NRCC's Texas candidate may prove self-defeating 

By Paul M. Weyrich
web posted December 10, 2001

I really hate this town. And my hatred has grown more intense as
each year has gone by. If you don't believe me ask Eric Licht,
the president of Coalitions For America, the sister organization
to the Free Congress Foundation. Eric has known me since
1973 and has worked for me for more than 20 years. He keeps
an index of my feelings about Washington.

When I first came here for the 90th Congress to work in the
Senate there was some decency left. There was a code of honor
in the Congress which only people on the fringe broke. Members
of Congress by and large kept their word. If you didn't, that
soon became known and you were ostracized. It is why Sen.
Chuck Percy (R-IL) despite representing an important state,
despite having wealth and favorable media, never went anywhere
in the Senate. He didn't keep his word and his colleagues knew
it.

In those days, when there was a leadership vote, Senators knew
within one vote how it would turn out, because Senators told the
whips how they would vote, and they kept their word. Today the
margin is five votes. In the House of Representatives, it was
possible to come within three to five votes in head counting in a
leadership race. Now you are blessed if it is 10 to 15 votes.

What really has me corked off is a recent story in Roll Call, the
newspaper of Capitol Hill. It seems that the National Republican
Congressional Committee (NRCC) thinks it has a first class
candidate against Representative Ralph Hall, Democrat of
Texas. He is Kevin Eltife, the Mayor of Tyler. Hall has had some
Republicans added to his district on account of reapportionment
and so he appears to be more vulnerable than in the past.

Lest I be guilty of less than full disclosure, Rep. Hall has served
on the Free Congress Board since 1985 and has been chairman
for the past several years, succeeding Jeff Coors who served as
chairman for 15 years and who remains on the Free Congress
board to this day.

Hall is a true conservative. He has a better voting record than
half the Republicans. What has me so upset is that time and time
again Hall has bailed out the Republican leadership on close
votes. I know. Countless times I've been asked to talk to
Congressman Hall about this vote or that. Moreover I know of
countless other times when the GOP leadership has had to go to
Hall to try to line up the last few votes for razor-thin victories.

Do you have any idea how many close victories the House
leadership has delivered this Congress? Hall has been on the
right side of every single question. He also was one of a handful
of Democrats to vote for the impeachment of President Bill
Clinton.

So the party which depends on Hall to win on its legislative
agenda is the party which will raise big money to defeat Hall in
order to stay in power. That Hall is a real American who never
lets the president down, who was active with Democrats for
Bush in 2000, who twists arms to help the leadership get a vote
here and there, means nothing to the Republicans.

There are many Republican Members who vote against the
leadership again and again. They even embarrass the GOP
leadership with things like discharge petitions on campaign
finance reform. Many of these liberal Republicans appear
opposite the Speaker and Majority Leader and Majority Whip
on television talk shows, so it appears that the Republican Party
is deeply divided.  Actually, it is only a small minority taking the
liberal position.

Let's face it, the reason Hall's vote is needed in the first place is
precisely because of these liberal GOP defections.  So now
these liberals are to be completely forgiven because after all they
vote right for Speaker.

But Hall, who votes with the GOP leadership 95 per cent of the
time when his vote is really needed, he can be tossed in the
political ash heap because he casts the wrong vote for Speaker.
Just remember, Hall was the one Democrat who refused to vote
for Tip O'Neill when Tip was elected Speaker for the last time.

I don't speak for the Congressman but if, at the beginning of the
108th Congress, the speakership comes down to Hall and a
couple of others, I would not be surprised to see Ralph Hall
keeping Denny Hastert in power one way or another. Whether
he would switch parties at that point or whether he would abstain
on the first ballot I don't know for sure. I just know that in a
razor-thin contest Hall could be counted on to do the right thing-
unless he is so ticked at the way the Republicans dumped on him
in the campaign he changes his mind. Still I don't see that
happening.

Now if the Democrats win in a landslide (which right now looks
like a good possibility) there would be no point to Hall switching
parties. And in that case the GOP Minority Leader will be very
grateful for any votes Hall can deliver for the president's
program.

The late Senator Gordon Allott, my mentor, early on pointed to
this conservative or even moderate Democrat and told me that
Allott and that Democrat had a gentlemen's understanding that
they would not campaign against each other. In one case Allott
even told the GOP Senatorial Campaign Committee that he did
not think it a good idea to pour GOP dollars against one
particular incumbent, since he had been so helpful to President
Richard Nixon.

That is what should be happening now. Instead this party wants
to kill off the one fellow who consistently delivers for them. If
they do so they may well stay in power but will be incapable of
delivering those close votes. On the other hand, I wouldn't ever
count out Hall. He is very beloved in his district and delivers for
them. Plus Ralph Hall is one of the funniest people in politics
today. He knows how to tell a good story. That forgotten art is
not likely to be unappreciated in Rockwall, Tyler and
everywhere in between.

Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation
(http://www.FreeCongress.org)

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