Change in Action: Obama Nominates GOP Senator for Commerce Secretary

Then what is the fuss about him reaching across the aisle, just because the guy has a R under his name? I like pro-life Democrats; if I were to appoint one to my administration I really wouldn't sell it as reaching across the aisle. I don't know much about Gregg, if he is a conservative, then great; kudos, but let's not blow the importance of the commerce secretary's position out of the water. If he's not conservative, then I don't see what the big fuss is about.

 

There's a lot of talk that he would face a tough re-election bid and might get defeated like his fellow GOP Senator did this last cycle. And if he's ready to move on, then it makes sense to move into the administration rather than be a minority-party Senator and then lose in 2 years (I believe that's his reelection race).

 

Being against the Fair Pay Act doesn't mean you're against equal pay for women. But beyond that, he's just not all that conservative on the spectrum of Republicans. He's fiscally conservative, but socially, he's not really conservative at all. He's just a run-of-the-mill traditional Republican.

 

Perhaps that's because you didn't just make a mistake - you followed it by a nonsense accusation (chicago politics). If you didn't know the facts, why would you make such a claim?

Who made a fuss about it? I don't think anyone thinks its a huge deal - you're the first one who responded and made two false accusations. The fuss seems to be about your accusatory reaction as far as I can see.

 

I dunno. I was kinda pissed CLinton went fo that.

In the White House you basically have to do whatever the Pres says to do. At least in the Senate you get a voice.

 

You can "split hairs" if you like, Major, but I disagree with you. Passage of the bill gave women a tool to use to fight discrimination. The cry of male Republicans, including Gregg, was that it would lead to "frivolous lawsuits" that would be "harmful to business." I guess they are frivolous if you aren't a woman, right?

 

Based off of what I heard on the radio, which was a report on NPR (while in Chicago) that they were going to replace Gregg with a Democrat to give them a super majority, it seemed a bit like the way Chicago politics is run, find a guy on the other side of the aisle, control him behind the scenes, steal more power. I'm glad it wasn't the case.

The thread title implies that this is supposed to be typical of Obama's new politics of togetherness, blah blah blah. That's where I drew my inferences from.

 

I'm not splitting hairs. I'm guessing if you asked Gregg, honestly, if he believed in fair pay for women, he'd say yes. He may disagree with how to go about it or what the legal structure should be, but that has nothing to do with supporting equal pay for women.

As for his conservativeness, on the votes so far in this session, Gregg has been the 7th most Obama-friendly GOP Senator:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/most-powerful-women-in-america.html

And according to the National Journal rankings as well as the American Conservative's rankings, he's nowhere close to being on the conservative wing of his party:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/cons.htm
http://www.acuratings.org/2007senate.htm

 

I just heard on NPR that Gregg is withdrawing his name as nominee for Commerce citing irreconcilable differences with Obama on the stimulus package and census.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887369.stm

There's a link.

 

I completely understand Gregg's response, but how bad does this suck for Bonnie Newman?

 

Good. Obama should stop screwing around with these conservative types and just appoint another Democrat. I don't think Obama has gained one thing by trying to reach out to the GOP. So far he has gotten a watered down stimulus bill that according to most economists might be too small to do the job.

 

I was waiting on that. The Repubs have been squeezing him since his name came up.

For the record, he accepted the position long after the basic details of the stimulus package were presented by Obama.

 

When economists say the stimulus is too small, its not because of the $100 or so billion trimmed off the topic, other countries stimulus plans are a lot bigger.

obama was right to nominate a GOP member for some position, no matter what, he's the bigger man.

these republicans are staking the future of their party on this thing failing, and I don't blame them. by 2010, this thing won't make a big difference, not as far as the economy recovering imo, and they will just play the "i told you so card", we'll see if it works

 

That's funny........I haven't seen a lot of this so call reaching out.......not that he has to, but let's be honest here.

 

Then maybe you should start looking a little harder. Obama has 3 Republicans in his cabinate. Obama got the Democrats in congress to trash the spending on contraceptives and other things from the Senate bill. Obama has met repeatedly with the Republican caucus of both houses of Congress.

These are just few examples I thought of in seconds.

 

Barry nominates a Republican to lead Commerce, forces ridiculous policies on him and strips him of his Census duties. That's not reaching across the aisle. If you nominate a person, you trust their judgment to lead as they see fit. Obama didn't do this. Obama wanted the political points for 'reaching across the aisle', while giving up no control over the agenda. Typical two-face move by the king of talking out of both sides of his mouth.


IMPEACH OBAMA BInlaDEN

 

7 years, 11 months and 8 days left.

 

looks like Gregg wasn't buying.

 

Thank you for not starting a new thread.