I’m thrilled for David Loebsack. As those who read my blog know, David was my college advisor and a friend. I couldn’t be happier for him and prouder of what he has achieved.
But with that race is a sense of sadness as well. Jim Leach is a great guy. He is the guy who stopped Bill Clinton’s stupid banking reform legislation and helped avoid a future economic meltdown. He was smarter than I about the War in Iraq and he’s always practiced what he preached when it came to campaign finance not accepting PAC contributions.
He was one of the most vocal opponents of Newt Gingrich and the effort to reshape Congress and burn down the traditions that kept it functioning and restrained corruption. He talked about serious issues like nuclear non-proliferation and genocide even when it did not matter to his District.
He was everything I wanted in a Congressman. Thoughtful, independent, and committed.
But I couldn’t afford him anymore. In fact, David and I talked about this when he was thinking of running and David made it a centerpiece of his campaign.
Voting for Denny Hastert as Speaker of the House meant that the institution would continue to be debased by those who had no view of the historical importance of the institution and its rules and norms.
Voting for Denny Hastert meant that one was endorsing of the most ambitious marriages of government and business ever seen in the United States. A marriage of corruption that sought to tie the goals of Congress and Business into one instead of Congress and the people.
Voting for Denny Hastert meant that instead of tackling hard problems as Jim Leach always wanted to do, hard problems were covered up and THE GAY was used to scare the voters instead of fixing problems.
Voting for Denny Hastert allowed the institution to undergo a long, slow process of creeping illegitimacy.
Leach was right in 1992 when he was concerned about Democratic leadership ignoring the rules of the House. He was also right that the increasing influence of the religious right was a danger to his party. But when both problems appeared in one party he stayed. He fought against Gingrich and then gave up. At that point, decent or not, he was not the useful Jim Leach many admired. He was simply another Republican vote.
That simply could not continue and I will miss Jim Leach’s voice, but that voice is useless if the first aye is to betray everything he stood for.
I am not sure exactly what district you are referring to here, but he could always do what Webb did: join the Democratic Party. He might have to compromise on a few of his preferences, but apparently he has already done that. And he might find the compromise is actually less on the other side (e.g. Testor).
Cranky
I have to show my age, or lack thereof. What was the Clinton banking reform that Leach killed?
Leach seems to me to be a good candidate for some sort of Main Street think tank in DC, to help jawbone the Republican party back to the middle.
As a former Rhode Islander, I have similar feelings about Chafee.
Sorry but leach was also a member of Congress who voted to impeach Clinton and who time and time again voted with the GOP on important issues of conscience. he may have been a nice guy but like many moderate Republicans afaraid to stand up to the right wing of his party he now has what he deserves, defeat.
I think I’m essentially in agreement–if the independence isn’t there–then so what? Leach had it during the Clinton years and then seems to have just disappeared–part of that was losing his Committee Chair.
The banking reform was an effort by Gramm and Ruben to get rid of the wall between commerce and banking–the danger of it being that when banks see their entire future mixed with the success of a business their risk taking behavior significantly changes. It was a key reform of the Depression and Leach stopped Clinton and Gramm from getting rid of it.
Very touching tribute to Leach. I suppose the minor tragedy in what the GOP has done nationally is that it took public servants that otherwise were at least relatively decent and it destroyed them along with devastating our country.
I dunno. Up here in the snowy mountains of Chicago, the only thing I remember of the guy were these sanctimonious observations as head of his committee that there must be something there in all the “revelations” of Clinton wrong-doing.
He was as much a channeler of this eight-year program against Clinton (that came to nothing) as any of the others.
Good riddance.
An article in the New York Times (click my name) mentions that Leach was so upset by a proposed RNC mailer attacking his opponent on gay marriage that he threatened Ken Mehlman (ironically) that he would caucus with the Democrats unless it were withdrawn. Too little, too late, it seems.