Welchie and the Deaniacs: Playa Hatin' on the National Scene

Today is shaping up to be a pretty busy day for ole' Welchie up on the Hill. As these very words are being typed, he is no doubt settling into the organizational meeting of the Committee on Oversight, which started at 10:00AM, and then later today he will be heading to a 3:00PM meeting of the Rules Committee, which will be considering a motion to suspend the rules. For those unfamiliar with the arcane workings of the House of Reps, we at WW are pleased to point you in the direction of this excellent pocket guide of floor procedures, just so you can keep up with all of the legalese, technical jargon and other brands of obfuscation used to shield the public from what Congress is actually doing. It can get pretty complicated at times...did you already know the bell-tolling system for calling Members when "a series of two or more votes" are to take place "in which any of the votes after the first one are five-minute votes?" We have to admit it: we didn't. Hey, we try to bring the power to the people every once in awhile too.

Aside from regular business however, and today's business is certainly that, Welchie also made news in a couple of noteworthy articles outside of the famous, tenaciously investigative Vermont press corps. One of these articles can be found here, essentially citing Welchie's take on an apparent peace deal between his boy Howard Dean and his new pal Chris Van Hollen, with whom he sits on the Oversight Committee. "Victory is a great aphrodisiac" Welch is strangely quoted as saying. In typical non-committal fashion, Welch also suggests that Dean and his former nemesis Rahm Emmanuel "were both right" about the D's strategy last cycle, despite some, shall we say, "rocky moments" between the two, by which we mean "full-contact curse-laden screaming matches." The piece ends by noting that Welch "is close to Dean."Close? Riiiight.

Aside from the odd connection Welch seems to be suggesting between electoral politics and the "arousing of sexual desire," this article points to a fairly important but not often remarked upon set of interests that are at play involving Dean, Welch, and the national Democratic strategy for 2008 and beyond. You see, the national D's just don't like old Howard. As the article says, many feel that "it's totally bizarre dealing with him." Why? maybe it's because everyone outside of Vermont thinks that Howard Dean "is crazy," as this article notes. Indeed, there is no lack of evidence suggesting that Washington's established Democrats can't stand Dean, just like, for years, they couldn't deal with Bernie. So why the warm, fuzzy feeling emanating from the national D's towards Welchie, who is so close to Dean?

Here, the purloined letter theory applies: it is so obvious that it's really easy to miss. The fact is that Vermont's At-Large seat in the US House has not been occupied by someone as tailored for establishment Washington as Welch is in a long time. Heck, the Washington D's can't even deal with Dean, who Vermonters love. This is because Bernie, and to a lesser extent Dean, didn't buy into the Washington establishment scene. Bernie is the mud in their eye, they're all jerks, D's and R's are the same, power-to-the people candidate, and Vermonters love him for that. He couldn't be co-opted, bought, sold or otherwise compromised. "Give em hell, Bernie!" is a common refrain from Newport to Marlboro. "Give em hell, Welchie" just doesn't have the same ring, does it? And it ain't just because it sounds dumb.

The fact is that there is some cognitive dissonance going down right now in the Bluest corners of the bluest state around over what to think of Old Welchie. On the one hand, its nice to have someone who gets along with the establishment, who sits on committees, who talks nice about Rahm, Chris, Howie, Nancy and the whole gang, and who generally plays well with others. On the other hand, some of Welchie's supporters are starting to feel, well, a little icky. And they don't know why.

Maybe it's actually not a good thing to have a Rep who gets along, who sits on committees and smiles for the camera, they are starting to think. During the campaign it took an at times painful effort to draw a connection between the popular rebel Bernie and the lawyer famous for his firm's TV ads: "where winning is no accident." The anti-Iraq thing worked for awhile, but now that Welchie is following the D's "stay the course" strategy, even those who supported Welch for his war stance, like those within the "labor movement," are starting to waver. How much longer can they hold out?

WW's prediction? Not much longer. While some of Welchie's supporters will remain pleased with his conformity to the Washington scene, and the perks that come with Welchie's complicity with their platform, the ones who were naive enough to think of Welchie as the next Bernie will experience some serious Bernie withdrawal symptoms. Right now we're in the confusion phase, trending towards anger at Welchie's refusal to support a relinquishment of funding for the war. Next we'll see full-blown anger, then sadness, and then the inevitable acceptance that those "plum" committee assignments, a high profile with the national D's and all of the other perks of power come with a pretty serious price tag: doing whatever the national D's want you to do.

Finally, however, and inevitably, the people of Vermont will have to come to the final symptom: deciding if the price of the goods is worth the cost. While it's difficult to say what their decision will be, one thing can be said for certain: the tab is only running higher...