Last week, ex-Rep. Charlie Stenholm came to see me on behalf of Big Oil, pushing new drilling. Since he accepts the Energy Party principle of Doing Everything — increased production AND conservation AND alternative fuels AND anything else that will move us toward energy independence — he found a receptive audience.
But that’s not what I remember a week later. I was more intrigued by what he had to say about Blue Dogs. Mr. Stenholm, in case you didn’t know, was on of the Democrats tossed out of office by Tom DeLay’s gerrymandering of Texas. Anyway, he made three interesting points:
- Moderate Democrats are likely to have more influence over their party and the nation, not less, after the upcoming election.
- Blue Dogs today face a very different situation from the Boll Weevils he helped lead in his early days in Congress, largely because…
- George W. Bush has been an impossible man to work with, Blue Dog or not — a fact that surprised him, since he had worked well with Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas.
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I’m sure even bud would welcome Charlie’s move from the horsemeat industry to big oil.
Did he say why Bush was hard to work with or what his main differences were? Speaker Denny Hastert and DeLay ran a pretty tight ship and rammed stuff through the House; Stenholm’s complaint may be more with them even though they were generally pushing through Bush’s agenda.
As for moderate Democrats having more influence, that seems more like a wish than a realistic prediction. Will these moderates actually vote against card check, restrictions on missile defense, continued restrictions on offshore drilling, and some of the other madcap notions the Dem leadership is intent on passing?
Your reporter is doing good work on the City of Columbia money mess.
Only in Columbia could Bob Coble and Rev. Austin stay in power. The editorial board should call for both of them to resign.
As someone who worked with Congressman Stenholm in DC, let me say that he is an honest an gentle man. The illegal jerrymandeing forced he amd Max Sandlin out of Congress, which is a shame, as they were a couple of the folks that I would consider honest in DC in 2002, when I was there.