Jeffords takes his marbles home
Mark Steyn
National Post
BURLINGTON, Vt. - 'Jim's a rock star now!" raved one local politician of the decaf latte persuasion as Senator Jeffords brushed past and a cheering throng swept us into the packed lobby of the Radisson Hotel (ah, the charms of small-town Vermont country inns). Jim, who normally looks as if someone's twisting a pineapple up his bottom, seemed eerily relaxed, enjoying his newfound eminence as the world's most famous obscure Senator.
But I don't think he's a rock star. He's more Peter Tork from the Monkees, if you can imagine Peter flouncing off in a huff and joining the Partridge Family. A week ago, Jim Jeffords was an amiable goof, whose three-decade "Republican" voting record read like a guy who's holding the road map upside down -- he voted against Reagan's tax cut but for Hillary's health plan, against Clarence Thomas but for partial-birth abortion. This is what we in the media call "a force for moderation." But now Jim's place in history has been secured by a most immoderate act: In quitting his party, he's ended the GOP's hold on America's longest continuously held Senate seat -- Republican for 140 years. Better yet, he's brought a dash of Westminster horsetrading, a touch of Italian coalition politics to Washington: For the first time in U.S. history, control of the Senate is passing from one party to another without anything so tiresome as an election.
The constitutional propriety of this has mostly gone unremarked. In Burlington, a leathery old plaid-clad lesbian lectured me about Bush's "illegitimacy" and the Supreme Court's "coup." But, if it's wrong to install Dubya in the White House through one vote from an "ideological" judge, surely it's wrong to install Tom Daschle in the Senate Majority office through one vote from a Senator peeved because Bush didn't invite him to the White House "Teacher Of The Year" reception, even though the winning teacher was a Vermonter. Did I fall asleep and miss a constitutional amendment? Or has this rule been around since 1787? "Any sitting Senator who findeth himself excluded from ye Presidential receptions such as, but not limited to, Teacher Of The Year, Powdered Wigmaker Of The Year and Buggy-Whip Manufacturer Of The Year, hath the right to remove all Officers of the Senate save himself from their posts." On such minutiae do empires rise and fall. Who knows? When Gavril Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and plunged the world into the Great War, maybe he was steamed at not getting an invite to the Sarajevo Teacher Of The Year all-U-can-eat buffet.
The press has roundly castigated Bush for his "meanness" and "pettiness" over the Teacher Of The Year guest list, and they may have a point, though not the one they think they have. I only wish the right were as tough as the other crowd. A week ago, the Dems were keeping 98-year-old Republican Strom Thurmond on the Senate floor hour after hour in one frivolous roll call after another: It was as if Tom Daschle & Co. had decided they'd waited long enough for ol' Strom to kick off, and it was time to hasten the process. There's a party that knows how to play hardball: They don't just tear up your Teacher Of The Year invite, they measure you up for the Casket Of The Year competition.
By the way, I hope I wasn't being "homophobic" in my characterization of the leathery lesbian. I had a very pleasant time with two perky young Sapphists who yelped and high-fived every time Jim's more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger routine touched on the inadequacies of Republicans. It was a nifty idea to come home to abandon ship, and no doubt the pictures looked terrific on TV. But it wasn't what you'd call a typical Vermont crowd. If he'd given his speech in Barre or St. Johnsbury he'd have go a rougher ride. And, even in Burlington, Jim wasn't taking any chances. "He came here to talk to real Vermonters, but we're not allowed in!" yelled one female dissident in those broad North Country vowels you hear less and less, as the doors closed on the Senator's no-public-admittance press conference. He'd flown from Washington to Burlington so he could announce his defection in front of a hometown crowd of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN crews.
They used to talk about British administrators on remote islands "going native." Jim Jeffords has made the journey in reverse: He's a Vermont native who's gone flatlander. The old-time Yankee virtues that enabled his forebears to carve out a home in these hills 200 years ago were long ago abandoned by Jeffords: He favours the Federalization of education, big-time entitlements, a heavy regulatory hand on almost everything. The pundits say, ah, well, but that just demonstrates how in tune Jim is with the new, "liberal" Vermont. But even Vermont isn't that liberal. In 1980 and '84, Vermonters voted for Reagan, which you'd think might have stiffened even a jellyfish like Jeffords into supporting his President's budget. And just last year the Vermont GOP won the State House, and not wussy Ben & Jerrified Republicans either, but cranky, angry white male-type Republicans steamed about gay marriage and logging rights. Not that their victory owed anything to Jeffords. He "declined to endorse" Republican State House candidates, State Senate candidates, the Gubernatorial candidate or the Congressional candidate. Even so, his Democratic opponent called on Jeffords to distance himself from the divisive rhetoric of others in his party. Jim was flummoxed. Distance himself? If he were to distance himself any further, he'd be campaigning from Bermuda.
That the least surprising self-outing since George Michael declared he was gay should cause such havoc is principally the fault of Republican leaders going back 15 years. Not for the first time, the GOP's Senate backslappers called it wrong, and the fellows on the ground got it right. On April 24, 1984, the Republican Town Caucus of Kirby, Vt. (population 347) unanimously adopted the following resolution:
"Whereas Congressman James M. Jeffords has compiled a voting record of the sort one would expect from a fellow who can't pour maple sap out of a boot, even with the instructions printed on the heel," they began, "therefore be it resolved by the Kirby Town Caucus, that the true Republicans of this town would cross hell on a rotten rail before they would vote for him again."
But clubby Washington knew better. In 1988, when Congressman Jeffords decided to run for the Senate, Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch endorsed him in the primary, even though it was already clear that Jeffords was no Republican, and never would be. And, as no incumbent Senator has ever been defeated in Vermont, that's all the more reason for not letting in an obvious Trojan horse who'll become one of the biggest nags in the stable.
Last year, the GOP establishment assured disgusted party volunteers that no matter how offensive Jim's votes were -- he supported Clinton 80% of the time -- the only vote that mattered was the one he cast to keep the Republicans in the leadership. In the last of many disservices to the Vermont GOP, Jeffords last week nullified that vote, too. "A POLITICIAN WITH A CONSCIENCE," read one sign in Burlington. "HONOR IS NOT DEAD," said another. A vain, pliable boob who repudiated even his last residual pledge to his party for the most frivolous reasons is hailed as a giant of political integrity. God help America if that's true.
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