Posted by
Mark Meed on Saturday, June 27, 2009 11:27:39 AM
An open letter to Reps Mack (CA), Castle (DE), Kirk (IL), Lance (NJ) LoBiondo (NJ), McHugh, Reichert (WA), Smith (NJ)
Apologies for writing this after the fact but not in my wildest dreams
did I think you would actually vote for Cap and Tax last night. I
never underestimate the venality of politicians but I do presume that
even the most intellectually challenged of them will have some
working sense of self-preservation.
To be blunt, you have been played, and that smoking crater on the
horizon is what's left of your political career. This probably
something one of your aides should have brought up, or you might have
put on your thinking cap and come up with yourself, but here we are.
Allow me to state, what is for most of us, the obvious:
Nancy Pelosi, short of votes, was presented with a basic set of options
last night. She could either try to strong-arm Democratic
representatives from vulnerable districts into committing political
suicide, or postpone the vote ...
OR (cha-ching) get enough gullible Republicans to commit political suicide in their place so she could give them a pass.
While I am sure those Democrats to whom you have provided cover are
abjectly grateful, did you realize that's what you were doing, exactly?
There is no downside for the Democrats in having had you swallow this particular grenade.
- In the unlikely chance you secure the Republican
nomination in 2010, your Democratic opponent will face a critically
weakened candidate.
- If you cross the floor to the Dems, that's all the same
to them. Enjoy being a back-bencher while it lasts, and make no
mistake, Pelosi is no Einstein but even she understands that turncoats,
especially relatively obscure ones, are best left out there on the
spiral arm.
- Whatever deal you cut will likely be of short duration,
and may not even survive reconciliation, if the bill gets that far.
They have your vote, and if they have to throw you over the side in
furtherance of another deal, they will not hesitate. At the risk of
putting too fine a point on it, preserving your career is not uppermost
in Pelosi's mind.
For this mess of pottage you have advanced the cause of a bureaucratic
monster that will cripple or kill the economy while providing yet
another massive slush-fund for government social engineering. Had you
read the bill this might have been clearer to you.
Best of luck in your future endeavors,
Mark Meed