Violating Norquist's No-Tax Pledge Could Hurt GOP













The most talked about name in the opening weeks of the fiscal cliff negotiations isn't Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It's Grover Norquist.


Norquist is not a publicly elected official or even a government appointee. The 56-year-old conservative leader is the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform and promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge -- better known as the Norquist Pledge.


Americans for Tax Reform opposes tax increases, and the Norquist Pledge calls on members of Congress to do just that. Taken at face value, this pledge poses a big roadblock to any compromise with Democrats in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, even though several prominent Republican leaders have recently signaled an openness to put everything on the table in negotiations, which would seem to violate the pledge.


If the goal at the end of these negotiations is compromise, could there be political risk in Republicans' violating a pledge formulated by a person most Americans have probably never heard of? Actually, yes.


Violating the pledge all but ensures a primary challenge in two years from the Republican right.


"A defection on taxes almost guarantees it -- the End, " said ABC political director Amy Walter.


"It's all about the GOP base," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Most of the Republican House members and a large number of the party's senators are very safe in a general election. No Democrat can beat them. The only place they can lose is in the low-turnout party primary, which is usually dominated by strong conservatives for whom the word 'tax' is almost an obscenity."








Tax Pledge Mutiny as Fiscal Cliff Approaches Watch Video









Political Gamble: Some Republicans Willing to Raise Taxes Watch Video









Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Dick Durbin on 'This Week' Watch Video





It's these voters who make up the GOP base who will likely be the most involved in primary contests -- on the ground, in fundraising and, of course, at the voting booths.


"These activist voters listen to Norquist and his organization, and they have the money to get the message out to voters in TV ads and mailings," Sabato said. "A Republican member tagged with supported tax increases is awarded the political kiss of death."


Two prominent GOP senators up for re-election in deep-red states in 2014 have already expressed a willingness to buck the Norquist Pledge: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.


"I agree with Grover -- we shouldn't raise rates -- but I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Graham said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."


"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss said in an interview with WMAZ-TV in Macon, Ga. "If we do it his way, then we'll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."


Sabato said that these two candidates couldn't help but be worried about potential backlashes stemming from what they'd said about the no-tax pledge.


"The GOP primary electorate is very conservative in the South, so I would think Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham would have to be somewhat concerned, even though they both start out as clear favorites," Sabato said.


Whether a primary challenger can mount a strong enough campaign to take down these high-ranking senators raises a different question. The success of senior GOP senators such at Orrin Hatch of Utah in fending off intra-party primary challenges likely gives a boost of confidence to Graham and Chambliss, along with others, as they head into the final month of negotiations.


However, the primary losses of longtime incumbent senators such as Bob Bennett of Utah in 2010 and Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012 will likely stay somewhere in the minds of these Republican incumbents, complicating the negotiations and raising the political stakes both now and further down the road in 2014.



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Speculation rife of year-end general election in Malaysia






KUALA LUMPUR: Speculation in rife in Malaysia that a general election could still be held before the end of the year.

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said he is confident that the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition would recapture its two-thirds majority in parliament if the ballot is held now.

As Malaysia's largest political party UMNO gets ready to hold its annual congress on Wednesday, rumours are rampant that parliament may be dissolved immediately after the general assembly, paving the way for a year-end general election.

Speculation was fuelled by a comment made by Prime Minister Najib Razak that the year-end monsoon weather and flash floods were not major problems.

When asked, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad did not give much away.

"Do you think it's timely? Anytime is a good time," he said.

Dr Mahathir was speaking to the media after delivering his keynote address at the Third World Conference on Riba/Usury on Monday.

He said Malaysia would no longer be independent if foreigners were allowed to interfere in deciding who should govern the country.

Dr Mahathir said the opposition's intention of inviting foreign observers to monitor the upcoming 13th general election was to accuse the government of cheating in the elections.

"There's only one aim. If they lose, they will hold street demonstrations, accusing the government of rigging the elections. They will say the government has cheated, so the ruling party wins. That's all.

"(They) want to resort to rioting like what happened in some of the Arab countries, to topple the duly elected government," he said.

