Yesterday I'd the pleasure of going to Senator Snowe's Portland office as the volunteer coordinator for a meeting set up by People for the American Way and Working Assets. PFAW/WA had set up meetings, and I had volunteered to be the stuckee for the group meeting with Olympia Snowe or a member of her staff. I made the reminder calls, joined the second conference call (Maine, Nebraska, Florida) with the PFAW/WA staffers in Washington and San Francisco, printed off the petition and the 484 Mainiac signatures, reviewed my notes, took a breath, and sallied forth.
I ran into Cheryl Lehman, the lone Republican on the City Council. It always surprises me that Cheryl seems to recognize me, I've no idea why she should. I like her more than the pseudo-Democrat Will Gorham and some of the establishment Democrats. Oh well. Cheryl did the gracious and turned us over to Linda Lyon, who was a very accommodating and attentive listener.
When it was my turn to speak I said "Two years ago I was writing a standards draft for the Internet Engineering Task Force, and listening on MPR to Senator Byrd try to stop a certain bill from passing. If this change to the rule of the Senate happens, we may never have the chance to ignore Senator Byrd again." Ms. Lyon looked up from her note taking at the surprising turn of phrase. I explained that Senator Byrd was attempting a filibuster on the Authorization to Use Force in Iraq, and that if the filibuster was lost, that Robert Byrd, or some future Robert Byrd, would not even take to the Well of the Senate and speak on an issue as important as war or peace.
Each person spoke to the process issue, the end of the necessity for bi-partisanship, the end of advise and consent within the constructional framework, other than the leadership of a majority of 51, or 50 if the Executive Branch desired a majority. This was surprising, that all of us had generalized from the wretched judicial reconsideration nominees PFAW/WA had framed the issue for us, to the Institution of the Senate.
We did another round, this time on the issues associated with the wretched judicial reconsideration nominees -- access to abortion, Title IX, rights of the disabled, the environment. The liberal Republican in the group lamented that for the first time since Nixon, the environment was getting worse, not better.
We closed with expressions of admiration for Olympia Snowe, again, unrehearsed and uncoordinated. I recalled how civil she was in her race four years ago against Democrat Mark Lawrence.
Throughout Linda Lyon was an engaging listener, asking questions and encouraging discussion without suggesting how Olympia would vote, other than noting her positions of record on some of the wretched judicial reconsideration nominees, and on the Nuclear Option. We left her with the PFAW/WA petition and 484 signatures, and after just under 60 minutes, made our good byes.
This is what you need to read now: link. Click on it and do the correct thing.
Today's Congressional Quarterly Midday Update also notes that Sen. Specter is being extremely cagey about the nuclear option in public, and is privately doing everything he can to head off the need for it. The quote is, "I think historically if you were to flash ahead 100 years from now, this controversy over judges would be miniscule. It would not be a major matter in the life of the country. But minority rights are".
I'm not a particular fan of Sen. Specter, and I have to be honest and say that I would personally prefer that the Democrats choose not to filibuster the nominees. However, there is something far, far more important here, and that is the character of the institution of the Senate, which is far more important than any one issue. If that means either side has to take one on the chin from time to time - too bad. Some things are more important, and I hope that the bulk of GOP Senators will pause to consider what they do should it come to a vote on the Frist Strategy.
I disagree with a great deal of what certain Senators say, but their right to say it on the floor of the US Senate is sacrosanct.
~Simon
Posted by: Simon Dodd at February 24, 2005 02:07 PMSimon,
I didn't mention your project to Linda, but you can contact her office directly.
I can't see any member of the Senate who votes with Frist, Lott, and Cornyn could ever hope to run for president.
For those of us close to Frist's Lilly subterfuge, he is visibly dumb. Not good coat tails to ride.
Posted by: Eric at February 24, 2005 04:03 PMEric,
I'm 99% sure that Frist is going to run for the TN governorship in '06, and use that as a platform for the Presidency in 2008. On the other hand, I think you can count on one hand the number of GOP public officials who AREN'T mulling a run on the White House in 2008 - the primary field is going to be absolutely phenomenal.
We had been planning on finishing up the website before making contact with her office or the media (we're about a week off that yet), but events seem to have rather overtaken us in the last few days...
Posted by: Simon Dodd at February 24, 2005 04:55 PMSimon,
I couldn't help but notice you're using IIS and your domain is implemented a PTR record from mail.joinkllc.com and ... (various shoestring issues).
If you want hosting using LAMP (FreeBSD, Apache2, MySql (or PostgreSQL) and PHP or Perl), in Bangor Maine, let me know.
Posted by: Eric at February 24, 2005 05:10 PMEric,
Joink's an ISP here in Indiana, and I actually work as their hostmaster, so for the time being, the neat thing about this setup is that I've got a lot of direct access to the domain and the server it sits on.
However, depending on how this plays out, I may well start thinking about taking that up; we're getting about 150 hits a week right now (pretty good for a holding page, IMO), but if that starts to ramp up (here's hoping) we might need something more...Well, robust. My PHP is pretty rusty, hence why it was implemented in ASP, but I'm still working to get the site ready for launch, so right now, finishing content is everything. Once that's done, everything becomes an open question. We'll have to see; I'm hoping that this is just the beginning of a lengthy (and extremly odd) journey. :)
If you want a peek behind the curtain at the "real" site, drop me an e-mail - simondodd@olympiasnowe2008.com.
Posted by: Simon Dodd at February 24, 2005 05:28 PM