GOP Moderates Weigh Loyalty to Bush: "something about something hitting the fan"

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: GOP Moderates Weigh Loyalty To Bush vs. Political Realities
By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A03

With a difficult war debate looming and presidential vetoes for a host of popular legislation threatened, moderate Republicans in Congress are facing a tough choice: Stand by President Bush or run for their political lives.

Votes are due soon on Iraq, an expansion of a children's health insurance program and an array of spending bills. GOP leaders hope to use them to regain credibility with their base voters as a party for strong defense and fiscal discipline. But moderates, many of them facing the possibility of difficult reelection bids next year, are dreading the expected showdowns. "We are at a very significant juncture," said Rep. Jim Ramstad (Minn.), a moderate who on Monday joined seven other Republicans in announcing that he will not seek reelection. "I'd use a metaphor, but it can't be printed -- something about something hitting the fan."...

This week and next, Senate Republicans will face crucial votes on measures to shift course in Iraq, probably beginning with a proposal by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) that would require home stays for troops that are at least as long as their most recent combat tours before they can be redeployed to the war zones. House and Senate negotiators are closing in on a major expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program that would largely mirror a $35 billion Senate version and be stripped of the House's controversial plan to trim back subsidies for private Medicare managed-care plans. The bill already has veto-proof support in the Senate, and opposition may be crumbling in the House. "Most of the moderates will vote for S-CHIP if the Medicare piece is taken out," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio).

Over White House opposition, the House voted 348 to 72 yesterday to expand federal backing of mortgages, the first legislative response to the brewing housing crisis. And the president has promised to veto nearly every one of the 12 appropriations bills in the works over $22 billion that Democrats are adding to Bush's request of nearly $1 trillion. While Republicans emphasize the total of increased spending, Democrats are hammering the GOP on the specifics: $3 billion for border security, $1.2 billion for emergency preparedness, $1 billion for bridge repair, $700 million to house low-income seniors and $75 million for homeless veterans....

***

All of this has clearly weighed down the Republican Party. Six House Republicans and two GOP senators -- including independent-minded lawmakers such as Ramstad, Pryce and Rep. Ray LaHood (Ill.), as well as Sens. John W. Warner (Va.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) -- have announced their retirements. At a gloomy meeting of House Republicans yesterday, lawmakers hashed over the updated list of retirements while leaders again exhorted their rank-and-file to get out and raise money if they do not want to be in an even deeper hole in November 2008. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said a meeting that once would have been depressing has become so commonplace that it is now boring. "People are taking very seriously the notion that Democrats are far ahead of us in having top-tier candidates for the White House and are well-positioned to defend their own on Capitol Hill," LaHood said. "There are no illusions out here."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091801998.html

[groovedaddy]

1. Where was their sense of smell several years ago?

They weren't smelling DEFEAT then. Now they are and rightly so. They hitched themselves to Bush's wagon and now they want off. Too late! The damage is done and hopefully, with a little help, the public will remember what these bastards foisted on us.

[Supersedeas]

5. it only matters when their job is at risk

[TwilightGardener]

2. Oh yeah, that "independent-minded" John Warner, the one who

put on an act of calling for a tiny token troop withdrawal (which would have happened anyway), in collusion with the White House and other Senate Repubs--got political cover for your President and your cronies in the Senate, didn't you, you crooked old fuck? Don't need that Webb proposal now--fuck the troops.

[tanyev]

3. They should have taken a closer look at Bush's history before they embraced him so eagerly.

GWB has a history of getting himself out just in the nick of time, with an increase of personal wealth, and no concerns about the steaming pile of wreckage he's leaving behind.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. That is so true. I always say that Bush, from the beginning...

should have been unacceptable as even the nominee of one of our two major parties. I fault the press for not making that clear, and, as you say, Republicans themselves.