Commenting on the last general election, Dr Mahathir said: "There is no country where the ruling party could lose five states and one federal territory if it had cheated in the general election. I think the opposition would have not have won these if the ruling government had cheated."

Other party seniors voiced preference for a later date, as the second round of government handouts for lower income households will only be given out in January.

Many also believe that the window for an early election this year had closed.

Syed Hamid Albar, Supreme council member of UMNO and former home minister, said: "The most important thing is he has already assessed fully, he has gone around the country many times. So, that is why he says that he thinks anytime... this year also can, but that is more a diversion. I think it will be held next year."

Separately, Mr Najib urged Malaysians not to gamble away their future, by handing over the country to parties which could not deliver.

He outlined reasons why the ruling Barisan Nasional must be given a big mandate in the upcoming general election.

Top of the list is the clarity of the vision and direction of the BN government in developing the nation.

Mr Najib made the comments in a special interview with Malaysian media, ahead of the UMNO General Assembly.

He said as an experienced party, UMNO has always spurred numerous ideas to transform the nation towards a bright future.

He said the opposition was still unclear on the matter.

UMNO forms the backbone of the ruling coalition.

Mr Najib also said UMNO and the BN have no conflict whether in terms of policy or ideology.

He said this was not the case for the opposition parties, which often issued opinions which were at odds, even on basic and fundamental matters.

Mr Najib, who is the BN chairman and UMNO president, said the coalition has a proven track record of their achievements in managing the nation.

"We have recorded all these achievements which people say run contrary to the world economic trend. As such, we are able to ensure the capability of the government remains at a high level, with a high level of confidence," he said.

Regardless of whether elections will be held this year or next, the ruling BN coalition's tenure expires on April 28, 2013 and the prime minister must call for the general election by the middle of next year.

The UMNO general assembly will be his final platform to fire up the spirits of the party and unite UMNO delegates to face the toughest general election in history.

- CNA/de



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BJP asks Ram Jethmalani why he shouldn't be expelled from party

NEW DELHI: Moving a step forward on his suspension, BJP on Monday issued a show-cause notice to its Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani asking him to explain why he should not be expelled from the party for "anti-party" activities and indiscipline.

"The parliamentary board confirmed the decision of national president Nitin Gadkari to immediately suspend Ram Jethmalani for his indiscipline and anti-party activities. He has also been issued a notice on why he should not be expelled from the party for six years," BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar told reporters after the meeting.

Kumar, however, said the issue of the statements made by its Lok Sabha MPs Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha against Gadkari and its leaders of the opposition in the two Houses of Parliament did not come up for discussion in the meeting. The two leaders have also demanded Gadkari's resignation. Shatrughan Sinha had also supported Jethmalani in demanding the resignation of Gadkari.

Only the parliamentary board, BJP's highest decision-making body, has the authority to expel a party MP or an MLA. In 2009, senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh had been expelled without being show-caused even though he is a Lok Sabha MP when he wrote a book praising Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and holding Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel responsible for the Partition.

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Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed


Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.

Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")

Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.

Staring at a Star

An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)

"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.

It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.

Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.

"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.

If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.

Coming Into Focus

The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.

"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.

"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.

Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.

Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.

The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.

Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)

And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.

The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.


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President Obama Prepares for Cabinet Shuffle


Nov 26, 2012 6:45am







ap barack obama hillary clinton ll 120514 wblog President Obama Prepares for Cabinet Shuffle

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo


As President Obama prepares for his second term, preparations have begun for the traditional shuffling of the Cabinet.


Top priority for the president: filling slots for those top officials heading — if not running — for the door: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner.


To replace Clinton, Democratic insiders suggest that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Susan Rice is the frontrunner, with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., also a viable candidate.


Rice has been harshly criticized by Republicans for the erroneous comments she made on Sunday news talk shows after the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, comments that were based on intelligence reports that falsely blamed the attack on a protest against an anti-Muslim video. When the president, during his recent press conference, offered a vociferous defense of Rice, many of those close to him began to suspect he was tipping his hand as to what he might decide.


To replace Geithner at Treasury, White House chief of staff Jack Lew is thought to have the inside track if he wants it, with other possibilities including Neal Wolin, the current deputy secretary of the Treasury and Lael Brainard, current under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs.


