December 26, 2005

Misread Mandates and Misplaced Majorities

Jay Cost, now guest-posting over at Real Clear Politics, has a lengthy and fascinating post up arguing that George Bush "misread his mandate" in the first months following the 2004 election; but equally weighty, I must say, is that the Senate Republicans were led by the ineffectual Doctor Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), who seems to have no capacity to hold the Republican majority to any purpose whatsoever.

Admittedly, leading the Republican caucus in the Senate is like herding cats (or trying to nail Jell-O to the wall). Still, I suspect that a number of Frist's colleagues could do a better job of it -- notably his Number Two, Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. (R-KY), the majority whip of the Senate. Frist has already announced that he will not seek reelection in 2006; as the GOP is "the party of orderly succession," I hope this moves McConnell into the majority leadership. But Bill Frist could do the party a huge favor by at least resigning his leadership position before then, allowing perhaps for a better legislative year in 2006 than the squandered 2005.

Alas, this cannot possibly happen: against all sanity, Frist imagines he is a viable candidate for the presidency in 2008... so "resigning his leadership position" is simply not in the cards, as that would be tantamount to a confession of leadership failure, destroying his only claim to the papal throne of la Casablanca.

It's hard to guess from Cost's post what next year will bring for the GOP: unity or continued disintegration. On the one hand, Cost notes that Bush seems to have figured out the mandate thing, as his father could have said, and likely now realizes he must battle for every scrap of his legislative program; on the other hand, Frist will remain as majority leader until the 110th Congress sits in January, 2007; but -- not to sound too much like John Kerry -- on the third hand, if Frist is preoccupied with his presidential aspirations, he may leave more and more of the actual duties of the leadership to McConnell, grooming him to smoothly replace Frist in the February caucus leadership elections a month later.

My guess is that 2006 will be a much, much better year for the Bush agenda than was this; but then, I'm just a cockeyed optimist.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 26, 2005, at the time of 2:15 PM

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