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NH-Sen: It's Gregg for Commerce

by: DavidNYC

Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 10:04 PM EST


P'co:

Sen. Judd Gregg will be nominated as the new Commerce secretary Tuesday morning, giving President Obama a fresh independent voice in his Cabinet but at a huge cost to Republicans and the larger Senate.

The run-up to the nomination has focused on backroom deals, from New Hampshire's statehouse to Washington, to preserve the balance of power in Congress. And Tuesday's White House announcement is expected to be accompanied by one by New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch that will ensure that Gregg's seat won't switch to the Democrats before the 2010 elections.

Brian Beutler nails it:

Surely Gregg's desire to replace himself with somebody who will often oppose his new boss's agenda is evidence of his deep commitment to the administration, the cabinet, and the agency he appears poised to head.

Can't wait to see whom Lynch appoints... sheesh.

(Hat-tip: dday)

UPDATE: No, says CNN, we aren't getting some moderate old-timer:

But state political sources from both parties said Monday that Lynch will name Gregg's former chief of staff, Bonnie Newman, to replace him.

Newman, most recently the interim president of the University of New Hampshire, also worked in the White House during the first Bush administration and was an assistant commerce secretary during the Reagan administration.

A Democratic president is appointing an arch-conservative senator to his cabinet, and a Democratic governor is going to appoint a replacement senator cut from the exact same cloth. Are we living in bizarro-world? I won't believe this Newman will serve as a caretaker until the filing deadline passes. (H/t: DTM,B!)
DavidNYC :: NH-Sen: It's Gregg for Commerce
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NH-Sen: It's Gregg for Commerce | 57 comments
Let's see if Lynch can scrounge up a Republican
who will vote for closure on the EFCA. My guess is that he can't.  
cloture, not closure

[ Parent ]
I'm pessimistic on EFCA
Getting every single Dem plus two republicans in a stretch.  Specter should be a yes vote now that he has no credible primary challanger, but I'm just not seeing a second republican going for it.  And that's assuming we get Ben Nelson as well as Lincoln and Pryor (D-WalMart) to go along.
[ Parent ]
We can
And probably should wait for Franken.
[ Parent ]
Agreed.
Hopefully once that's all in place the Arkansas Dems won't bail. If I were Harry Reid I would take aside any Democrats that were making any noises about opposing the EFCA and tell them that if they don't vote for cloture they will not get any support from the party in their re-election bids and will see all of their bills die in committee. The EFCA is far more important than a single Democratic Senator. But then, I'm not Harry Reid.
[ Parent ]
Conversely
Besides the stick, Reid/Schumer/Menendez really needs to offer the carrot as well.  It takes political courage to vote against Wal-Mart if you're the senator from Arkansas.  Wal-Mart has been extremely vocal in opposition to Employee Free Choice and I'd think a vote for it by Lincoln or Pryor would guarantee major funding for any opponent.  If they vote for EFCA, they should be guaranteed that the DSCC will be there in the time of need.
[ Parent ]
I don't think Walmart will have a real opponent to fund.
There's only one Republican in Arkansas that would even have a chance, and he seems to be very content working for Faux News.
[ Parent ]
Perhaps
I agree that Huckabee is their strongest potential candidate and that he's unlikely to run.  But, I do not think he's the only one who could win.  Hagen and Merkley were considered second or third tier candidates.  I suspect there's some R state senator or rep or someone who has good political skills and Wal-Mart could certainly provide the funding.  A strong challenge may never materialize.  But, if it does because of a vote in favor of Employee Free Choice, I hope the DSCC commits to protect Pryor and Lincoln.
[ Parent ]
Why doesn't Lynch appoint himself..
He's practically a Republican!!
The Answer To The Question
Who will Governor John Lynch appoint?

Apparently, Lynch had been drinking the same Kool-Aid as former Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, who appointed the chief of staff to now Vice President Joe Biden, Ted Kaufman (or as I'd like to call him, Ted who?)

Lynch has decided to appoint Gregg's former chief of staff, one Bonnie Newman:

Late Monday, political sources in New Hampshire confirmed to CNN's John King that Lynch will name Bonnie Newman, former chief of staff to Gregg, to fill out his term in the Senate. Sources from both parties confirmed the move.

