Nuclear Hardball

by DemFromCT

Does anyone think this story timing in the NY Times today is a coincidence?

The independent commission assessing the Pentagon's proposed list of domestic base closings will spare some installations but could add others that are not on the list now, the panel's chairman says.

That wouldn't include the Portsmouth, ME naval base, would it? After all, this story appeared in the WaPo on the same day:

Whether a showdown will come rests with the dozen negotiators -- six from each party -- struggling for a compromise. And no one seems certain how it will play out.

If no compromise is reached, "I believe we'll have the votes" to ban judicial filibusters, McConnell told CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday.

Others were less certain. "I don't know" if Frist can muster the 51 needed votes, said McCain, a key negotiator who opposes the rule change. He told "Fox News Sunday" that several senators have not signaled "exactly how they're going to vote," and that a bipartisan deal remains "entirely possible." But he warned that tonight will mark the "last opportunity."

Ah, well. Perhaps it was just my imagination when I thought two months ago:

New England moderates from Susan Collins to Chris Shays (Republicans in good standing with their constituents) are a bit too independent from ethics questions about DeLay to Social Security privatization. Their reward?

  The absence of a New Englander on the commission named to review the Pentagon's list of proposed base closings has left the region without the leverage those pushing to keep bases alive fear they need.

I could have added nuclear winter, but you get the point. Still, you can only twist an arm so often before it falls off  (and then all you've got is one pissed off New Englander with one arm). Neither side has the votes... but a day is a lifetime in politics. Expect some stress, some tension and some just plain silliness (some by the media, some by the politicians) between today and tomorrow before this is resolved. If we're lucky, one of the politicians under stress will say something honest.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

more Bush 'charm offensive':

Behind the scenes, however, the White House has become an active player. As recently as Tuesday, the vice president met with Republican senators behind closed doors to make the administration’s case for holding up-or-down votes on its judicial nominees. A top presidential aide, Tim Goeglein, the White House public liaison, regularly participates in conference calls and strategy sessions with outside groups seeking to pressure wavering Republican senators. Other White House aides have been involved, such as Candi Wolff, head of the congressional liaison office, who last week shepherded Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown around Capitol Hill for meetings and photo-ops. Brown and Owen are the most visible of Bush’s judicial nominees who were blocked by filibusters in the last Congress.

Bush’s strategy reflects a tricky balance that he and his strategists must maintain in the high-stakes effort to overcome solid Democratic opposition to some of his judicial nominees. Democrats have said that they have filibustered a small number of Bush’s judicial nominees because they find them to be extremists and judicial activists. They have accused the targeted nominees of relying more on conservative ideologies than the merits of the case in formulating their legal decisions.

Much as the president wants to see his nominees confirmed, the White House must guard against heavy-handed tactics that could easily offend senatorial sensitivities.

“Basically what the president is saying is: ‘I really need these judges confirmed. How you work that out is up to you,’ ” said Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist with ties to the White House. “They are walking a fine line.”

Still, Bush and his activist Republican base can ill afford a loss on such a high-profile matter at a time when some of his second-term priorities, such as Social Security restructuring, are struggling in Congress.

“The White House and the Republicans need a victory here because it’s been a tough few months for the president legislatively,” said Stephen Moore, president of the Free Enterprise Fund, which advocates free-enterprise policies.

Where have I heard that before?

[Kagro X]

I wonder if Senators' BRAC calculus should be different in time of "war."

It's clearly never a good thing to have a base close in your state -- or at least we can say it's a safe knee-jerk reaction to have, to want to oppose such a closure -- but I wonder whether that's a reflex we've developed in "peacetime," more as a substitute for being "pro-military" than as a jobs issue.

Everyone wants to protect jobs, naturally, but it's always been my impression that the BRAC rarely targets bases that are truly the lifeblood of the surrounding area. Now that's not something I would want to have to tell someone whose livelihood actually is threatened by a closure, but I think it's worth considering.

What I mean is, is the political risk of losing a base different now, when a Senator has so many other ways to express "support for a strong military?" Old habits die hard, of course, and there's no way people at home are just going to change their minds about the value of their bases, but losing a base really ought to be considered less of a threat these days, as long as the Senators strike the appropriate poses during the process.

[DemFromCT]

heh - tell that to Rob Simmons CT-2. And maine doesn't have a lot of other things to substitute. Lobstah on ice will only travel so far...

[jonnybutter]

In a perfect Nuclear World, Senators like Collins would respond to apparent pressure like this by threatening to leave the party, like Jeffords did. I know it won't happen (and for some good reasons) but...if you ask me, there's no time like the present to begin the fracturing of the GOP from the left, too (it's already begun on the right of course)!

[Davis X. Machina]

Collins is gutless, through and through.

She'll vote with Frist -- she woke up last week with not one, but three, horses' heads in her bed -- Portsmouth, Brunswick and Limestone -- and even though I know and you know, and probably she knows, that after a cosmetic 'reconsideration', they'll close anyways -- career officers, disproportionately Southern, do not like being posted to this cold, blue, golf-course poor state.

And Senator Susie Creamcheese (R-Codependent) will say 'please, sir, I want some more'.

Because even abuse is a form of attention.