A JACKSONIAN PEOPLE WITH ONLY ONE JACKSONIAN PARTY:

The Jacksonian Persuasion (Michael Barone, 9/02/04, RealClearPolitics)

Miller came to the Senate reluctantly, after Paul Coverdell, a Republican whom he had worked with in the Georgia legislature, died suddenly in July 2000. Governor Roy Barnes had to ask Miller two or three times to accept appointment to the Senate; everyone knew that Miller could win the special election to the rest of Coverdell’s term, because of his popularity as governor, but Miller did not want to serve in Washington and he certainly did not want to be engaged in the hyperpartisan politics of Capitol Hill after achieving great things in the more bipartisan politics of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

Finally Miller agreed to serve, but he was appalled by the partisanship of Tom Daschle’s Democratic Caucus. Since he became Democratic leader in 1994, Daschle has excelled at holding Senate Democrats together and using the rules of the Senate to frustrate the Republican majority from 1995 to 2001 and to frustrate George W. Bush when he became Majority Leader in June 2001. With winks and nods, Senate Democrats and their ultrapartisan staffers prevented Republicans from getting the 60 votes increasingly necessary to get anything through the Senate. Just stick together, Daschle said, and don’t worry about negative fallout; we’ll be protected by the increasingly partisan pro-Democratic Old Media and we can force the other side to give in.

It was a game Zell Miller did not want to play. In December 2000 he went to Austin, Texas, to visit with President-elect George W. Bush, whom he knew from their time as governors together. Miller promised to support Bush’s education bill and volunteered his support of Bush’s tax cut. Daschle, of course, was furious; Miller became a pariah in the unity-conscious Democratic Caucus.

Then came September 11. Daschle rallied to support Bush in September, but by December was holding up the economic stimulus bill by his effective partisan tactics. Then, as the focus shifted toward Iraq, Senate Democrats laid the predicate for undermining Bush’s policies. This Miller evidently identified as something close to treason. And he saw the Senate Democrats rooting against American success. As he said in Madison Square Garden, “Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.” No better friend, no worse enemy.

If he ever satisfactorily explains why he came so close to such treason in 1971, Senator Kerry will face the equally difficult prospect of explaining why he and the party he leads are so close to it again now.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2004 10:16 AM