Perhaps it's just me, but this seems like a tad too good a year for chiefs of staffs, but the year's young; who knows what will happen next?

I don't think this is a terrible move.
I can understand from a practical, strictly political, standpoint that appointing Gregg will take some wind out of the Republican sails.

First, I suspect that the appointed Republican will not have nearly as much power of the incumbent as Gregg had. Money comes to mind particularly. The appointee may be a moderate or may just be some lackluster candidate. Everything being equal, it may be easier for out Dem candidate to beat an appointee compared to whipping Gregg.

Second, appointing Gregg will bolster Obama in the 2010 midterm and 2012 re-election if "partisanship" becomes a big issue. The Republicans will be less successful in accusing the admin of playing politics. I'm thinking Clinton in 1994.

This is my take on it but full disclosure, I'd defend a Dem administration if they appointed Santorum to Health Secretary. I blame Bush for turning me into a rabid partisan.

santorum as health secretary
just... don't... even say things like that.
[ Parent ]
Brr
That sent a chill down my spine!  
[ Parent ]
And it's Newman
reports CNN.

From my limited digging it seems like she may be a vote on climate/energy and stimulus but probably not on EFCA.  

that's probably the most basic
asurrance he got, the whole deal probably depends on getting a Republican vote for it.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
New Hampshire is an open seat in 2010? I'll take it
Gregg would have probably held it if he ran for reelection in 2010.  Just hope Hodes and Shea-Porter don't both jump in after it.  
CSP better not
Wait, my subject is going to contradict the body now because I had that quick of a change of heart.

Before anyone nay-says her, she won in 2006 in a redder constiuency on a shoe-string campaign.  The huge wave certainly helped but we dont need a wave anymore in NH to win, we have Democrats there!

However, I prefer she just stay put and completely over-represent her district and still get away with it.

I'd be happy with either as long as it is ONLY ONE of them.

[ Parent ]
CRAP
CSP is going to get extra pressure on her to run now, lest the number of women in the Senate go down. There are 17 now, Bonnie Newman will make 18.

The biggest advantage I see of Shea Porter running instead of Hodes is Mayor Marchand can take her house seat (this is so long as CSP wins the Senate race).

[ Parent ]
I think it's likely Hodes
and I think that the race would likely be over before it starts. Who do the Republicans have to run against him?
[ Parent ]
No doubt in my mind John Sununu is going to run.
Jeb Bradley, Charlie Bass are two former Reps. sitting on the wings waiting for opportunity, other than Sununu.  
[ Parent ]
I think Hodes beats Sununu
on the issues. NH is a Democratic state now.  
[ Parent ]
While I am thrilled at this news....
lets not count new chickens just yet.  Two words -- Slade Gorton.

[ Parent ]
Bass may run for the House
Assuming Hodes runs for Senate, which I think he will, Bass may opt to run for his old House seat.
[ Parent ]
I tend to doubt that
Bass is living a much easier and more lucrative life right now. He'd want to get back into the House just to be in the minority, and sit in a rapidly bluening district/state where he'd have to regularly fend off serious challenges? Nah.

The biggest problem with a Hodes ascension, though, is that Katrina Swett would probably be the likely nominee in NH-02, just due to her warchest. Suck.

[ Parent ]
Too bad
I decided to look up Portsmouth Mayor Kenny Marchand but it appears he lives in the 1st district rather than the second.  He would have made a good replacement if he were in the 2nd.
[ Parent ]
I think you mean
Steve Marchand, the guy who briefly ran for the Dem senate nod in 2007. (Kenny Marchant - with a t - is some random Repub from TX.) I like him a great deal, and he would make an excellent congressman, imho. But as long as CSP has the seat, of course, it's hers. It's a shame that NH doesn't have any non-federal statewide elected offices other than governor, though perhaps one day he could run for that.
[ Parent ]
That's the guy
Not sure I'd say CSP is a lock to have the seat as long as she wants though.  Times change and Carol is pretty liberal even for her district.  And it's not like she can be drawn a more favorable district when the state has only two of them.
[ Parent ]
No
That isn't what I meant - I meant that as long as CSP keeps running and winning, Marchand is going to challenge her in a primary. CSP is anything BUT a lock to keep her seat.
[ Parent ]
You can move Southern Rockingham around
and replace it with like Coos or something. Make NH-02 the more Republican district.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
Hmm
Strikes me as doubtful that anyone would want to. NH's boundary between the two districts has barely changed in over a century.
[ Parent ]
Yeah, and it would give the republicans a talking point
"Give the Democrats control for the first time in 132 years and look what they do, Gerrymander our fine state"

