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By The Hill Editors
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Posted: 06/20/07 07:11 PM [ET] |
There are two ways to persuade recalcitrant children to swallow a bitter pill. The first is by sugarcoating it.
But that isn’t how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) does it. He’s the kind of doctor who uses the second method, which is to warn stubborn patients that it’s either one pill now or a double dose later.
In that vein, Doc Reid told senators Monday that they’d be working this weekend — either that or canceling their July 4 recess plans so as to get energy and immigration legislation passed.
“Yuck!” said one aide to a presidential campaign. White House wannabes are naturally more interested in politics than in government right now. Since this is a dichotomy they’d rather not flap in voters’ faces, they’ll try to be at big votes to make their policy speeches and secure a transcript that allows them to boast of their leadership.
But a weekend on Capitol Hill is a big inconvenience. How can you skip a vote on immigration realism/amnesty/border security/rewarding lawbreakers (or whatever else battleground voters care about) when you’re desperate to get to the campaign ATM/fundraiser and scoop up another $1 million? It’s all very well for Reid to amputate a big campaigning weekend, but the runners still have to make it to the finishing line somehow.
We’d guess that even the stern doctor doesn’t really think he can run the Senate through the Independence Day break. It would be so like the Grinch who stole Christmas. But it is a sufficiently unpleasant threat that it will concentrate senators’ minds on the need to get some legislating done.
Republicans in the presidential hunt, such as Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.), will doubtless be extra resentful, given that the congressional schedule has become so packed partly because room was made for non-binding stuff such as the no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Barack Obama (Ill.) and other Democratic hopefuls will probably feel that the Gonzales debate was time more or less well spent. But their GOP counterparts can hardly have enjoyed participating in an event that helped Democrats score a partisan (even if valid) point and then have a deleterious ripple effect undo their campaign timetable.
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) described running the Senate as like herding cats. Cats on the presidential prowl enjoy being herded even less than their feline fellows. |
