CSPAN/Newsmakers

Host: Susan Swain

Guest: Senator Lamar Alexander

Reporters: David Drucker and Martin Kady

SUSAN SWAIN, HOST, CSPAN NEWSMAKERS: This week’s guest on CSPAN’s Newsmakers is Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and a member of the Senate Leadership Team. Thanks for being with us Senator.

LAMAR ALEXANDER, SENATOR, TENNESSEE: Thank you Susan.

SWAIN: Our two interviewers, David Drucker of Roll Call, staff writer who specializes in the Senate Leadership and politics, and Martin Kady, Deputy Congress Editor for The Politico.

Let’s start with David Drucker please.

DAVID DRUCKER, STAFF WRITER, ROLL CALL: Senator, let’s talk about Senator Mel Martinez, your colleague in the Senate. He has announced he’s going to resign his term early. We already knew he wouldn’t be running for reelection. Can you give me your reaction to the announcement, but also tell me if this – if you feel this is going to complicate Republican efforts to hold the seat in 2010 given that the Governor of the state, who now has to make some sort of an appointment – and we’re still checking into the laws and regulations in Florida on how this works – he’s running for the seat, but has to pick an appointment to fill this time. Your reaction and also how does this affect the election for you guys?

ALEXANDER: Well, my reaction is I’ll miss him. You know he – I had dinner with him last night. He told me about it. You know Mel has the best – the Senate is full of people who have interesting stories, you know whether it’s Jim Bunning with his Hall of Fame or Bill Frist taking hearts out of people or – but nobody has a better story than Mel Martinez. He came to Cuba – from Cuba to the United States in the Peter Pan (ph) operation. His parents put him on the plane in Havana. They didn’t know that they’d ever see him again. He lived in a foster home. He finally got his parents there. And he made – he broke so many barriers as a lawyer, as a mayor, as a cabinet member, as a Senator. So he’s been a wonderful contributor to public life, and I’ll – we’ll really miss him.

He told me his one regret is he is leaving in a time when he thinks the Republican Party is making a comeback. So there’s that.

Now as far as the complications in Florida, I don’t know. I mean Governor Crist is going to run for Mel’s seat. We knew that. He may even have a primary. But he is an exceptionally strong candidate. And I shouldn’t presume to guess who the Governor will appoint for the next year and a half.

DRUCKER: OK, just very quickly, as a former Governor yourself, is it a politically tricky situation? You may have been faced with this in your past career. It’s something you may have considered having to do if it was necessary. Is this tricky or is this just part of the job and the Governor of Florida will handle it and it shouldn’t be a problem?

ALEXANDER: Well, it only gets tricky if you try to appoint yourself, which would be an unwise thing to do. And it’s one of many decisions the Governor has to make. I’m a big admirer of Governor Crist. I think he’ll make a terrific member of the United States Senate. I imagine he’ll handle this with a lot of skill and common sense.

SWAIN: Based on your dinner last night, can you give us any more of the Senator’s reasoning for early departure?

ALEXANDER: Well, I should let him speak about – I think it’s all personal. I mean I – if you think about – he’s at an age and he’s contributed a lot in public life as I mentioned. He’s been a mayor. He’s been a cabinet member. He’s been the Republican National Chairman. He’s been a Senator. He’s already decided he is leaving. He’s still got kids to deal with and a life to live, and I think he just came to the conclusion that, at this age, it was time for him to go.

MARTIN KADY, DEPUTY CONGRESS EDITOR, THE POLITICO: I want to skip over to the other big news that’s on the economic front. The unemployment numbers are – went down a tenth of a point to 9.4 percent. Still lost 247,000 jobs in July. Now the democrats ran with this. The markets seemed to like it. Republicans are downplaying it a little bit because it’s still you know a 247,000 jobs lost. But, tell us, is the drop in unemployment good news, and what does that mean for the economy?

