Tim Roemer

Josh has a nice post up this morning on Tim Roemer. Tim, most recently of the 9-11 Commission, wants to be the DNC Chair. He also a conservative Democrat the likes of which are not uncommon in this part of the country. I know, for instance, that So Illinois is full of pro live Dems including Congressman Jerry Costello.

For DNC chair, Josh says that Roemer has "the improbable support, I'm told, of Minority Leaders Reid and Pelosi." I'm surprised by this support too, but Josh doesn't get these things wrong.

Josh had previously noted that Tim voted against the Filner Amendment (thus, arguably, in support Soc Security privatization) but campaigned against privatization in 2002.

But here is the crux of Josh's post, with which I completely agree,

Roemer was one of the Democrats that voted against the Clinton budget of 1993 -- the one that in the end won by a single voted and cost Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and so many others their seats. (Not just the big vote, but a number that led up to it.) Then he was one of an even smaller number of Democrats who voted for President Bush's 2001 Budget bill. If I'm not mistaken, he was one of only 9 Dems in the House to vote to make the Bush cuts permanent the following year.

As I've said many times before, with a very few exceptions, we shouldn't view a politician's entire career through the prism of a single vote. But those two votes are awfully significant. They frame the mammoth fiscal challenges the country faces today. And they are at the root of the Democratic party's current claim to be the party of growth, equity, fiscal responsibility and economic stewardship. To me at least, that's a very important part of the what the Democratic party stands for today.

When Democrats claim credit, as they rightly do again and again, for bringing the country from perpetual deficits to surpluses in the 1990s, a major part of what they're talking about has to be the 1993 budget bill. When they denounce the Republicans as the party of deficits, fiscal recklessness and enemies of Social Security, in an equal measure, they're talking about President Bush's 2001 bill.

Josh has a little more that you should read. His point is simple: Tim Roemer, who cannot argue for fiscal responsiblity, having twice been on the wrong side, would be a joke as DNC chair. In debates with Rs, he would make our positions on these issues a joke.

Roemer is unacceptable. Let Reid and Pelosi know how you feel.