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Saturday, January 31, 2009
Another nominee with tax problems?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I thought Senate Republicans acted responsibly in not using Tim Geithner’s tax problems as a reason to fight his nomination as Treasury secretary. As I noted at the time, rejecting a Treasury secretary in times like these would be like rejecting a Defense secretary in time of war and leaving the Pentagon rudderless.
But it’ll be interesting to see how they now handle the tax problems of Tom Daschle, the Health and Human Services nominee. If they want to make a big deal out of it, they certainly have the ammunition. The fact that part of the $128,000 in unpaid tax was related to a car and driver supplied to Daschle by a wealthy Dem donor doesn’t help the “optics” of the situation. (Daschle was in private life at the time.)
I suspect that Daschle’s standing as a former Senate majority leader will buy him soft treatment. But if the Republicans choose to make this an issue, I couldn’t blame them.
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Congratulations, Chairman Michael Steele
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So I see the Republicans went and elected Michael Steele as their party chairman. The final ballot came down to Steele, a black man, and Katon Dawson of South Carolina, who until a few months ago was still a member of a whites-only country club. Steele won, 91-77. Under those circumstances, a Dawson win would have been disastrous for party image.
Although he tried to deny it in his campaign for chairman, Steele is more moderate than many in his party’s base, and I wish him success in bringing them back a bit toward the middle. The GOP has basically rendered itself uncompetitive, and that’s not good for anybody in the long term — not for the Republicans; not for the Democrats, who need the competition to keep them straight; and not for the country as a whole.
As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky warned his fellow Republicans last week, “the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one. In politics, there’s a name for a regional party: It’s called a minority party.” McConnell also urged them to expand their outreach to minorities, an effort in which Steele could be a big help.
When I saw the news about Steele, though, I couldn’t help thinking about University of Alabama football and their legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. Well into the civil rights era, years after the university itself had been desegregated, the Alabama football team was still lily white. Bryant claimed later that he was afraid of fan reaction if he dared to recruit a black man.
USC’s Sam “Bam” Cunningham breaks through the Alabama line on his way to two touchdowns in a famous game in 1970.
Finally, in 1970, Bryant scheduled the University of Southern California for a game in Birmingham. USC’s black fullback, Sam “Bam” Cunningham, ran right over the Alabama players. He gained 135 yards on just 12 carries, scoring two touchdowns, and USC won the game 42-21, a humiliating defeat for Alabama on its home turf.
And legend has it that up in the stands that day, Alabama fans watched what Cunningham was doing to them, turned to each other and said: “Boys, we gotta get us one of those.”
I think that’s what happened to the Republicans. They looked at Obama and his popularity; they looked at the scoreboard, at the number of seats they’ve lost in the Senate and House. And they turned to each other and said, “Boys…”
Congratulations, Chairman Steele.