ALEXANDER: Well, of course it’s good news. And I think republicans ought to cheer as loudly as anybody if we get a few more people working. Although we have a lot of people not working. I mean, as you said, 247,000 more not. I’m afraid we’re in for several months, maybe a few years, of what many people call a jobless recovery when we have a higher than larger number of the people who have a hard time finding work. And that’s why I think it’s so important for us to you know just go back to the fundamentals. I’d like to see the President – we know he is smart. And we know he’s got smart people around him. But I’d like to see him focus on the economy in the way President Eisenhower did 50 years ago on Korea and say, “I’m going to fix this economy, and I’m not going to stop until I do. And, after that, I’ll get onto healthcare and climate change and all these other things.”

KADY: Yes. I want to follow up on that. A lot of republicans say the stimulus is not working.

ALEXANDER: Yes.

KADY: And – but I saw a story in the New York Times a few weeks ago discussing how the stimulus is creating jobs in your home state and in Perry County …

ALEXANDER: Yes.

KADY: … created a few hundred jobs. The unemployment rate had dropped by three percentage points in a high unemployment area. So is the stimulus working? Is it not working? Is this a blip?

ALEXANDER: Well, obviously, if you spend $787 billion and you do it in a little tiny place like Perry County, Tennessee, something is going to happen. But the point of the matter is we borrowed $787 billion. Only 13 percent of it has been spent. Most of it was spent not to create jobs. It was spent on spending programs that democrats wanted to spend on. I mean $85 billion on more Medicaid, $80 billion over two years on more education spending. Maybe that’s good spending, but it doesn’t have anything to do with stimulus, creating jobs. And we now see, after six months, it apparently didn’t because the President advertised it as saying you know, “We’re going to bring unemployment down. Unemployment is up from where we were.”

DRUCKEr: Senator, let’s move to a small issue that’s not making too much news. It’s healthcare. I know August is going to be a very big month …

ALEXANDER: Yes.

DRUCKER: … for both republicans and democrats as you guys go home …

ALEXANDER: Right.

DRUCKER: … talk to your constituents. What do republicans need to do this month to come back in September looking as good on the healthcare issue than – as you guys appear to look now heading into the recess?

ALEXANDER: Well, I think we need to listen. I mean I’m really glad we’re having this chance to go home. I was very afraid they were going to ram this through before anybody had a chance to read it or think about it. It’s heading down the wrong track. So we need to do two things. We need to listen, and we need to make sure that people understand what the problems are, and there are a lot of them. And the second is we need to make sure that our own proposals see the light of day. Now we’ve got a variety of proposals to bring the cost in healthcare down, to give low income people an opportunity to buy healthcare, the kind that most of the rest of us have and to do it without adding to the debt. So we’d like for that track of proposals to get more say instead of the democratic proposals, which flunk the cost test, cause millions to lose their health insurance, creates a new government program and expands one failing government program, taxes employers and probably the worst thing to me as a former governor is this business about dumping more people into Medicaid and sending the bill to the states, which is – will just be impossible to pay.

DRUCKER: Let me, as well, ask you – just as a quick follow up. I’m dropping my pad here. But let me ask you about the democratic message that we’ve now seen shift from healthcare reform to health insurance reform. How do republicans successfully push back against the message that says, “We want to eliminate preexisting conditions as a barrier to health insurance by private health insurance companies. We want to eliminate lifetime caps so that if you get sick you can’t be dropped,”? There are things like that that are going to have a very personal appeal to Americans out there that otherwise may be concerned about a government takeover and things that republicans have discussed. How do you push back on the health insurance reform message as opposed to the larger message about the public plan?

ALEXANDER: Well, we don’t push back. We agree with that. All of our plans have the health insurance reforms. I mean the Wyden-Bennett plan that is a bipartisan plan that I’m a cosponsor of, the Burr-Coburn plan. We all have provisions that say that, one way or the other, we’re going to get rid of the phenomenon where, if you’ve got a preexisting condition like diabetes, you can’t get healthcare. So we all agree on that. What is remarkable is the President and assembly going from being for health reform to being against insurance companies. And – but still the proposals that people need to pay attention to are the ones that say the cost is going to go up according to the congressional budget office, your state taxes are going up according to democratic governors. There are going to be millions of people who are going to lose their employer insurance. Despite what the President says about that, 100 million people are going to lose their employer insurance and they’re going to end up in a government run program. And the next four or five weeks is the time to find out about that.