Not that anyone's ever voted against a party because of Gerrymandering, but it would be worth a shot.

[ Parent ]
Three retreads?
One of whom has now lost twice? That's the sort of challenge I welcome.
[ Parent ]
A sad state of affairs when that's your entire party's bench. Hahaha.

[ Parent ]
That's the thing about New Hampshire
They have a ridiculous number of state legislative districts.  The state house is something like 400 members for a state of only about 1.3 million people.  It's got to be hard to make the jump from representing maybe a couple thousand people to running statewide.
[ Parent ]
The reason for that, is the house is part of the executive branch, IIRC.

[ Parent ]
Huh?
I don't get it.  How is the NH state legislature different from other legislatures?
[ Parent ]
House elects persons to other statewide seats
AG, SOS, etc are all people voted on by the House to assume their statewide offices (for two years I THINK).
[ Parent ]
Er, I don't think so
You may be thinking of NH's weird Executive Council.
[ Parent ]
Good for Senate Prospects
This is a definite good move from the Senate standpoint.  From the little we know of her, she's to the left of Gregg politically and is almost certainly easier to beat if she does decide to run in 2010.   Hopefully, however, she's promised to be a caretaker and not run in 2010, as I rather have an open seat than even a weak incumbent.  Maybe we'll get the best possible scenario and she'll run and be defeated by a conservative in a devisive primary.

My main concern is whether Gregg will be good at Commerce.  I suspect this will give Obama more credibility with moderates in pushing his economic agenda, but I am concerned that Gregg may push policy to the right.

At the pleasure of the President
I feel confident he will.  So far former Rep. LaHood has worked out pretty well at Transportation as a pitch man for the stimulus bill.  These guys know their main job is advising the President, but at the end of the day going along with his decisions.  If they go off the reservation they'll get canned.
[ Parent ]
Makes Me think of Kennedy and Roosevelt
Henry Stimson & Frank Knox, Robert McNamara & C. Douglas Dillon.

Could you imagine the outrage on the blogsphere if Obama had named a Republican as Treasury Secretary. sheesh!  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

[ Parent ]
Also Henry Wallace was a Repub
when originally appointed.  But he was truly a RINO...
[ Parent ]
Carter's Energy Secretary
was a Republican who got hot for nukes.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens
[ Parent ]
Well McNamara didn't work out so well
But that was mainly under Johnson.
[ Parent ]
One of L.B.J.'s biggest mistakes
When Lyndon Johnson took over after J.F.K.'s assassination, he decided to keep on all of Kennedy's team. Think of it as an effort at intra-Democratic Party bi-partisanship -- with perhaps a lesson for bi-partisan-drinking Barack Obama.

Johnson should have accepted resignations from the whole bunch and started fresh with his own picks. (Hard to imagine vice versa -- Kennedy keeping on all of Johnson's advisors.) But instead L.B.J. let 'the best and the brightest' that J.F.K. had assembled for his Cabinet lead us ever deeper into the quagmire of war.

[ Parent ]
That would have been dandy
LBJs oil buddies from Texas and Dixiecrats running the show.  They were more hawkish than McNamara ever was, just take a look at SecState Dean Rusk, he was as hawkish as a conservative Republican.

[ Parent ]
I have to agree
As bad as people like McNamara turned out for Johnson I seriously doubt any of Johnson's own people would have given him very different advice.
[ Parent ]
One of his Dixiecrat friends in the Senate
segregationist Richard Russell told him not to escalate in Vietnam.  But that was about it.

