by Dick Morris
Jim Webb
Virginia
Elected 2006
Voted with the Democrats 91% of the time20
Committee on Foreign Relations
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Joint Economic Committee
Ah! The anguish of the moderate Democrat! We might call it the “Revolt of the Rubber Stamps.”
Suffering buyer’s remorse after handing the keys to the treasury over to the big spenders, moderates like Jim Webb are giving interviews to allude—discreetly—to how they really had doubts all along.
But what Nelson, Webb, and all the other so-called moderates have in common is this: they all cave in to the liberal leadership when the chips are down. They all voted for the stimulus. They all voted for financial regulation. They all voted for ObamaCare.
But, if Webb did not have the integrity to say no on the Senate floor, he did have the starch to kvetch to Obama in private. David Paul Kuhn, writing for realclearpolitics.com, recounts how “Jim Webb went to the White House last September. The Virginia senator was meeting with the president to discuss Guantanamo detainees. The conversation soon shifted to healthcare. ‘I told him this was going to be a disaster,’ Webb recalls. ‘The president believed it was all going to work out.’”21
And, as Kuhn noted, “Democratic leaders broadly believed it was all going to work out. The stimulus, healthcare, cap and trade. Americans were to come around to the left side.”22
The only problem, of course, is that they didn’t. “‘I’ve been warning them,’ Webb says, sighing, resting his chin on his hand. ‘I’ve been having discussions with our leadership ever since I’ve been up here…I’m very concerned about the transactional nature of the Democratic Party. It’s evolved too strongly into interest groups rather than representing working people, including small business people.’”23
Webb, who served as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, mutters to himself about the direction of his party as he marches in lockstep over the cliff with them. Kuhn notes: “His criticism [of the Democratic Party] is discernibly girdled. He begins to tell a story about a conversation with a Democratic leader and pulls back. ‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ he said. ‘I have had my discussions. I’ve kept them inside the house. I did not want to have them affect this election, quite frankly. I didn’t want to position myself in the media as a critic of the administration.’”24
And there you have the reason to get rid of Jim Webb. Virginia—having just ousted three liberal Democratic congressmen—needs a senator who votes his conscience, not the party line. Webb’s musings are all very interesting, but when it comes time to vote, he eats his words and votes the way Harry Reid tells him to.
The fact is, of course, that this public Hamlet act is all a put-on. Webb is a Democrat. A liberal Democrat. In Washington, you are how you vote. His misgivings, premonitions of disaster, and squeamishness are all an act to convince a red state that he is with them, even though he is true blue on the Senate floor.
Ambivalent though he likes to think he is, Jim Webb has learned to play the corrupt game of earmarks-for-donations as well as anyone in Washington. He’s gotten $129 million in 85 separate earmarks and gotten $2,516,168 in campaign contributions from lobbyists of these projects,25 more than a quarter of the $9.6 million he has raised for his campaign so far.26
* * *
JIM WEBB: EARMARKS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Earmark: National Rural Water Assn.
Amount: $13,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 679,916
Earmark: Hampton University
Amount: $ 4,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 10,000
Earmark: Kitco Fiber Optics MA; VA
Amount: $ 2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 45,000
Earmark: KSARIA MA; VA
Amount: $ 2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 20,000
Earmark: Dynamic Animation Systems
Amount: $ 2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 360,000
Earmark: Curtiss-Wright Corp.
Amount: $ 1,600,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 420,000
Earmark: Moog Inc. CA; NY
Amount: $ 1,600,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 70,000
Earmark: Old Dominion University
Amount: $ 1,200,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 50,000
Earmark: Soluble Systems OH; VA
Amount: $ 800,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 90,000
Earmark: University of Cincinnati OH; VA
Amount: $ 800,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 120,000
Earmark: An Achievable Dream Inc.
Amount: $ 600,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 120,000
Earmark: George Mason University
Amount: $ 550,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 160,000
Earmark: Conservation Fund
Amount: $ 500,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 271,252
Earmark: Virginia Community College System
Amount: $ 350,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 100,000
Total
$2,516,168
Source: opensecrets.org27
* * *
Webb may be reading the handwriting on the wall. He is undecided about running for reelection and the highly popular former governor Republican George Allen may take him on in 2012. Webb narrowly beat Allen after the governor called a Democratic heckler macaca at a campaign rally.
George Allen is a solid conservative who led the fight against earmarks and is particularly outspoken about the drawbacks of taxing carbon and strangling our domestic energy potential. We should beware of sending relative newcomers to face the likes of Jim Webb. This is no place for on-the-job training in the art of candidacy and Allen is a master.