KADY: But do you think that public option as something that makes it to the Senate floor is dead at this point? I mean they can’t even get it out of the committee right now. But I mean do you foresee a bill that makes it to the Senate floor that has any form of public option, or are they going to sort of water it down and make it like you know one of these non-profit co-ops?

ALEXANDER: Well, it’s hard to – hard to predict. My guess is the President will probably give up on the government option before it’s all over. I mean it doesn’t make any sense anyway. It’s like the President saying, “I’m going to buy the rest of General Motors in order to keep Ford Motor Company honest by creating a government car,” or “I’m going to create a retailer to keep Wal-Mart honest,” or “I’m going to create a government drugstore to …” I mean it doesn’t make any sense. If it doesn’t have any special advantage, you don’t need it. If it does have a special advantage, in other words, if you – if you make – if you give it government subsidies, then it drives all the other choices out of the market. And those are choices that you know more than 200 million Americans have today and they like.

KADY: What about this concept of co-ops? I don’t think that’s been very well explained by its proponents. It’s a pooling of money you know so that people can you know buy in at a lower rate than what they’d have to pay as an individual in the market.

ALEXANDER: Well, again, if it’s – if it’s a co-op with no government advantage, then it doesn’t make any difference. If it has an advantage, then it’s a problem. We don’t really need to do that. I mean we’re going to pass a law, if we pass anything, that says – that has insurance reforms. In other words, you can get insurance at a reasonable cost and not lose it if you change your job or have a preexisting condition. That’s going to happen. The question is, are we going to break the bank? Are we going to transfer taxes to the states in our effort to expand insurance and are we going to do it through government programs like dumping more people into Medicaid? Are we going to take the subsidies we already have and are giving and spread them around in a fair way so more people can buy private insurance?

SWAIN: One question, with all the discussion last year about transparency and the discussion of healthcare on the campaign trail, how do you feel about the six negotiating Finance Committee senators keeping it so close to the vest, what they’re doing now?

ALEXANDER: Oh I think they’re doing all right. We’re – you know those are three republican senators anyway we have a lot of respect for, Grassley and Enzi and Snowe. And we have a meeting every week, republican senators do. I’m Chairman of the Republican Conference. We all can go to that, most of us do. For (ph) third (ph) Wednesday (ph). They report to us on the progress they’re making or not making. So I think they’re fine.

SWAIN: Thank you.

DRUCKER: Senator, picking up on that, it doesn’t seem like most of your republican colleagues are that excited about what’s going on in the Finance Committee. In the past couple of weeks, you held a news conference with Senator Orrin Hatch, and you talked about Finance Committee negotiations. It didn’t seem like you thought those were going to get to a conclusion that a lot of republican senators could support. Could you explain to me what you feel the problem is with what’s going on in the Finance Committee?

ALEXANDER: Well, I hope I said – and I believe I did – at that press conference I respect Max Baucus for trying to …

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (INAUDIBLE)

ALEXANDER: … work (ph) in a bipartisan way. And I respect the three republican senators. Our fear is that they’ll come up with something that’s like what we’ve seen come out of the Senate Health Committee and out of the House, which is government programs, losing your employer insurance and this absurd idea of just dumping more low income people into Medicaid and then sending the bills to the states, which are broke to begin with. I mean I’ve figured out in Tennessee that if after five years you expand Medicaid and if you pay the doctors to actually see the patients, which 40 percent of them won’t do today, and then you sell – send Tennessee its share of that, we’d have to pass a new 10 percent state income tax to pay for it or the equivalent of that. So that’s why you see democratic governors saying, “Whoa. Don’t do this to us. If you want to do something, pay for it.”

DRUCKER: Are your fears based on what you have heard from Senators Enzi, Grassley and Snowe and their updates about where those negotiators are headed? Is that where the fears come from?