Other informed sources suggest that there is consideration being given to a business/CEO type such as investor Roger Altman, former Time/Warner chair Richard Parsons, and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg.


Those are the two most pressing jobs to fill, with Clinton exhausted from a long stretch in government — eight years as first lady, eight as senator, and four as secretary of state — and the president having personally promised Geithner’s wife that he could leave as soon as possible after the election.


Any of the business/CEO types being discussed for treasury secretary could also serve as secretary of commerce, a position that for the Obama administration has proved as troublesome as the role of drummer in Spinal Tap. Jeff Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management & Budget, is said to be under consideration.


It’s too flip to refer to it as a consolation prize, but informed sources say that — with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also planning on leaving — Kerry could be offered the position secretary of defense if he wants it, though the Massachusetts senator has suggested he only wants State. Another option, Michelle Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense for Policy, would be the first female to serve in that position. There was some discussion of National Security Adviser Tom Donilon moving across the river, but it seems clear, sources say, that he’s staying where he is.


If Lew leaves to take the position at Treasury, some possible replacements for him as chief of staff include deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough or Vice President Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain. Tom Nides, deputy secretary of state for management and resources, has also been discussed.


President Obama’s senior adviser David Plouffe has also long discussed leaving the White House. There are many options to fill his shoes, including the elevation of communications director Dan Pfeiffer. Also possible: bringing back former press secretary Robert Gibbs, or former deputy chief of staff/campaign manager Jim Messina. Another option might be to bring in some of the people who were part of the messaging shop in the campaign — David Simus, who served as director of opinion research for the campaign, or Larry Grisolano, who did ads for campaign.


– Jake Tapper



SHOWS: World News







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Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates



The Electricity Freedom Act, adopted by the council’s board of directors in October, would repeal state standards requiring utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable power, calling it “essentially a tax on consumers of electricity.” Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have binding renewable standards; in the absence of federal climate legislation, these initiatives have become the subject of intense political battles.

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Gaza damage to cost US$1.2b: Hamas spokesman






GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israel's eight-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip has caused more than US$1.2 billion in direct and indirect damages, a spokesman for the Hamas government said on Sunday.

"The total cost of damages caused by the Israeli aggression is US$1.245 billion (960 million euros)," Taher al-Nunu told reporters in Gaza City.

He said direct damage caused by more than a week of Israeli aerial bombardment had cost US$545 million (420 million euros) while indirect damages added up to some US$700 million (540 million euros).

Nunu said the eight-day operation had completely destroyed 200 homes and partially damaged another 8,000.

Another 42 non-residential buildings, including the Hamas government headquarters, were also completely destroyed, he said.

Three mosques and a health centre were levelled, and hundreds of official buildings were also partially razed, Nunu said.

During the operation, the Israeli military said it hit more than 1,500 targets, including 19 command centres, 26 weapons manufacturing and storage facilities and "hundreds of underground rocket launchers" as well as "dozens" of longer-range rocket launchers.

Statistics provided by the Hamas-run health ministry show that between November 14-21, 166 Gazans were killed, most of them civilians, and another 1,235 people were wounded.

Of those killed, at least 43 were children and 13 women, the emergency services and rights groups said.

In Israel, rocket fire from Gaza killed six Israelis -- four civilians and two soldiers -- while another 240 people were injured, the military said.

- AFP/xq



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Cellphones reshape prostitution in India, complicate efforts to prevent AIDS

MUMBAI: Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. However, sex workers with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS.

Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for sex workers, may one day cost them, and many others, their lives.

"The place where sex happens turns out to be an important HIV prevention point," said Saggurti Niranjan, programme associate of the Population Council. "And when we don't know where that is, we can't help stop the transmission."

Cellphones, those tiny gateways to modernity, have recently allowed sex workers to shed the shackles of brothel madams and strike out on their own. However, that independence has made sex workers far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace. And without the advice and free condoms those counselors provide, sex workers and their customers are returning to dangerous ways.

Studies show that sex workers who rely on cellphones are more susceptible to HIV because they are far less likely than their brothel-based peers to require their clients to wear condoms.

In interviews, sex workers said they had surrendered some control in the bedroom in exchange for far more control over their incomes.