Asked if he is going to run again, he said he was “still sorting that out.”28
Ambivalence, irresolution, weakness define him.
It might as well have been for him that Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1:
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.29
Other Vulnerable Democratic Senators from
States Republicans Carried in 2010
Sherrod Brown
Ohio
Elected: 2006
Voted with the Democrats 96% of the time30
Committee on Appropriations
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Select Committee on Ethics
Sherrod Brown is the single most liberal member of the United States Senate—or at least tied for that honor, according to the National Journal, with Rhode Island’s two Democratic senators—Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse—and Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin. The Journal based its rankings on their 2009 voting record.31
Ohio, traditionally a swing state, will find him way too liberal for its taste in 2012.
The stimulus package? It was too small, Brown says. It was no failure. But they do “need to speed it up a bit…to help create demand for autos and houses and everything else.”32
ObamaCare? Good idea, but too limited. Brown thinks we need a public option—a government health insurance company to compete with the private sector. “So eager was Brown to further Obama’s full-blown takeover of the health care system,” wrote the Intelligencer, “that the bill…did not go far enough for the Ohio Democrat. It lacked the so-called ‘public option,’ setting up a single-payer plan in which the government would provide insurance directly. Brown said…that if the public option was not included in the bill—as it was not—he would push for it th
rough separate legislation.”33
Cap and trade? Most Ohio lawmakers have been cautious given the state’s heavy dependence on coal-fired power plants. Not Brown! Writing in Roll Call in 2009, Brown said “we must craft an aggressive strategy to combat global warming and we must do it now.”34
Jobs? Brown focuses his fire on “tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.” He complains that “now large multinational corporations are doing everything possible to beat us [Democrats].”35
The facts are that companies that operate overseas pay their foreign taxes in the host country and then their U.S. corporate taxes. But they can now defer payment of the U.S. taxes until they bring money back into the country. Democrats like Sherrod Brown want to end that deferral and make them pay it right away.
Why are Republicans so concerned about foreign operations of U.S. companies? Because when a company operates internationally, we may see it as two companies, but the company itself does not. The profits from one sector—in a foreign country—are often key to generating jobs in the United States. According to William Melick, a professor of economics at Kenyon College, a 2009 study determined that “elimination of [tax] deferral would cost 159,000 in U.S. multinational corporations” translating to a loss of 17,633 in Ohio. From 1997 to 2007, American corporations created 2.1 million American jobs in part because of their profits from overseas operations.36
But Brown’s aversion to American companies that operate overseas does not include the General Motors Corporation, even though it is one of the biggest companies shipping jobs overseas. General Motors employs 205,000 worldwide,37 but only 68,000 of them are in the United States.38 Despite GM’s record of shipping jobs overseas, he voted to pump $50 billion of tax money into the ailing company. Perhaps the fact that GM donated $5,000 to his campaign smoothed the way for this vote.39
Brown was also a key beneficiary of ACORN’s efforts in the 2006 election. According to a report by the Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “ACORN provided contributions of financial and personnel resources to…Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.” The Committee called ACORN’s political activities “a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda, which would be a clear violation of numerous tax and election laws.”40
But Brown also used public funds to advance his campaign. After he was elected to the Senate in 2006, Brown worked overtime to earmark federal funds for projects in Ohio and to collect campaign donations from the lobbyists for those who benefited.
Brown spent $121 million of our money to make 74 earmarks. But—more important to him—he collected $4,507,101 from the lobbyists for those who got the money.41 In the past five years, Brown has collected a total of $12.6 million42 for his campaign, so more than one-third of his campaign is being financed by those who got earmarks at our expense!
* * *
SHERROD BROWN: EARMARKS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Recipient: American Burn Assn CA
Amount: $4,500,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 140,000
Recipient: Steris Corp.
Amount: $4,500,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 625,000
Recipient: American Engineering & Manufacturing
Amount: $3,200,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 60,000
Recipient: TechSolve Inc.
Amount: $2,400,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 40,000
Recipient: Water Environment Research Foundation
Amount: $2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 190,000
Recipient: Edison Welding Institute
Amount: $2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 80,000
Recipient: Edison Materials Technology Center
Amount: $2,000,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 60,000
Recipient: University of Akron
Amount: $1,600,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 130,000
Recipient: Alliant Techsystems
Amount: $1,200,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 2,020,000
Recipient: Moog Inc.
