Rhetoric or Reason? Rehberg claims bipartisanship should rule D.C.

November 24, 2006 in Denny Rehberg

by Jay Stevens 

In the Billings Gazette story on Dennis Rehberg, which tells what the minority-party Representative will do with his spare time, I saw something I’d like to comment on, namely Rehberg’s comments on partisanship in Washington DC:

Stressing bipartisanship, Rehberg took note of the closely divided state and federal lawmaking bodies.”I think the people of Montana and the nation have spoken pretty clearly. They don’t want the partisan bickering, they don’t want to see the gridlock, they want to see things get done.”

Fascinating quote. What are we to make of it? On one hand, it could be a bald attempt to set up the rhetoric for the next election where Rehberg, either running for another shot at his House seat or for some other, as of yet undeclared seat, can claim that the Democrats are a bitter partisan bunch because they didn’t listen to him in the 110th Congress.

On the other, this could be a genuine statement, because…well…it’s true that voters rejected partisanship by voting for Democratic candidates. This gibes with another report (no link, sorry) that claimed Rehberg was courting the economic populist vote with his opposition to Bush’s recently proposed energy rate hikes. In other words, he might be an ally in the House for Medicare having the ability to negotiate with Big Pharm on drug costs, ethics and health care reform, rollback of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, and other useful and popular measures that would take DC out of the hands of corporations and the ultra-rich. If so, it’s a little late, but we could still use the help.

But based on his voting record, color me doutful.

Like Max Baucus, Dennis Rehberg has two years to show if he’s learned the lessons of the 2006 election. Let’s see how he votes.