|
A small, dispirited group of Senate Republicans re-anointed their leaders Tuesday while promising a new outlook from a lineup that is largely the same.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and GOP Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) were all reelected to their posts, while John Cornyn (Texas) was tapped to succeed John Ensign (Nev.) as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Ensign will chair the GOP Policy Committee, while John Thune (S.D.) will serve as conference vice chairman under Alexander.
Only Thune is new to the top ranks of GOP leaders, and he has already served as chief deputy whip. Yet the newly elected leaders said their lineup is largely unchanged because their losses in the Nov. 4 elections were due to other factors.
Ensign, who had a sometimes-rocky relationship with his colleagues as NRSC chairman, said there wasn’t even talk of cleaning house.
“There were circumstances out of our control — the financial crisis, and we had an unpopular president,” Ensign said. “But Mitch McConnell did a really good job, especially on some of the tactical things he did.”
Republicans lost a net total of six seats in this month’s elections, with up to three more losses possible in Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia, where results are still pending.
The newly reelected leaders conceded the new reality.
“Clearly, with the numbers diminished, we will have to modify, to some extent, the way that we operate,” said Kyl. “All of those things are being considered right now.”
Rank-and-file GOP senators, like Olympia Snowe of Maine, say they are anxiously waiting for a change in tactics. Democratic leaders repeatedly pounded the GOP as obstructionists, for example, and fairly or not, Snowe suggested the image stuck with voters.
“Our party will have to rethink its approach,” Snowe said. “I think it almost will have to be re-taught here about how you legislate, because I do think that’s an art that has been lost over time.”
Alexander said the conference can thrive by re-examining some of its past successes this year, such as how the party pushed Democrats towards expanded oil drilling off U.S. coasts.
“I’d like to see us do what we did on energy, which is stick to our principles but do a much better job of turning them into solutions that persuade people,” he said. “We got clobbered by independent voters in 2006 and 2008, and what that means is, the solutions we were offering, they didn’t buy.
“We had a failure of imagination. I don’t think it’s a failure of principle. I don’t think it’s a PR matter. I think it’s a matter of persuading the American people that we’re right.”
Watching from their position of power, Democrats said they will be holding Republicans’ feet to the fire to gain more cooperation in legislating.
“There are two roads in front of them,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). “There’s one of misreading the election and misreading the mood of the country, or understanding that their best years ahead of them may be to get something done. I don’t know which path they’re going to take. But if they go the former, to fight and object to everything, they’ll pay an awful price.”
Also Tuesday, Republicans easily voted down a series of rule changes proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would have included imposing term limits on GOP leaders and the party’s seats on the Appropriations Committee.
The leadership limits were defeated by a vote of 36-5, while the Appropriations Committee limits fell by a vote of 36-4. One proposal that did pass: imposing secret-ballot elections for leadership and committee chairmen.
DeMint said after the votes that he was only trying to “reduce the concentration of power and get more members involved.”
“But there was a sentiment here today that we don’t need to do anything,” he said. “Change is hard, and I didn’t expect to win.” |
