THE RIGHT MAN
The race for 2008 is well underway and Republicans, lacking a sitting vice-president who wants to run or an obvious heir apparent, have what might be their most interesting contest in decades. The two candidates with the highest name recognition and popularity right now, Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, will have difficulty winning the Republican primaries because of their moderate views on many social issues. That's created a huge opening for a candidate who social conservatives will embrace. "That's the most visible and active constituency in the party," says Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont College in California and former GOP congressional aide. "You can't win with the Christian Right alone, but it's hard to win with their active opposition."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has made the most public outreach, appearing via video at an event in Louisville where religious leaders argued for approving Bush's judicial nominees, pushing the "nuclear option" to prevent Democrats from filibustering Bush's judicial nominees and speaking on the Senate floor about Terry Schiavo's medical condition. Other potential candidates are making more quiet moves. Virginia Senator George Allen has emerged as leading voice for conservatives unhappy with the McCain-lead compromise that ended the judicial filibuster debate and has called on Frist to bring up more controversial nominees to force a vote. Last month, Allen spoke at the graduation at Regents University, a small school run by Christian evangelist Pat Roberson. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who has appeared over the last several months at small events in front of conservative pro-family groups in Iowa and New Hampshire, delivered the graduation address at Christendom College in Northwestern Virginia, a school popular with conservative Catholics. Brownback introduced a constitutional amendment in April to ban gay marriage and then headed to New Hampshire right after that trip, annoying some Washington social conservatives who felt he was in rush to be the first member to sponsor such legislation in this Congress and earn points with conservatives in key primary states.
All the candidates are actively courting conservative activists. Karen Testerman, executive director of Cornerstone Policy Research, a conservative group based in Concord, New Hampshire has already met Brownback and Frist personally. "The race is definitely on here," she says. Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative activist who heads the D.C. based Free Congress Foundation, says two of the potential candidates have already asked him for his endorsement, although he declined to name them.
Weyrich says he and about a dozen others, such as Phyllis Schlafly, have already started talking about plans to eventually rally around one candidate for 2008. Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, says that could even happen as soon as before next year's elections. "There's going to be an effort to unite behind a single candidate because otherwise we could well have a Rudy Giuliani or somebody walking through and getting it," Weyrich says.
DELAYING MR. DELAY
After weeks where his press conferences were standing-room only events with reporters firing sharp questions about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, things have become much quieter for Tom DeLay. On Tuesday, with many empty chairs in the conference room on the first floor of the Capitol where he holds his weekly press availabilities, DeLay focused on laying out the House's Republican leadership's agenda for the week and received only one question about his ethics troubles. The Majority Leader even brought up the issue first. Asked by a reporter about the G8 conference next month in Scotland, DeLay interjected "now where is that?" The reporter, said "Scotland." "Scotland, on a golf course," DeLay noted, making light of his 2000 trip to Scotland, arranged by Abramoff, that included a few rounds of golf. A reporter then asked jokingly if DeLay would head up the delegation and he dryly replied, " I'm not taking any trips of late."
But DeLay's trips remain a subject of some controversy. The Texas congressman has maintained that rather than face continued questions in the press, he wants to make his case to the House Ethics Committee, which is in charge of investigating if members violate House rules. That committee didn't meet for several months this year because Democrats were protesting GOP changes to its rules. Republicans reversed those rule changes, but now the committee is fighting over how its staff should be organized. The Ethics Committee's Chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, wants to put one of his staffers in a position as co-director of the committee, to allow him to oversee it more closely. The other co-director would be a staffer from the office of Alan Mollohan, the top Democrat on the committee. But Mollohan, as well as House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, has balked at this requirement, arguing the committee has always had a bi-partisan staff. House rules are not exactly clear on this point. The impasse has now lasted close to two months and has shown little sign of ending.