SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010
POLITICS THE NATION GOP lawmakers gird for rowdy tea party
&
Some wonder whether they’ll need to tighten reins on winners
by Shailagh Murray So who wants to join Rand
Paul’s “tea-party” caucus? “I don’t know about that,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) replied with a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure I should be participating in this story.”
Republican lawmakers see
plenty of good in the tea party, but they also see reasons to worry. The movement, which has ignited passion among conservative vot- ers and pushed big government to the forefront of the 2010 elec- tion debate, has also stirred quite a bit of controversy. Voters who don’t want to privatize Social Se- curity or withdraw from the Unit- ed Nations could begin to see the tea party and the Republican Par- ty as one and the same. Paul, the GOP Senate nominee
in Kentucky, floated the idea of forming an official caucus for tea- party-minded senators in an in- terview in the National Review as one way he would shake up Wash- ington. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), one of the movement’s favorite incumbents, filed paper- work on Thursday to register a similar group in the House “to promote Americans’ call for fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and limited govern- ment.” In six states — Kentucky, Ne-
vada, Florida, Utah, Colorado and Minnesota — tea-party-backed Republican Senate candidates have won nomination or are fa- vored in upcoming primaries. They are attracting outsize atten- tion not only from Democrats and the media, but from conservative leaders such as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Fox News host Glenn Beck. Republicans such as Paul and
Sharron Angle in Nevada may hold provocative views, but “they’re our nominees and I think we ought to get behind them 100 percent,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.). “The candidates are not ours to
choose,” said Cornyn, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Cam- paign Committee. “They’re the choice of the primary voters in the states, and I think we should respect their choices.” Yet some Republicans worry
that tea-party candidates are set- tling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected. Paul, who beat GOP establishment favorite Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s primary, told the Nation- al Review that he would seek to join forces with GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.), “who are un- afraid to stand up” and who have blocked nu- merous bills advanced by both parties deemed by the pair as ex- panding government. “If we get another loud voice in there, like Mike Lee from Utah or Sharron Angle from Nevada, there will be a new nucleus” to advocate causes such as term lim- its, a balanced-budget amend- ment and “having bills point to where they are enumerated in the Constitution,” Paul said in the in- terview. Former Senate majority leader
Trent Lott (R-Miss.), now a D.C. lobbyist, warned that a robust bloc of rabble-rousers spells fur- ther Senate dysfunction. “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” Lott said in an inter- view. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” But Lott said he’s not expecting
a tea-party sweep. “I still have faith in the visceral judgment of the American people,” he said.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-
Utah), who failed to survive his party’s nominating process after running afoul of local tea-party activists, told a local Associated Press reporter last week that the GOP had jeopardized its chance to win Senate seats in Repub- lican-leaning states such as Ne- vada and Kentucky and potential- ly in Colorado, where tea-party fa- vorite Ken Buck has surged ahead of Lt. Gov. Jane Norton in their primary battle. Bennett warned that such can-
“There are a lot of Republicans who are
uncomfortable.” — Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.)
didates are stealing attention from top GOP recruits such as Mike Castle in Delaware and John Hoeven in North Dakota, both of whom are favored to win seats held by Democrats. Nor are they helping the Republi- can Party to re- solve its deep- er identity problems, he said. “That’s my concern, that at the moment
there is not a cohesive Repub- lican strategy of this is what we’re going to do,” Bennett told the AP. “And certainly among the tea- party types there’s clearly no strategy of this is what we’re go- ing to do.” Democrats are hopeful that voters will focus on the potential consequences of tea-party pro- posals as they decide whether to hand over control of Congress to Republicans. Democratic Party officials said their easiest target, given the recent economic melt- down, is the push to privatize So- cial Security. A recent NBC News- Wall Street Journal poll found that 48 percent of voters were “very uncomfortable” with the idea of private retirement ac- counts, while another 18 percent had reservations. In Nevada, when state Sen. Joe
Heck told a local reporter that he was open to a limited and volun- tary version of Social Security pri-
DIGEST Investigation underway into cause of northern New Jersey parking garage collapse
vatization, his Democratic oppo- nent, Rep. Dina Titus, declared he had endorsed “Sharron Angle and her radical agenda.” The Senate candidate has said she wants to phase out Social Security and Medicare as government pro- grams.
