They gave Grover Norquist a pledge: Like Tevye’s daughter and her future husband, a poor tailor, up to 39 senators and 219 members of the House of Representatives gave conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist a pledge - never to vote for a tax hike.
With the Nov. 6 election results, Republicans who signed the pledge think they do not need to keep the pledge now that tax increases for the rich are acceptable to the public at large. The concern here is not the tax issue but the principle: Some Republicans are poised to break their promises. President Clinton’s violation of his marriage vows led, in a strangely legalistic way, to his impeachment. Why should these idiots be given a pass for breaking a sacred promise?
The “Fiddler on the Roof” pledge was, joyfully, for the couple to wed, while the Republican pledge is one that many folks, this writer included, hope that they do break. Yet a pledge by its very nature is supposed to be inviolate. Some excuses for breaking the pledge, as The New York Times reports, are precious:
Rep. Peter T. King from Long Island: “A pledge is good at the time you sign it…I don’t want to rule anything out.”
Rep. Scott Rigell, Virginia, in renouncing the pledge: “Basically the pledge is like a Master Lock.”
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, now describes the pledge as a “tortured vision of tax purity.”
Sen. John McCain, Arizona: “Fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge.”
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Georgia: “I’m frankly not concerned about the Norquist pledge.”
Norquist should not be so shocked. What kind of politicians would they be if they did not break promises?
The vile, vile (Congressman) West: U.S. Rep. Allen West, a Republican, has only one month left to cause mayhem in Washington, D.C. In the last 23 months, he accused 78 to 81 of his colleagues in the House of Representatives of being members of the Communist Party. No explanation for the three-person difference.
He even insulted his own congresswoman by calling her “vile, unprofessional and despicable.” He was angry that Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz criticized him on the House floor for attempting to scrap Medicare as we know it. She had the gall to emphasize that West’s constituents in south Florida might be unhappy about that.
West is allowed to represent a congressional district where he does not live so long as he resides in the same state. He lives in Wasserman-Schultz’s district west and south of Fort Lauderdale and represents coastal communities between Lauderdale and Boca Raton. After redistricting added more Democrats to his district, West ran in a GOP-leaning district further north and lost anyway.
Once West departs, we will miss him…in terms of comedy relief.
A closet opens in Harrisburg: Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe - one of the most right-wing members of the House of Representatives - may be less pleased that Rep. Babette Josephs is departing than one might think. Josephs, one of the most liberal representatives in the state, sat next to Metcalfe week after week in Harrisburg on the House State Government Committee.
Metcalfe chairs the panel because Republicans control the House, and Josephs is ranking Democrat. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette puts it, she “sits elbow-to-elbow with Metcalfe, and they often glare daggers at each other.”
Metcalfe, who lives north of Pittsburgh, assails Josephs’s Philadelphia as a hub for “homosexuals, immigrants (and) poor minority neighborhoods,” as quoted in Philadelphia Magazine.
Josephs claimed that a series of anti-immigrant bills “show fear and contempt against a group of people - and we know they’re Latinos.”
After 37 years representing much of downtown Philadelphia, Josephs was ousted in the 2012 Democratic primary. In the process, she may have gotten the last laugh.
Her successor, Brian Sims, will be the first openly gay member of the Pennsylvania House. He won the general election without opposition. Maybe he holds the secret to getting along with Metcalfe.
First the Democrats can install Sims as ranking Democrat on that committee, so Metcalfe can sit “elbow-to-elbow” with a homosexual from Philadelphia. Then Sims can follow up by inviting Metcalfe to dinner and a movie.
Vote for the mensch: Josh Mandel is the third Jewish Republican I can recall in recent years who was beaten by a gentile candidate in the Jewish community. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Lutheran, was returned to office on Nov. 6 by a majority of Ohioans, which included most voters in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs - a region that hosts the most synagogues in Ohio.
Mandel lost Beachwood - home of many Jewish facilities - by 4,728 to 1,962 votes, The Cleveland Jewish News reports. Only one guess as to which Senate candidate lives in Beachwood. Relatives of Mandel’s wife, a very prominent Cleveland family, publicly voiced their opposition to the conservative policies represented by Mandel.
In Pennsylvania, the late Sen. Arlen Specter was defeated in the 2010 Democratic primary by Rep. Joe Sestak, who went on to lose to Republican Pat Toomey in the general election. No doubt many Jewish liberals voted against Specter as punishment for serving as a Republican for most of his 30 years in the Senate, before switching to the Democratic Party.
Joe Hoeffel, a Protestant, beat Rep. Jon Fox in nearly every town with a sizeable Jewish population in both their bouts for Fox’s House seat covering most of Montgomery County outside Philadelphia; Fox is Jewish. Hoeffel lost the first time, losing Abington Township, where both candidates live. Two years later, Hoeffel was elected, taking the same Jewish towns plus Abington.
In all three races, Jewish voters got the unspoken message: Vote for the mensch.
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