock, the first statement was made sometime before 3:50pm whereas the second was made at 4:27 (refering to a mistake made at 4:24pm). Before 4, I was as sharp and lucid as a tack! (Are tacks lucid?) The fever kicks in right around late afternoon!
[The health account I give with this annoying bug I currently have is actually based on truth, BTW.]
His change probably has minimal impact in the long run, but you have to admit… in the here and now, there’s a lot of Republican staffers and volunteers, who helped get Jeffords into the senate, who feel betrayed.
That’s the point Milo is trying to make.
Just as Jeffords helped get Bush in the White House, and feels betrayed.
Cyberpundit and I both pointed to the same thing, the “uniter not divider” crap Bush was spewing. No evidence at all that this is the case. Indeed, with Jeffords move, I think the case can be made that he is exactly the reverse.
stoid
One thing I think we can perhaps agree on - the Republicans and Bush screwed up big time on this. There were warning signs, which were ignored. Bush didn’t even find out about the threat of defection until Tuesday, even though it was public knowledge in Vermont on Saturday. Andy Card has taken the blame for that.
Given the importance of the ‘swing’ moderates in a closely divided Senate, it’s amazing that the guy was treated so ham-handedly. Hell, Bush has been way nicer to centrist Democrats like Millar and Breaux than he was to a centrist in his own party, who was in a position to inflict a lot of damage.
The Republicans screwed the pooch on this one.
And this wasn’t just a case of a man acting his conscience. If it were, he would have bolted a long time ago. This is a guy who has been sitting on the fence for years, and finally got pushed over by a combination of Republican Ham-handedness, an extraordinarly powerful bargaining position with Democrats, AND active back-room campaigning by the Democratic Leadership. Tom Daschle had apparently been in serious secret talks with Jeffords for several weeks now.
I’d be surprised if all Jefford’s got was the education committe chair. He’s probably lined up for all kinds of perks from the Democrats (not necessarily illegal or immoral, just things like promised assistance with campaign financing, future chairmanships, offers to be media front man for various initiatives, thus helping raise public perception of him and helping him get re-elected, and perhaps even some trivial things like bigger offices and better parking. Who knows?)
Or maybe it just shows that Jeffords is the divider, not Bush. (Or, at the very least, A divider.)
Milo did you read the link? The man had a long history of serving his constituents, which may or may not in any given situation, been linked with the Republican party.
I would like to know by what possible reading of the events that conspired, could lead you to that conclusion?
I hate when threads like this take place when I have no access to the internet. All I can really add is a footnote.
It is moderately preposterous that Jeffords is considering a bid for governorship before his Senate term is over. There is no doubt in my mind that in order to seal the Daschle-Jeffords deal, Jeffords had to promise to serve out his entire term in the Senate. Democratic control of the Senate is just too tenuous for Daschle to let the golden goose go. Furthermore, Jeffords simply wouldn’t have the bargaining power to milk the Democratic leadership sufficiently without a full six years in the legislature.
MR
**
wring, did you acknowledge the points? Jeffords used Republican Party money, Republican staff and volunteers, and campaigned for Bush less than seven months ago, knowing the party’s platform and what Bush was promising. On substantive points, Bush has done or attempted to do what he outlined in his campaign.
So, Jeffords went along with the party because he was loyal and didn’t want to rock the boat? I think that theory was shot out of the water last week.
Was he living a lie and finally came out of the closet when it became too intolerable to be making a difference on instituting a platform he opposed? I suppose it’s possible, but the fact it’s occurring so soon after an election leads one to believe that would have been the time when the soul-searching would have occurred, because that’s when you’re really out there selling your beliefs, and those of your compadres.
Was it a selfish move done out of pique, with many powerful plums offered his way by the Democrats? Far, far more likely.
(And before the SDMB’s myopic, dancing-in-the-street liberals get on me as they did Scylla, as he noted, I have no emotional investment in this whatsoever. It’s certainly interesting.)
You make it sound like Vermont Republicans whose dollars, time, and efforts were hideously manipulated into supporting a liberal. Jeffords has been in Washington for what, 13 years now? He was also heavily in state politics for more than a decade before that.
Ye of the party of Personal Responsibility…
They knew what they were getting in to when they supported him.
If said Republicans did not think that Jeffords adequately represented their views, they were more than welcome to select another candidate who could have challenged him in the primary. If they didn’t feel strong enough to challenge him, so let them reap the rewards of their decision.
As for “substantive points,” it is very likely that Jeffords considered compassionate conservatism and bipartisan action substantive, neither of which has Bush delivered on by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t think so. Around the election, politicians sell kisses and promises. It is quite possible that Jeffords merely took Bush at his word. He certainly wasn’t the only one. So when bipartisan rhetoric was supplanted by unilateral action, it is hardly surprising that someone of Jefford’s nature jumped ship.
Paint me as one of those “myopic liberals” at your peril. I do not believe that Jeffords was motivated entirely by his conscience. There was certainly a deal in the works, and both Jeffords’ and the Democratic leadership’s timing are magnificent.
But to espouse only the following:
…sounds much more like sour grapes than reasoned argument, despite your professed “lack of emotional investment.”
MR