republicans

It’s been clear for a while that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman bears watching. You’re bound to sit up and take notice when a Republican governor of a coal-dependent state decides to sign up for a regional agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The shrieks of climate denialists notwithstanding, Utahns apparently had little problem with Huntsman’s putting Utah into the Western Climate Initiative. He was re-elected governor November 4 with a handsome 78 percent share of the vote that his fellow Republican candidates could only dream about.

Huntsman’s resume has some sparkle to it. Like New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, he has diplomatic experience. Like Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he speaks fluent Mandarin.

We are also told that he rocks out to ...

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Democrats are effervescing over the possibility that they will win enough Senate seats on Tuesday to have 60 votes, a “filibuster-proof” majority.

Well, it’s not that simple. Issues drive the dynamics of each filibuster. It’s not a given that every Democrat would vote to shut down every Republican filibuster every time. Or vice versa, if the shoe were on the other foot.

But with one party holding 60 or more votes, the filibuster would be in a weakened state. And that is not necessarily a good thing. Here’s to the defense of the filibuster. Not because it is all the leverage that Republicans may have in a town awash in blue. Because filibusters are a check on excess. And that’s good for both parties.

A story, possibly apocryphal, has it that shortly after the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson was having coffee with George Washington. Jefferson asked why the convention had created the Senate. Washington asked Jefferson why he had just poured his coffee into a saucer. To cool it, Jefferson replied. Exactly why Congress needs a Senate, Washington responded. ...

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Politics had something to do with the draft Republican platform including an acknowledgment that human activities play a role in global climate change and not including a call for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The politicos decided it wouldn’t be politic to adopt a platform that contradicts their presidential candidate’s views favoring climate legislation and opposing Arctic drilling.

The muttering was palpable. One of the platform committee members, Jeff Grossman of Oregon, said that John McCain has some catching up to do with the rest of the party on drilling the refuge.

In John McCain’s Navy, that’s known as insubordination. An ensign who tells the admiral to get with the program will swiftly find himself reassigned to new quarters in the brig. Grossman, it’s you who needs to get with McCain’s program, not the other way around.

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