"Now, I get the full cash in my hand before we start," said Neelan, a sex worker with four children whose side business in sex work is unknown to her husband and neighbors. (Neelan is a professional name, not her real one.)

"Earlier, if the customer got scared and didn't go all the way, the madam might not charge the full amount," she explained. "But if they back out now, I say that I have removed all my clothes and am going to keep the money."

India has been the world's most surprising AIDS success story. Though infections did not appear in India until 1986, many predicted the nation would soon become the epidemic's focal point. In 2002, the CIA's National Intelligence Council predicted that India would have as many as 25 million AIDS cases by 2010. Instead, India now has about 1.5 million.

An important reason the disease never took extensive hold in India is that most women here have fewer sexual partners than in many other developing countries. Just as important was an intensive effort underwritten by the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target high-risk groups like sex workers, gay men and intravenous drug users.

However, the Gates Foundation is now largely ending its oversight and support for AIDS prevention in India, just as efforts directed at sex workers are becoming much more difficult. Experts say it is too early to identify how much HIV infections might rise.

"Nowadays, the mobility of sex workers is huge, and contacting them is very difficult," said Ashok Alexander, the former director in India of the Gates Foundation. "It's a totally different challenge, and the strategies will also have to change."

An example of the strategies that had been working can be found in Delhi's red-light district on Garstin Bastion Road near the old Delhi railway station, where brothels have thrived since the 16th century. A walk through dark alleys, past blind beggars and up narrow, steep and deeply worn stone staircases brings customers into brightly lighted rooms teeming with scores of women brushing each other's hair, trying on new dresses, eating snacks, performing the latest Bollywood dances, tending small children and disappearing into tiny bedrooms with nervous men who come out moments later buttoning their trousers.

A 2009 government survey found 2,000 sex workers at Garstin Bastion (also known as GB) Road who served about 8,000 men a day. The government estimated that if it could deliver as many as 320,000 free condoms each month and train dozens of sex workers to counsel safe-sex practices to their peers, AIDS infections could be significantly reduced. Instead of broadcasting safe-sex messages across the country — an expensive and inefficient strategy commonly employed in much of the world — it encircled Garstin Bastion with a firebreak of posters with messages like "Don't take a risk, use a condom" and "When a condom is in, risk is out."

Surprising many international AIDS experts, these and related tactics worked. Studies showed that condom use among clients of sex workers soared.

"To the credit of the Indian strategists, their focus on these high-risk groups paid off," said Dr Peter Piot, the former executive director of U.N.AIDS and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A number of other countries, following India's example, have achieved impressive results over the past decade as well, according to the latest United Nations report, which was released last week.

However, now that mobile phones are untethering prostitution from brothels, those targeted measures are threatened. At the same time, the advent of cellphones seems to be expanding the sex marketplace — luring more women into part-time sex work and persuading more men to pay for sex. Cellphone-based massage and escort services are mushrooming across India.

"There may now be clients who may not have otherwise availed themselves of the services but do so now because it is easier and more private," said Suneeta Krishnan, a senior epidemiologist with Research Triangle Institute of North Carolina.

The changes have led to a steep drop in business on Delhi's Garstin Bastion Road and have nearly destroyed Mumbai's Kamathipura district, where brothels had thrived since the 18th century.

Champa, a wrinkled madam with silver toe rings, bangles on her wrists and henna-dyed hair, has for 50 years owned a brothel in a narrow lane here. But like many other industries where information technology has undermined the role of middlemen between buyers and sellers, Champa's business is withering.

"It's the end of Kamathipura," Champa said with a resigned wave as she squatted on the floor of her entryway.

She once had as many as 20 sex workers living in her nine-bedroom brothel; she now has three, she said. Worse, at least from her point of view, the women working for her collect their own fees and offer her just $2 a day to rent one of her tiny bedrooms. As recently as five years ago, Champa — she has just one name — collected $2 for every client served.

As Champa spoke, several garishly dressed young women walked through the brothel's tiny foyer to sweep and water the hard dirt floor just outside. The lane was teeming with laborers, uniformed schoolchildren, and veiled matrons. The sex workers soon settled onto benches and teased the men getting haircuts at a nearby outdoor barbershop.