Ironically, Douglas MacArthur vehemently warned both JFK and LBJ not to escalate Vietnam, which he considered hopeless.  MacArthur died in 1964, but LBJ had zero regard for Mac and would have ignored him anyway.  

[ Parent ]
Freedom from facts?
Never heard that LBJ had any relationship Rusk before Kennedy appointed him. You have other evidence?

For that matter, do you have any evidence that LBJ's appointments were mainly of oil buddies from Texas or Dixiecrats? Like maybe Ramsey Clark as the most liberal Attorney General in my lifetime (yours must be shorter). Or Wilbur Cohen at Health, Education, and Welfare? Or Clifton Weaver at Housing and Urban Development. Or Thurgood Marshall, the first black on the Supreme Court? And when LBJ finally did replace McNamara, it was with Clark Clifford, whose antiwar credentials were pretty solid if diplomatically quiet.

--------------------
Dean Rusk was born a poor farm boy in Cherokee County, GA ... St. John's College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1933.

From 1934 to 1940 he taught at Mills College in Oakland, CA. He earned his law degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1940.

In World War II served as a staff officer in the China Burma India Theater.

He returned to America to work briefly for the War Department in Washington. He joined the Department of State ... made Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs in 1950.

Rusk was a Rockefeller Foundation trustee.. In 1952... president of the Foundation.

On December 12, 1960, Democratic President-elect John F. Kennedy appointed Rusk Secretary of State.

-----------------

Nothing in the facts of Rusk's life, from his Wikipedia diary excerpted above, indicates that he was anything other than a typical Kennedy appointee, untainted by any Texas oil, or even any Dixiecrat tendencies (his daughter married a black man while he was Secty or State.)

So what were you trying to say again about LBJ? I mean, aside from the fact that you don't like him or Texans or Southerners?

Bigoted and ignorant Yankee.

[ Parent ]
I'm not fond of Gregg for commerce
Basically on the merits. But on the electoral thing, I'd actually rather let Lynch pick a Republican than pick some DINO who might not support the Dems on economic issues (EFCA comes to mind). Assuming Hodes jumps in, I don't see why he wouldn't be able to beat someone like Newman in a general election (at minimum, it should be a lot easier to defeat her than it would be to defeat Gregg).

Your go-to source for great sarcasm
Hodes can beat some chief of staff
Hodes can beat Bass and Bradley too for that matter.  The seat is ours in 2010.
Cut from the exact same cloth?
Did Gregg co-chair "Republicans for Lynch" when I wasn't looking?  Note that that was in Lynch's original election in 2004, in which he displaced an incumbent governor in a 51-49 race.  Not exactly a freebie endorsement like "Republicans for Feinstein" or something.

It will be interesting to see what she says about running again.  She may rule it in right away, she may also make a shermanesque that would be difficult to undo.  More likely neither, but I'm interested to see regardless.

2004
Also noteworthy cause Gregg was on the ballot the same year Lynch won his first race.

I'm not feeling solid conservative either. I'm feeling "party left me behind" attitude. Probably going to be the R equivalent to Ben Nelson for two years then retire or get run over in the election.

[ Parent ]
Minor gains
Short term, there's something gained for us in the Senate when a old-timer (R) is replaced by a newbie. All things being equal, the old bull was gonna be more of a problem to Reid and Obama than this new heifer will be.

And Ms Newman will likely bond with her moderately moderate sister (R) Senators from Maine. That won't make McConnell's job easier, either.

Obama probably overestimates his ability to bring his enemies close and convert them to become his allies, but we shall see. For sure, the peer pressure on Gregg will now be completely the reverse of what he has experienced among the reichtwing Repubs in the Senate, now that his Cabinet colleagues will be all Democrats, or at least Obamicans.

As for the 2010 election, it's very hard to predict that far away with economic conditions continuing to go to hell worldwide. But 20% unemployment with riots in the streets certainly seems like one possibility, which would make the usual electoral factors minor indeed.

Daschle is out at HHS .... Obama pick Grassley !!
I'm glad Daschle did the right thing.  This doesn't play well in Peoria.  

 

Or Dean
But can't see it.
[ Parent ]
NEWMAN!

NH-Sen: It's Gregg for Commerce | 57 comments

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