The GOP.com blog will be pretty quiet over the next few days as we here at the RNC, just like you, our readers, enjoy some time spent with family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend. So, a day before Thanksgiving, I wanted to be sure to wish you and yours a happy one– enjoy the next few days, and I’ll see you again next week!
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Per the Politico, “Biden replacement creates blowback:”
Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner’s (D) decision to appoint Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s longtime aide Ted Kaufman to the Senate has upset local Democrats who believe the move was a ham-handed attempt to engineer the election of Biden’s son, Beau, to the Senate in 2010.
By selecting Kaufman, who has said he would serve only two years before a special election is held in 2010, Minner bypassed other interested Delaware pols and ensured that Beau Biden will have a clearer opportunity to succeed his father in the Senate.
Beau Biden, the state’s attorney general, is currently serving in Iraq as part of the Delaware National Guard.
“There is definitely going to be some blowback,” said Delaware State political science professor Sam Hoff.
Lt. Gov. John Carney seems to be the one that was “bypassed,” if you were wondering. Looks like there’s going to be some internal discord among Democrats back in the Vice President-elect’s home state…
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… says Jonathan Martin over at Politico:
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is asking potential appointees detailed questions about gun ownership…[...]
…some Democrats and transition experts are baffled by the inclusion of the question.
Obama’s second amendment record being what it is, but him having at least tried to look moderate on the issue of guns during the general election campaign, this is certainly interesting news, if nothing else.
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Check out this headline from President-elect Barack Obama’s hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, this morning: Obama’s Clinton-era picks tend to fit the Bill.
So change-y!
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Another day, another cabinet appointment decision from President-elect Barack Obama… This time, it’s ex-Sen. (and ex-Senate Majority Leader) Tom Daschle for HHS Secretary, and what’s really interesting about this decision is that Obama’s tapping of Daschle for the role has really only been possible via the exploitation of a loophole in Obama’s own restrictions on lobbyist involvement in his White House. You see, Daschle has been working for DC lobbying shop Alston & Bird, as a consultant. More interestingly, he has apparently been working on health care-related matters in that role (and fees from members of the health care industry apparently accounted for 60 percent of the firm’s lobbying revenue during the first nine months of this year). So, basically, Daschle has been working within the same area of law and policy that he will presumably be working on as HHS Secretary, at a lobbying firm that seems to focus a fair amount on it– just without acquiring the title of lobbyist, per se.
To many (including yours truly) this would seem to be just the kind of appointment that, based on Obama’s campaign rhetoric, one would expect not to see made by the President-elect. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised… after all, Obama has a number of people associated with the lobbying industry and lobbying firms working on his transition team. It’s all very change-y.
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President-elect Barack Obama is getting on with the business of putting forward names for key administration positions, and it seems that his choice for Attorney General is none other than Eric Holder.
Those who remember the issue of pardons given at the end of the Clinton presidency will recall that Holder was involved in the pardon of Mark Rich (a fugitive financier), having played what the New York Post earlier this year called a “key role” in “processing” said pardon. Around the same time, the Wall Street Journal wrote that that role “deserves to be fully vetted – all the more so if Mr. Holder is on the short list to be Mr. Obama’s Attorney General.”
It has also been suggested that Holder played a role in the decision to grant clemency to FALN terrorists, also during the Clinton years. So all in all, Holder represents an interesting choice, then…
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From Chairman Duncan’s op-ed on campaign finance, running today in the Washington Times:
…we currently have a regulatory system of campaign finance laws that severely limits the ability of a national political party to fully communicate with and support that party’s candidates for federal, state, or local office.
Opposition to these artificial restrictions on a national political party’s basic freedoms of speech and association is at the core of my decision to file lawsuits in the District of Columbia and Louisiana challenging the constitutionality of campaign finance prohibitions on certain activities by national political party committees.
A national political party should have the freedom to support candidates at the federal, state, or local level with funds raised in accordance with the applicable and constitutional federal, state, or local law.
The effect of current campaign finance law is to limit a political party’s freedom of speech to only federal elections. This limitation is not only unfair, it is unconstitutional.
[...]
The Republican Party serves as the national voice for millions of Americans who share a philosophy rooted in the principles of lower taxes, less government, individual responsibility, and a strong national defense. The RNC promotes those principles by assisting candidates at all levels and by getting our message out to the American public.
The government has no role in severing our ability to promote or communicate our philosophy; for the government to do so is contrary to the very principles upon which it was founded.
Freedom of speech should include an individual’s right to contribute, as he or she sees fit, to any political party, political action committee, or coalition to support the causes for which it stands.
Freedom of association should include a national political party’s ability to support its candidates and share its political philosophy.
The Republican Party has and always will fight for the protection of these freedoms. It is a cause we are devoted to and a right worth defending.
Read the whole thing, though…
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Those who closely followed political news during the 2008 presidential campaign will remember that President-elect Barack Obama showed himself, over the course of it, to be no fan of lobbyists. In fact, his opposition to lobbyists’ involvement in presidential politics (and service in presidential administrations) was one of the more identifiable features of Obama as a presidential candidate.
So, it’s interesting to learn today, via the Washington Times, that a “transition adviser to President-elect Barack Obama earned millions of dollars overseeing an office that led a lobbying effort to prevent increased oversight of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the company at the heart of the ongoing turmoil in the nation’s financial markets…”
The adviser in question is Thomas E. Donilon, and according to the Times, he “held several senior positions at Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005, including vice president of law and policy, at a time when the company’s officers and lobbyists were insisting that now-troubled Fannie’s finances were sound. In a 2006 report, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said Fannie Mae lobbyists, whose office was overseen by Mr. Donilon, tried to use their ties to members of Congress to discredit federal regulators through a campaign aimed at securing the release of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report to discredit OFHEO.”
Hmmm… I suppose the good news here is that according to Obama aides, Donilon will have no say in housing matters. Still, Donilon’s involvement in Obama’s transition, given his previous work (and the entity for which it was done) is likely to raise a few eyebrows, not least considering Obama’s comments about lobbyists made on the campaign trail (and incidentally, the same might be said of rules regarding lobbyists and former lobbyists’ involvement in transition efforts).
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President-elect Barack Obama has named Greg Craig as White House Counsel.
As Glenn Reynolds points out, there is some netroots unhappiness over this. However, it’s also a move that may prove controversial, and in the eyes of a broader audience, to boot, because of Craig’s list of former clients. That list includes John Hinckley, Jr (who attempted to assassinate President Reagan), Miguel Gonzalez (a Panamanian politician under federal indictment for the murder of a US Army sargeant), and a former Bolivian defense minister accused of human rights abuses, among others.
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For those following events relevant to the Coleman-Franken race in Minnesota, which is due to head into recount territory next week, I thought I’d mention that there is a site dedicated to tracking relevant news (including interesting content coming off of the blogs). It’s an NRSC project and is simply called Minnesota Recount. It can be found here, for those who are interested.
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