Democrats also are trying to tarnish Ron Johnson, a DeMint- endorsed businessman who is backed by tea-party groups and establishment Republicans in his bid take on Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). When Paul raised his caucus idea, Democrats put the question to Johnson. “The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is asking Tea Partier Ron Johnson to tell Wisconsin voters if he would join Rand Paul’s ‘tea party caucus,’ ” read a DSCC statement released Thursday. Johnson’s campaign did not respond to The Post’s re- quest for comment. The Democratic National Com-
mittee seized immediately this week on a billboard sponsored by a local tea-party group in Mason City, Iowa, depicting President Obama next to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. “Republicans keep saying that they aren’t ex- tremists — but they keep doing things like this,” wrote DNC Exec- utive Director Jennifer O’Malley Dillon in a fundraising letter. The billboard also forced Sen.
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who faces a tough challenge from Democrat Roxanne Conlin, to is- sue a careful rebuke. “I believe that you should always leave per- sonalities out of it and talk pol- icy,” he said in an interview. But Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin
(D-Md.) said he’s still not sure of the tea party’s broader political impact. “I don’t know whether it causes a fracture in the Repub- lican Party or provides more en- ergy,” Cardin said. “But there are a lot of Republicans who are un- comfortable, and my gut is, at least in the short term, that will cause some problems.”
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No one was hurt Friday when a Hackensack, N.J., parking garage caved in next to an 18-story apartment building. Residents had to evacuate. GUANTANAMO BAY
Justices won’t hear detainee’s appeal
The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the United States to return to Algeria two Guantanamo Bay prisoners who asked to remain at the prison camp because of fear they might be tortured at home. Justices on Saturday declined to hear the appeal of Aziz Abdul Naji, held at Guantanamo since 2002 after being captured in Pa- kistan. That ruling follows the high court’s decision late Friday that allowed the U.S. government to proceed in sending another Al- gerian detainee home. The detainees had argued they would be harmed by the Algerian government or unaffiliated armed Islamic militants if they were to be released. They are among six Algerian detainees at Guantanamo who say they would rather remain at the prison camp in Cuba than return to their home country.
The U.S. government says it has assurances that the Algerian detainees will not be abused. —Associated Press
NEW YORK
FDA complaints get brain research halted
A respected brain-imaging center run by Columbia Univer- sity has halted some research af- ter federal officials repeatedly complained that some patients were receiving drugs that failed purity tests. The Food and Drug Adminis-
tration found in a series of in- spections that the center had failed to correct manufacturing problems in a lab that makes ex- perimental drugs injected into psychiatric patients to help cap- ture images of brain activity. In a statement Saturday, Co- lumbia University Medical Cen- ter said it was restructuring the laboratory that produces the drugs for the Kreitchman PET Center. It said that an internal in-
vestigation had found “no evi- dence of patient harm” but that all activities relying on the manu- factured compounds had been suspended while reforms were undertaken.
—Associated Press
2 die in Maine plane crash: Two people were killed Saturday when the small plane they were in crashed into a city street short- ly after taking off from Portland International Jetport, officials said. The Yak-52, a Soviet train- ing aircraft introduced in the 1970s, crashed on a normally busy road lined with strip malls, retail outlets, offices and two semiconductor manufacturing plants.
California brush fire near Reagan ranch: A brush fire near the California ranch of President Ronald Reagan has consumed 30 acres and sent thick smoke over mountains north of Santa Bar- bara. No evacuations were or- dered, and U.S. Forest Service of- ficials said they hoped to soon
contain the fire, about a quarter- mile from Rancho Del Cielo, Rea- gan’s West Coast home while he was president.
Twin toddlers drown near Boston: Twin toddler girls drowned in the family swimming pool north of Boston on Saturday. Officials said 2-year-old Angelina and Veronica Andreottola might have somehow opened a pool cover at the home in Lynnfield. Their mother was home at the time.
Handcuffed man escapes from Florida police: Authorities in central Florida were searching Saturday for a man who man- aged to open the door of a police cruiser and escape while hand- cuffed after complaining he was claustrophobic and couldn’t breathe. Altamonte Springs po- lice say the officer had opened the windows slightly for 19-year- old Ridgh Genesis Achille, who had been arrested Friday night on a shoplifting charge. —From news services
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