ALEXANDER: No, not from them. It’s – we don’t know exactly what they’re going to end up with. They report to us their discussions and most of the discussions are we’ve asked a lot of questions, there are a lot of big issues to decide, there are many details to decide. So we’re not going to prejudge them until they finish their work. And that’ll be several weeks would be my guess.

KADY: We’re talking a lot about what’s going on behind closed doors over here in the Senate, over in the Hart office building. But what’s getting a lot of attention right now, as Congress goes home, is these town hall meetings.

ALEXANDER: Yes.

KADY: You know we sort of jokingly call them “town halls gone wild.” But it’s a very serious issue. A lot of these have been cancelled or overrun by protest. There was even apparently a fist fight that broke out at one of these in Tampa, Florida. There’s a lot of concern, a lot of anger there – out there. But democrats are saying and there’s some evidence that some of these protests have been ginned (ph) up by national conservative groups like Freedom Works or Conservatives for Patients Rights. What do you think is at play here with this town hall anger? And how would you handle such a disruption when you go home to Tennessee?

ALEXANDER: Well, you know the democrats are fueling the fire here, thereby, saying, “Well if they punch, punch back.” And they’re raising the issue and calling protestors names. I think everybody needs to settle down. I mean good manners are a good thing. And first amendment rights are important, but, if you shout someone down, you’re destroying that person’s first amendment opportunity too. And town halls are a very important part of the American fabric.

But we shouldn’t be calling these protestors names just because they don’t like the idea of being dumped in a government program or want to see their federal debt go up higher. I mean they’re scared. They’re worried. They’re terrified. They saw a Congress try to ram through a bill that they knew they didn’t like, and they want to find more out about it, and they want to let their senator or congressman know how they feel about it. So I think good manners are important. Other than that, you know we have – we have the right to say how we feel. And most of us in public life are used to vigorous exchanges back and forth.

SWAIN: Ten minutes left.

DRUCKER Senator, let’s switch briefly, if we can, to the Supreme Court confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or soon to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. You were one of a handful or so of republicans to vote for her confirmation.

ALEXANDER: Nine.

DRUCKER: Well, two handfuls. You got me there. Talk to me about the politics of your vote, the policy part of your vote in terms of your deference to the President and if you feel like have we maybe turned the page from some of those contentious confirmation hearings of the Bush administration, or does it just depend on who Barack Obama may nominate in the future if another vacancy arises?

ALEXANDER: Well, I thought the republican senators were much better behaved towards the democratic President’s nominees than the democratic senators were toward President Bush’s.

I remember coming here as a senator six years ago and being absolutely appalled by the treatment that Judge Pickering and Miguel Estrada and then even Justice Roberts and Justice Alito received. And I mean I was shocked by that. I had appointed 50 governors as a governor of Tennessee – I mean judges as the governor or Tennessee and I didn’t like it. And I criticized then Senator Obama and the democrats for voting against Roberts, obviously well qualified, because he wasn’t on their side politically, which is why I voted for Judge Sotomayor. She’s not on my side, but I don’t think we should turn these Supreme Court nominations into a – into a vote about whose side are you on. Otherwise, we’d turn the Supreme Court itself into a political football. And it’s supposed to be a group of well-qualified – very well-qualified individuals who are impartial, not on our side.

DRUCKER: Do you believe that the number of republicans who voted against her puts the party at a disadvantage with Latino voters?

ALEXANDER: I don’t think so. I think what it represents is a number of republicans still very angry about the treatment that the democratic senators gave to the republican nominees a few years ago. I’d like for us to get back to the point – and the reason – one reason I voted that way – I’d like to get back to the point a few years ago when every single senator voted for Justice Scalia and all but three voted for Justice Ginsburg.

KADY: One of the things – I want to go back to healthcare for a minute because republicans have been criticized as being the party of no for not having an alternative. Can you explain what the republican plan is so that people can understand it in plain English for trying to insure the 47 million uninsured people?