There were once 75 brothels on this lane; now there are eight. Kamathipura had as many as 50,000 sex workers in the 1990s but now has fewer than 5,000, according to city officials and nongovernmental organizations.

Kamathipura's destruction is partly a tale of urban renewal. India's rapid development has turned former slums into sought-after addresses, and rising land values led many brothel owners to sell out.

But just as important has been the spread of cellphones into the hands of nearly three out of four Indians. Five years ago, cellphones were still a middle-class accouterment. Fierce competition led prices to plunge, and now even trash pickers and rickshaw drivers answer pocket phones.

But not all has changed. Vicious madams still exist, human trafficking is still rampant, village girls are still duped into the trade, and some brothels still thrive. Most sex workers are illiterate, come from lower castes and are poor. But cellphones have given them a measure of power they did not have before.

"I'm happy that mobile phones are so popular and that I have this opportunity," said Kushi, a mother who got into secret, part-time prostitution after she left her abusive and alcoholic husband. (Kushi is her work name.) She has three to four clients a week and charges each about $20, she said, compared with a typical price of $4 in cheap brothels.

"Cellphones allow the women to keep much more of their money," Niranjan of the Population Council said. "But they make HIV prevention programmes more challenging."

(Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting in Mumbai and New Delhi.)

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Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed


Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.

Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")

Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.

Staring at a Star

An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)

"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.

It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.

Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.

"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.

If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.

Coming Into Focus

The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.

"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.

"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.

Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.

Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.

The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.

Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)

And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.

The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.


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New Congress: Fewer Moderates Make Deals Harder












When the next Congress cranks up in January, there will be more women, many new faces and 11 fewer tea party-backed House Republicans from the class of 2010 who sought a second term.



Overriding those changes, though, is a thinning of pragmatic, centrist veterans in both parties. Among those leaving are some of the Senate's most pragmatic lawmakers, nearly half the House's centrist Blue Dog Democrats and several moderate House Republicans.



That could leave the parties more polarized even as President Barack Obama and congressional leaders talk up the cooperation needed to tackle complex, vexing problems such as curbing deficits, revamping tax laws and culling savings from Medicare and other costly, popular programs.



"This movement away from the center, at a time when issues have to be resolved from the middle, makes it much more difficult to find solutions to major problems," said William Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a private group advocating compromise.



In the Senate, moderate Scott Brown, R-Mass., lost to Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who will be one of the most liberal members. Another GOP moderate, Richard Lugar of Indiana, fell in the primary election. Two others, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Olympia Snowe of Maine, are retiring.





Moderate Democratic senators such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, James Webb of Virginia are leaving, as is Democratic-leaning independent Joe Lieberman.



While about half the incoming 12 Senate freshmen of both parties are moderates, new arrivals include tea party Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, conservative Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and liberals such as Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Hawaii's Mazie Hirono.



There's a similar pattern in the House, where 10 of the 24 Democratic Blue Dogs lost, are retiring or, in the case of Rep. Joe Donnelly, R-Ind., are moving to the Senate. That will further slash a centrist group that just a few years ago had more than 50 members, though some new freshmen might join.



Among Republicans, moderates like Reps. Judy Biggert of Illinois and New Hampshire's Charles Bass were defeated while others such as Reps. Jerry Lewis of California and Steven LaTourette of Ohio decided to retire.



"Congress seems to be going in the opposite direction of the country, just as the country is screaming for solutions to gridlock," said Democratic strategist Phil Singer.



Whether the changes are good is often in the eye of the beholder.



Seventy-one of the 83 House GOP freshmen of 2010 were re-elected Nov. 6, but 11 lost, including one of the group's highest profile members, conservative Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. Another faces a runoff in December.



"Some of the people who are the anti-government ideologues, some of them are gone," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "And that message has been rejected by the American people."



Sal Russo, strategist for the Tea Party Express, said such departures would be balanced by newly elected conservatives, including the Senate's Cruz and GOP Reps.-elect Ted Yoho of Florida and Mark Meadows of North Carolina.



"Pretty much everybody that ran in 2012 was talking about the economic woes we face, stopping excessive spending, controlling unsustainable debt," he said.





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