Feb. 12, 2001 -- The Bush Tax Wars You'd be surprised at how knocked on their heels Senate Dems have been acting for the last couple weeks while waiting for Bush to send up his tax bill. But today's news that Senators Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe and Linc Chafee want to scale back the president's $1.6 trillion tax cut should let them all breathe a big sigh of relief. (Keep in mind that Jeffords and Snowe are both close to Democrat John Breaux; he may be a force behind this.) Each of the three announced their opposition to Bush's bill in its current form with rationales quite similar, at least in their outlines, to the ones Democrats have been making: not enough left for domestic priorities; not enough help to those who need it most; too reckless in assuming those future surpluses will arrive. Yet the real issue -- the real dividing line -- may be less over the size of the cut than over its structure. One thing that has left Dems struggling in recent weeks is a flood of polling data (...

March 6th, 2001 -- Bush Miffing Dems Here we have yet another sign that President Bush's tactic of reaching out with his fists may not be having the intended results. This article from The Washington Post says Democrats from Bush-leaning states don't seem particularly intimidated by his pushy visits. And a number seem like they're getting pissed. Word is also that John Breaux, the Senator from Louisiana, is miffed at Bush. He apparently feels that the Bushies played him for a fool, trotting him out as a symbol of bipartisanship and then pursuing a partisan, uncompromising agenda. I've also gotten the impression, from a number of recent conversations that the White House is increasingly looking at this whole effort as the Clinton 1993 model. That is to say, rely on near total support from your own party, little or no support from the opposition, and ram it through with only a vote or two to spare. Democrats half fear that Bush will offer them a compromise later on, bring over a bunch...