ALEXANDER: Well, there are four or five, but I’ll give you one. One is the Wyden-Bennett plan, which is a bipartisan plan. But the elements of it are much like the Coburn-Burr plan or the Gregg plan or the Enzi or the Hatch plan. One, we would – we would take the subsidies that we’re now giving to Americans and redistribute them in a way so that every American would have a chance to buy his or her own healthcare. Second, instead of – we wouldn’t create any new government programs, and we’d take two thirds of the people who are now in one failing government program called Medicaid and give them the cash they need to buy private healthcare. Third, the congressional budget office says that the Wyden-Bennett bill and the other ones don’t add one penny to the debt. Fourth, we’d have insurance reforms that would say that if you’ve got a preexisting condition or diabetes, other things, that you can buy insurance at a reasonable price. And, fifth, we wouldn’t be shifting big taxes to the – or big costs to the states which will raise state taxes in a big way in a few years.

So those are five elements of the Wyden-Bennett bill and most of the other republican plans, and a completely different direction than we’re going today with the democratic proposals.

DRUCKER: Let me ask you about the political aspect of that.

ALEXANDER: Yes.

DRUCKER: There’s a Jim DeMint plan. There’s a Richard Burr, Tom Coburn and Congressman Paul Ryan plan. There’s Wyden-Bennett.

ALEXANDER: Right.

DRUCKER: So we’re aware of these plans. But politically, without a single piece of paper that has the republican healthcare agenda on it that could be shared by everybody on both sides of the hill and by the party at large, does it put you at a political disadvantage given that you don’t have the bully pulpit of the White House and House and Senate leadership to drive your agenda? Does it confuse the matter and leave people thinking you are the party of no when, in fact, there are some legislative proposals out there?

ALEXANDER: Well, let’s put it – we’ve offered more plans than the President has. I mean he’s offered zero, and we’ve offered four or five. And they have common elements, which I just described. Obviously, the President has a big advantage here. He speaks with a single voice. We speak with many voices. But I think we’ve done pretty well. I mean we’ve said what we don’t like about the House and the Senate plans that have come out, and we’ve offered our own proposals in very specific terms, which I just did. And I think most people are getting the message. What they are hearing they don’t like.

SWAIN: Senator, let me go back to your comments about Senator Martinez observing last night that he is leaving at a time when republicans are turning the corner. Do you agree with that observation? And, if so, would you point to some evidence for it?

ALEXANDER: Well, the two best leading political indicators I have ever seen are, one, money and, two, candidates. And we’re raising money better in the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee than we have in three cycles. And, second, we have more good candidates. I mean in Florida, in New Hampshire, in Ohio, in Missouri, in a whole variety of states that the first choice candidates are deciding to run for the Senate. That usually means they think they can win.

KADY: A couple of those states you just mentioned, you’re just trying to hold those seats. But where do you think the best chance of pickups are in 2010?

ALEXANDER: Well, you know that’s John Cornyn’s job. I don’t know about that, but I stay closely involved with Senator Cornyn who is our chief recruiter. And you’re right. I mean we’ve got a tough cycle coming up in terms of the number of seats we have. But when we have, for example, candidates of the caliber of Governor Crist who are willing to run and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire who are willing to run where Senator Gregg is stepping down. And there may even be primaries in these states. Or, in Connecticut, I think we have three republicans who are seeking Senator Dodd’s seat. Nobody is stepping down there voluntarily at this time. So this smells to me like a year when republican candidates are saying, “You know we need a change in Washington. What’s happening there is disturbing me. I’m going up there and straighten some things out.”

And you know I was around in 1977, ’78. That’s when I was elected Governor. And I was out running for President in ’93 and ’94 with that big seat change. And this smells a little bit like both times.

SWAIN: Gentlemen, we have four minutes left. Closing questions from you.

DRUCKER: Can we just ask you to compare, because you have some of that historical perspective, for republicans looking for signs of life in what is happening now, looking to ’92, ’93, looking to ’79, ’80, ’81, you’ve mentioned some of the things you can look to that give you guys a lot of hope. And you see concrete evidence there. But can you talk about maybe some over assumptions that shouldn’t be made or things that you guys have to look out for if you’re going to be maybe in this chair a year from now singing the same tune in terms of where the party is headed?

