Wednesday's Starting Lineup
By Reid Wilson
Good Wednesday morning. Here's Hotline OnCall's Starting Lineup -- the people and groups who matter today -- for the 2nd day of Dec.:
BLUE DOG DEMS: For the 2nd time in a week, a prominent Blue Dog has announced he will step down. Rep. John Tanner (D-TN), a leading Blue Dog, will quit Congress after 11 terms, he announced last night. Tanner joins Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS) as the two Dems calling it quits without running for a higher office.
GOPers havean excellent shot at winning the seat, though Dems will likely turn to a local state legislator to run. But is Tanner indicative of larger problems to come? If Blue Dogs start retiring en masse, Dems will have a tough time holding many of their seats -- don't forget, the GOP took more than 20 seats retiring Dems left open in '94.
Certainly, the pace of Dem retirements has been slower than GOPers last year. But Dec. '07 and Jan. '08 were brutal for GOPers, with a new retirement seemingly every other day. Now Dems are beginning their own cycle of exits. How bad will it get? Hotline chief Amy Walter singled out Tanner as one of the possible canaries in the coalmine last week.
REP. ERIC CANTOR: Today, Cantor steps out on his own with a speech at the conservative Heritage Institute, ahead of the WH jobs summit tomorrow. Until now, Cantor has not had a chance to lay out a policy program of his own -- something he must do if those rumors of higher ambitions are true.
So far, the House Min Whip has been forced to stand by and watch as the GOP offers whatever thin alternative it had to Dems' sure-to-be-passed option (Recall Rep. Mike Pence offering the GOP's budget alternative, an idea so poorly thought through that Cantor began inching away from the podium almost before Pence finished speaking).
Now, Cantor's 12/2 speech will be his chance to stand apart from GOP leadership. What's more, it will be closely watched by conservative activist and blogger-types, and if Cantor does well, Pence won't be the only House member who gets some WH '12 buzz.
Check back with Hotline OnCall later this morning for a preview of Cantor's remarks.
THE WAR CABINET: Pres. Obama's closest foreign policy advisors will storm Capitol Hill today to testify about his plans to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 and begin pulling some troops out 18 months from now. Sec/State Hillary Clinton, Def. Sec. Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs chair Mike Mullen will all testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee today. The three will return to the Hill Thursday for more testimony.
Immediate reaction to Obama's speech last night broke down along ideological lines. Liberals are unhappy that Obama would commit any more troops to the mission in Afghanistan, while conservatives, who would likely support any troop increase, will criticize Obama for not adhereing to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's top-end request for 40K troops.
Whether Clinton, Gates and Mullen succeed now in walking the tightrope between Dems who want troops out of Afghanistan and GOPers who want more troops in theater could determine how much of a headache additional war funding measures, expected early next year, will be for the admin.