Amount: $ 800,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 70,000
Recipient: City of Cincinnati
Amount: $ 625,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 120,000
Recipient: University of Toledo
Amount: $ 825,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 130,000
Recipient: Bowling Green State University
Amount: $ 500,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 80,000
Recipient: Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners
Amount: $ 300,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 300,000
Recipient: Starr Commonwealth
Amount: $ 200,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 120,000
Recipient: Ohio State University
Amount: $ 160,000
Campaign Contribution: $ 262,101
Amount: Total
Campaign Contribution: $ 4,507,10143
* * *
Now we can expect him to use that $4.5 million he got for his campaign from the earmark lobbyists to tell us how honest he is and how he fights for us!
Ohio’s ideological centrism is not served by having a left-wing zealot like Brown in the Senate. He was elected because Ohioans wanted to vote against Bush. Now Bush has gone and so should Brown.
Robert Casey Jr.
Pennsylvania
Elected: 2006
Voted with the Democrats 95% of the time44
Foreign Relations Committee
Agriculture Committee
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Joint Economic Committee
Dick used to work for Robert Casey Jr.’s father. The original Bob Casey became famous as auditor general for Pennsylvania unearthing scandals, wastes of funds, corruption, bribes, and kickbacks at the highest levels of Pennsylvania politics. Without regard for party, he would follow the evidence. Based on his performance as auditor general, he was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1986, where he was just as unrelenting in holding down wasteful spending as he had been as auditor.
Then along came Junior. He ran for four state offices in six years and finally cashed in on his father’s reputation to become a U.S. senator. His dad was seen as a conservative Democrat not only for his fiscal restraint, but for his strong pro-life views. An old-school Catholic Democrat, the governor would not cotton to the increasingly pro-choice views of his party. He was barred from speaking to the 1992 Democratic National Convention for his apostasy.45
The Senate used to be filled with sons and daughters of famous fathers—or spouses of famous husbands—who parlayed their last names into seats in the upper chamber. But most have gone from the scene. Al Gore, son of Senator Al Gore, is gone. Senator Chris Dodd, son of Senator Thomas Dodd, is out. Elizabeth Dole has departed. Hillary Clinton is at the State Department. Mrs. Jean Carnahan, widow of Governor Mel, has left the Senate, and Robin, his daughter, just lost a bid for the Missouri Senate seat. Evan Bayh has retired. Only Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Casey Junior remain in the Senate. Voters increasingly understand that if you have hereditary Senate seats, you end up with senators as intellectually feeble as the monarchs of Europe became.
Junior shares his dad’s pro-life views, sort of. And, as a result, he has tried to portray himself as a conservative. But, unlike Pop, he is a fraud. He is about as conservative as Obama himself. Look at the record:s? Junior endorsed Obama early in the Democratic nominating process, one of the few Pennsylvania Democrats to do so.46
Junior voted for the $787 billion stimulus package, a vote that probably made his father roll over in his grave!
Junior only backs pro-life legislation one-third of the time and got a 65% favorable rating from the National Abortion Rights League (NARAL) in 2007.47 “He voted against barring federal funds to
organizations that provide abortion services, though such services may not be central to the organization’s chief purpose.”48
Junior was one of only seven senators to vote against cutting off funding to ACORN, the radical-left group that has been accused of promoting voter fraud. ACORN came “under fire after hidden-camera videos show ACORN workers in Baltimore giving financial advice to individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute; they were actually conservative activists.”49 Casey’s spokesman said “he did not want to punish the organization for the actions of ‘a few employees’ rather than prematurely target an entire organization…”50
Junior backs a path to citizenship for illegal aliens now living in the U.S., a proposal many consider the same as amnesty.
Despite having attended church schools as a child, Casey opposes school vouchers, though they would give poor children the opportunity to have the same kind of excellent education his parents could afford to give him.51
Even though tort reform could save the country $54 billion over ten years, Junior is opposed and said that a $250,000 cap on damages was “insulting to our system of justice.”52
Junior voted down the line for ObamaCare. After initially objecting that funds could go for abortion, he danced a little two-step on the issue. First he voted in committee for the Stupak amendment, which would have barred any funds from being used for abortion in the ObamaCare program. Then the president attacked the Stupak amendment, saying it went too far. And Junior caved on the issue.
Lifenews.com reported that Junior’s “office has released a statement that appears to go along with comments from President Barack Obama saying that the Stupak amendment goes too far in banning abortion funds, even though the analysis is off base.”53
Casey’s spokesman said he “thinks that health care reform should not be used to change longstanding policies regarding federal financing of abortion which have been in place since 1976.”54 Deciphering the double-talk, Lifenews.com wrote that “the comments [by Junior’s spokesman] make it appear Casey would side with the Stupak amendment, but with President Obama and abortion advocates saying it changes the status quo on abortion funding—by going further than the Hyde amendment—that leaves the door open to Casey voting against a Stupak-type amendment.”55 Got it?