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January 30, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Bridging The Beltway Divide
The directors of RedState last week sent a simple, straightforward message about their support for Arizona Republican John Shadegg as House majority leader: "This matters."
Unfortunately for RedState's leaders (and Shadegg), few House Republicans seem to be listening -- and they are the only ones with votes in Thursday's three-way election. Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri is the clear frontrunner in the fight to succeed Tom DeLay of Texas, and John Boehner of Ohio has been running a solid second.
The numbers make perfectly clear that the philosophical rift between grassroots bloggers and the Beltway establishment, evident on the left as well as the right, is as wide as ever. The question now is whether GOP bloggers and the next majority leader can bridge the gap between them after the election.
If Shadegg manages an upset, the task should be relatively easy. He will have won the support of his Republican colleagues, and he entered the contest as the darling of right-leaning bloggers.
RedState endorsed Shadegg even before he was a candidate, and a tally at The Truth Laid Bear shows that he has 100 percent of the few blog endorsements in the contest. Shadegg also won plenty of praise after a Jan. 19 conference call with bloggers.
"He hit all the right notes," Right Wing News proclaimed in giving Shadegg an overall grade of A. And Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters added that electing Shadegg would "send a clear message" that House Republicans are serious about ethics and reform in the wake of party ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"Shadegg is the most conservative of the candidates for majority leader and the least connected to the K Street Project and the Washington establishment more generally," said Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution. "This gives him natural appeal with conservative bloggers."
Those bloggers are less enamored with Boehner but appear open to working with him, too. The anonymous RedState blogger Blanton penned "A Kind Word About John Boehner" the day Shadegg joined the race, and James Joyner of Outside the Beltway said after Boehner's conference call with bloggers that the lawmaker "would hardly be a disaster."
When it comes to Blunt, however, a blogosphere-Beltway divide that seems manageable under a Shadegg or Boehner majority leadership suddenly looks more like an impassable chasm that grows more treacherous by the day. Many top GOP bloggers are downright hostile toward Blunt, and some comments by Blunt and his staff have fed their antipathy for him.
The complaints about Blunt were principled at first. Bloggers raised legitimate questions about whether Blunt, with his ties to DeLay and the lobbying community, is the right man to lead a party plagued by scandal. They also noted his role in securing legislative compromises that are anathema to conservatives.
"Electing Blunt GOP majority leader would be a vote for the status quo: big-government conservatism, expanded entitlement spending, runaway deficits and K Street-linked corruption," law professor Stephen Bainbridge wrote.
But the attacks became personal after Blunt held his conference call with bloggers. Blunt's first mistake was imposing tight controls on the call. He took fewer questions than either Boehner or Shadegg, required advance submission of the questions and had the call moderated. In other words, Blunt applied old media thinking to a new, more personal medium.
Perhaps worse, he made an allusion to what might happen after the election. Some participants interpreted Blunt's comments as a warning that he would not work with bloggers if they either opposed his candidacy or criticized him in writing. "After spending a half-hour listening to him... I would rather lick fire ants off a stick than see Roy Blunt as majority leader," Dale Franks said at The QandO Blog.
The "fire ants" quote prompted a retort from one of Blunt's staffers, and that in turn triggered a new round of pointed attacks against Blunt. "It's pretty clear that Roy Blunt's staff and surrogates have a very different manner of engaging the blogosphere than his opponents," Mike Krempasky of RedState complained in an interview.
Blunt spokesman Burson Taylor tried to downplay the controversy. "Congressman Blunt recognizes that bloggers are an opinionated, colorful and spirited group who are an essential part of the democratic process," Taylor said via e-mail. "He is looking forward to working with conservative bloggers in the future to direct their firepower on the Democrats."
The intra-party squabble, however, has sparked some backlash even at RedState.
One House GOP aide bemoaned the willingness of Republicans to undercut the party by focusing on scandal. "It was a debate that the Democrats wanted us to have," the aide said.
Despite the negativity of the campaign, the aide praised the outreach of all three candidates in the majority leader's race. "Good, bad or indifferent," the staffer said, "we're doing exactly what Republicans need to do, and that's open up to the blogging community."
Posted by admin | 11:18 AM
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