ALEXANDER: Well, we have to make sure that if we don’t like the democratic government run option for healthcare that we can have our own plan, like I just described. Or we’re against the economy wide cap and trade, the big energy tax, that we have our own plan, which we do. I mean we’re for 100 new nuclear power plants, electrifying half the cars and trucks, exploring for natural gas offshore, some mini-Manhattan projects like we had in World War II on renewable energy, alternative energy. So it’s important that we – you know people are going to turn to us and say, “I don’t like what I’m seeing,” and take a look at us. We want to make sure they like what they see. And that means good candidates who have something to say and a different path forward.

KADY: Do you think there will be a health reform plan, health insurance reform, whatever you want to call it, signed by the end of the year. And …

ALEXANDER: I hope so and I believe so. I think it very well may be scaled back. It may be insurance reforms. It may be a few steps toward an improvement of the delivery system. I hope that it doesn’t add one penny to the debt. And I hope it makes it easier for people to afford their healthcare plans. And I think there are enough good ideas out there that we could agree on that.

SWAIN: What is the message you want people to understand about the party? And when the larger message is fiscal conservatism, and, yet, there is support for “cash for clunkers” program.

ALEXANDER: Well “cash for clunkers”, as it was voted for last night, doesn’t add to the debt. It took $2 billion that was allocated to renewable energy and put it on “cash for clunkers.” So that’s the first thing. But the republican message is we want checks and balances on too much spending, too much debt, too much taxes. And we have an agenda for a low cost clean energy plan, a healthcare plan without being government run and an education system that gives you more choices. Those are some of our ideas.

SWAIN: OK, final minute.

DRUCKER: On healthcare – and you know we keep going back to that because we feel it’s going to be the major driver in the fall. If the President were to drop his support or his desire to see a public plan implemented as a part of reform, if he were to drop his desire to expand Medicaid, which I know you’re concerned will add to the deficit, and just focused on insurance reforms like no lifetime caps, like no preexisting conditions, might there be a chance for republicans to look more kindly on what the President is trying to do?

ALEXANDER: Well of course, since republicans already support those things. I mean insurance reforms are already in every republican proposal that is out there. I mean we’re all for that. That’s not where the problem is.

SWAIN: We’ll close with …

ALEXANDER: That’s where the problem is – it’s not where the disagreement is between the President and republicans.

DRUCKER: Got it.

ALEXANDER: We disagree on cost and we disagree on government run plans.

SWAIN: Martin, about 30 seconds.

KADY: We’re assuming that if something like that does come out of the committee and go to the Senate floor that there’ll be an uproar on the left side of the aisle. I mean …

ALEXANDER: Well, there could be. And that’s why we have Presidents. When I first came to the Senate, the Civil Rights Bill was being written. And there were fewer republican senators than there are today. And Lyndon Johnson was President. And he and Everett Dirksen had such a good relationship that the Civil Rights Bill of 1968 was written in Everett Dirksen’s office over a several week period of time. So the President and the leadership have to get busy if they want a healthcare bill. And there are plenty of senators and I guess congressmen who would be willing to support. But not in the direction we’re going now. We’d have to start over.

SWAIN: Thank you so much for being our guest this week.

ALEXANDER: Thank you Susan.

SWAIN: We are back with David Drucker of Roll Call, Martin Kady of The Politico. Gentlemen, we just spent a half an hour with Lamar Alexander who is part of republican senate leadership. Where are the opportunities and where are the challenges for republicans as they go into this August break?

DRUCKER: Well, I think the opportunity is they head into the August break with national public opinion polls showing the President becoming more of a human being and less of a political rock star than any President usually is when they’re first inaugurated. The polling also shows that the public is very skeptical and concerned with democratic plans for healthcare reform.

And so republicans have a chance over the next month to sort of solidify their standing as being opposed to what people don’t like and to further take advantage of the anxiety out there.

