When Pat Brister, state chairwoman of the Louisiana Republican Party, wanted to do her part to seal the 2000 election for George W. Bush, she didn't need Tom DeLay to provide an e-ticket to Florida. Instead, she just strolled out into her political backyard. Last month, Brister assembled a mid-sized Republican mob outside the Baton Rouge office of Louisiana's senior senator, Democrat John Breaux, and hand-delivered a letter urging Breaux to "call for Vice President Gore to accept the certification of the Florida Secretary of State" ensuring that Bush had won the election. Covering the media stunt, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported that Brister was unable to actually get to Breaux, and had to hand the letter over to an intern. But Louisiana Republicans had made their point. In a state George W. Bush carried handily, John Breaux was beholden to them at least as much as to the national Democratic Party.
So far, Breaux hasn't called for Gore to concede. He has, however, been on the talk show circuit discussing what Gore "ought" to do, and his remarks have clearly put him in the Republican-leaning category of "finality-seekers" in the matter of the Florida recount, as opposed to Democratic "truth-seekers." But if Breaux has been cozying up to Republicans since the election, they have also been cleverly courting him, just as Democrats have been making overtures to Maine's liberal Republican senator, Olympia Snowe. George W. Bush called Breaux recently to chat, president-like, and Breaux played along, despite the presumptuousness of the maneuver. And GOP operatives have been mentioning the folksy senator from Crowley, LA -- whose government website includes recipes for several Cajun dishes -- as a possible Bush appointment for Secretary of Energy. Despite the fact that such an appointment would lose Democrats a vital seat in the Senate (Louisiana's Republican governor Mike Foster would certainly appoint a Republican to replace Breaux), the "Cajun Rage" has not unequivocally turned them down.
No matter what happens in the presidential contest, there's one probable outcome of this Louisiana love fest: In a split Senate, Breaux is well positioned to be a power broker. Not that he hasn't always been an influential Democrat: As early as 1994, Breaux was being mentioned as a possible Senate majority leader to succeed George Mitchell, though he ultimately backed Tom Daschle. But especially since the 2000 election, Breaux's stock has risen markedly. This has much to do with his well-cultivated "uniter, not a divider" image, which plays off media preferences for centrist, independent-minded politicians, in the mold of departing Democratic Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Bob Kerrey. For a good example of how well Breaux fits this profile -- and how because of it he's starting to attract concerted attention -- see a recent Newsweek article about him, subtitled "Taking the Hill: If anybody can make peace, it may be John Breaux."
The moves by Republicans to court Breaux are, in one sense, just the latest symptoms of the GOP's earlier love affair with the centrist, if not faintly right-wing Joe Lieberman. Now that Lieberman turns out to be just another Democratic attack dog, Republicans are looking to Breaux as their new pal. And Breaux adds to the independent mix a strong pragmatist flavor: In a Los Angeles Times interview, Breaux commented, "I see myself not as a philosopher, but somebody who is interested in making government work. More and more people in Congress . . . have an all-or-nothing attitude. All-or-nothing attitudes generally wind up getting nothing." (A still more famous Breaux quote came in the context of a deal he cut back in his days in the House of Representatives, when he got breaks for Louisiana in a 1981 tax bill. Breaux said then that his vote was not for sale, but "it is available for rent.")
Breaux's careful pragmatism, and independent streak, is enough to make the media go gaga. Republicans are interested in Breaux for a related reason: He's a very conservative Southern Democrat. Breaux would hardly have been elected in Louisiana otherwise. According to a 1997 survey conducted by New Orleans pollster Edward Renwick when Breaux was running for election to his third Senate term, 47 percent of state Republicans supported him. He won handily. Breaux succeeded Bill Clinton in 1991 as chairman of the centrist and Southern-tinged Democratic Leadership Council, and he's been the scourge of several liberal interest groups. For example, for the 106th Congress, the ACLU gave Breaux a dismal rating of 29 out of 100, which tied him for the lowest among Democratic senators with Nevada's Harry Reid, and put him far behind more progressive northern Republicans like James Jeffords of Vermont, who scored a 71. The Catholic Breaux voted against an amendment to a "partial-birth abortion" bill, sponsored by Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that declared Roe v. Wade an "appropriate decision [securing] an important constitutional right." But he voted for Utah senator Orrin Hatch's flag desecration amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
And that just begins to scratch the surface. Not surprisingly, Breaux was a strong supporter of welfare reform. He's been an important proponent, along with Senator Bob Kerrey, of partial Social Security privatization. Breaux also chaired a commission on Medicare that came up with DLC-sounding ideas favoring reforms that would increase private sector competition among insurance companies. On both Social Security and Medicare, Breaux was much closer to George W. Bush than Al Gore, at least in terms of how the two ran their campaigns.
There have even been innuendos, of late, that Breaux could be a strong presidential contender in 2004. (Or here's a thought: McCain-Breaux, 2004. They'd probably draw 70 percent.) The irony here would be that, even as Al Gore surpassed expectations on November 7th by drawing upon the labor movement and the black vote, and preaching against special interests, conservative DLC Democrats like Breaux are still being regularly lionized and groomed for greatness. Which might only be mildly annoying, were it not that so far, Breaux's good fortune looks to be closely connected to that of the GOP.
