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Republicans' new strategy: Blame Harry Reid
Cantor said Reid should bring repeal up for a vote if he is 'so
confident' it wouldn't pass.
House Republicans seized power in November by portraying then-Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as the symbol of all that was wrong with the
country and the political system.
Now they’re going after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Only two weeks into the new Congress, Majority Leader Eric Cantor
(R-Va.) has repeatedly — and very personally — challenged Reid to hold
an up-or-down vote on GOP policy proposals, publicly daring the Nevada
Democrat to hold a Senate vote on repealing the health care law.
Reid has dismissed such comments from Cantor as nothing more than a
“political stunt,” and he has openly mocked House Republicans for
sleeping in their offices and reading the Constitution on the House
floor.
But the back and forth between Reid and Cantor is more than a mere
rhetorical dispute between two party leaders. The real target in this
battle, for both, is the independent voters who will head to the polls
in 2012. House Republicans are ready to blame the Senate for not moving
their ambitious new agenda, and Senate Democrats see themselves as the
bulwark against a right-wing lower chamber.
“We have also said that we are going to be a results-driven Congress,”
Cantor told reporters Wednesday. “So I have a problem with the
assumption here that somehow the Senate can be a place for legislation
to go into a cul-de-sac or a dead end. Leader Reid continues to say
that he is not going to bring this up for a vote in the Senate. The
American people deserve a full hearing. They deserve to see this
legislation go to the Senate for a full vote.”
These comments came a day after Cantor threw down the gauntlet by
saying, “If Harry Reid is so confident that the repeal vote should die
in the Senate, then he should bring it up for a vote — if he’s so
confident he’s got the votes.”
The role seems particularly tailored to Cantor, who is quickly building
his reputation as the lead partisan attack dog, while House Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio) tries to “float above this” fray and avoid direct
attacks on Reid or President Barack Obama, said senior GOP aides.
Republicans hope these distinctions give Boehner a chance to cut deals
with moderate House Democrats and the White House.
But after Wednesday’s vote, Boehner tweeted an item asking whether Reid
would “hold a vote in the Senate” on the Republican repeal bill, which
passed 245-189.
One Republican aide called the health care fight just the “opening
salvo” in a long-term anti-Reid strategy, saying Republicans will also
pressure the Senate to vote on the GOP’s weekly spending cuts, slashing
and eliminating government programs and any other initiative the
Democratic-controlled Senate declines to take up.
House Republicans also seek to divide Senate Democrats from the White
House when the Obama administration wants to negotiate on major policy
issues, according to GOP aides.
In part, the blame-the-Senate line — a classic House legislative
strategy — plays into a larger House GOP effort to tamp down
expectations about how much Republicans can realistically get done in a
divided Washington. Republicans believe the constant battering of Reid
will help remind lawmakers that the buck doesn’t stop with Boehner and
Cantor but, rather, with Reid and, ultimately, Obama.
The GOP is looking to position Reid as the “cul-de-sac in chief,” said
one Republican insider.
“We need to utilize the fact that Harry Reid is blocking all this stuff
to our advantage,” a GOP leadership aide added. “That reminds people we
don’t control Washington. That reminds people that Reid is blocking the
pledges we made.”
Politico.com
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