What they have to worry about is that a month is three lifetimes in politics. And just as fast as people have been worried and concerned about the President’s performance and where democrats are going, the democrats can turn that around. As we have discussed, they’re heading into the August break, changing their message from healthcare reform to health insurance reform. People don’t like insurance companies too much.

And the republicans have to finesse their opposition to democratic policies in a way that does not make it appear as though they’re sticking up for insurance companies, but makes it appear as though they’re just opposed to things that people don’t like. And it sounds a little bit redundant, but it’s a trick.

And so they head in kind of in a position to do this because you’d rather be ahead than behind. But there is ample opportunity for the democrats, over the next month and a half, to change the game. And whenever you have a very articulate, well-liked President – and he is still very well-liked – who has the bully pulpit, it’s a challenge, as the minority, to maintain any sort of position of strength.

KADY: I think there’s no doubt the republicans have just had their best month. July was the best month they’ve probably had since John McCain nominated Sarah Palin and he got that first little bump in the polls last August. But, as David said, a month is a long time. People are going to go back and talk to their constituents. There’s – a lot of this anger we’re seeing at these town halls, there’s a chance that that sort of base anger can backfire a little bit. You know some of the extreme elements on both sides can come out at these and people can – or starting to say especially when fist fights are breaking out and people are banging and protesting. People are saying, “Wait a second. Let’s step back and talk about this like adults.”

And that’s republicans need to be careful here is that they want to encourage the dissent. They want to you know encourage this – you know the appearance of a grassroots movement against healthcare – these healthcare reforms. But they also have to make sure they’re offering a clear alternative that people can understand. And, right now, I don’t think they are.

SWAIN: This is an unusual August isn’t it? Most Americans, in past August, are going off to vacation and not paying any attention to Washington. But with the economic news and the impending vote on healthcare, it seems as though this is going to be an August when people stay engaged.

DRUCKER: I do think people will stay engaged. And I think, for the first time in a long time, we’re going to see the first year of a new Presidency with a fall that is all atwitter about domestic issues.

You know back in 2001, we were heading into a fall fight between democrats on the hill and a new President, George W. Bush, a republican. And everything was upended by 9/11. And you know barring events, we’re finally headed into a fall where the President is going to try and get his agenda enacted, and you’re going to have republicans doing everything that they can to try and slow things down and bend things their way.

The real key, I think – and I think it’s going to be interesting to watch democrats back in their home districts and states over the August – is for those democrats in conservative and moderate districts, districts that they stole from republicans in 2006 and 2008, what is the reaction that they get. Because I think if you want to know where healthcare reform or other major issues are going in the fall, take a look at the Blue Dog democrats and the reception they get at home over the next month. Take a look at democrats like Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor and Ben Nelson and the reception they get at home over the next month – Mary Landrieu from Louisiana – because, if they get an earful from their constituents – and even a lot of democrats in those states are not liberal democrats. They’re real old school, what we would call today moderate democrats. If they don’t like what’s going on and they let everybody know, in a civilized way or not, those members are not going to come back in a hurry to do anything.

SWAIN: Big question on another topic in one minute if I could.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Yes.

SWAIN: We didn’t talk at all about foreign policy. But, at the same time that this healthcare debate is going on, the President has made the decision to really ramp up in Afghanistan. The President who had a major block of supporters who wanted military operations in that region of the world to stop, if not to power down fairly quickly. Will you talk about the politics of that with his constituency and whether or not healthcare is eclipsing their concerns over it?

KADY: There’s a real discomfort on the left among a lot of liberal members of the House and the Senate about the increase in forces in Afghanistan. It’s an – it is you know concern to the left, but it’s simultaneously sort of in danger of becoming a forgotten war. I mean there is – there was good news apparently on Friday where we apparently killed one of the top Taliban leaders in Pakistan. That is a sign of success. It’ll be interesting to see whether that gets the type of play that it should. But you know the domestic front is so much hotter right now, the economy, the healthcare discussions, that it threatens to overwhelm this very important divisions – potential division on the left of foreign policy.

SWAIN: That’s it for our time. Nice to see you both again. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Good to be here.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

END