Baggage
These are tough days for the GOP, and we gotan insight into the unvarnished state of Republican morale Tuesday when a leading conservative member of the House of Representatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity, opened up about the current political climate.
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The member of Congress admitted that morale among Republican House members was “pretty low” and said, “If we jumped back into the majority, I don’t think we’d be ready. We’ll be just like we were before. We need more time to reform.”
There was also plenty of criticism of Republican colleagues “more interested in being in Congress than in doing anything. … We don’t have a leadership problem, we have a follow-ship problem. … We have a lot of ‘be-ers’ and not enough ‘do-ers.’”
What about the Republicans running for president? The pol said some of them are “Big Brother Republicans” and that all of them “have some baggage.” What could determine the Republican nomination “is who has the cleanest, lightest baggage.”
» On Fred Thompson: He’s “looking for something to be for.”
» On Sen. John McCain: He’s not “a viable nominee.”
» On Sen. Barack Obama: “He could be really tough to beat.”
» On Sen. Hillary Clinton: “I hope we don’t just beat Hillary just because she’s Hillary. … That’s not a very good agenda.”
» On Minority Leader John Boehner: He has “a clearer set of principles and goals to achieve” than his predecessor, Dennis Hastert. “The question is whether we’re willing to take the political risks to follow it.”
» On Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “She rules with an iron fist. … She doesn’t let her committee chairs do anything.”
» On the Bush administration: “They didn’t recognize problems before they became big.” Speaking specifically about the recent U.S. attorney scandal at the Justice Department, the House member said, “No one saw from the 30,000-feet view that this was going to be a problem.” When asked if Republican members would run on Bush’s record in 2008, the House member said, “No, I don’t think so.” And when asked if President Bush was a Reagan-esque leader, we got a raised eyebrow and “next question.”
