Harry Reid's strategy backfires

Jonah Goldberg:

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You have to wonder if Harry Reid feels like an idiot yet. For years now, the Senate majority leader has been cynically protecting Democratic senators — and President Obama — from difficult votes.

The rationale was pretty straightforward. He wanted to spare vulnerable Democrats named Mark — Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, Alaska’s Mark Begich and Colorado’s Mark Udall — and a few others from having to take difficult votes on issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline, EPA rules and immigration reform.

The problem for the Marks and other red- or swing-state Democrats is that, having been spared the chance to take tough votes, they now have little to no evidence they’d be willing to stand up to a president who is very unpopular in their states.

Thanks to Reid’s strategy of kicking the can down the road, GOP challengers now get to say, “My opponent voted with the president 97 percent of the time.” Democrats are left screeching “war on women!” and “Koch brothers!”

For instance, Reid killed bipartisan legislation on energy efficiency in May by denying senators the right to offer amendments.

This was a wildly partisan and nearly unprecedented move, blocking the Senate from debating important issues. He did so because he feared that GOP amendments — on the Keystone pipeline, for instance — would pass with Democratic support, angering the White House.

I’m sure Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., would love to be able to tout such a vote now. But she supported Reid’s tactic, shooting herself in the foot in the process.

Of course, this assumes these allegedly independent Democrats would have broken with Obama. But whether they would have or not, wouldn’t our politics be healthier if we had an answer to that question?

Indeed, so much of Obama’s politically poisonous indecisiveness, whether on Syria, Ukraine, the Islamic State, immigration reform or the Keystone pipeline, seems driven by a powerful desire to kick the controversial decisions down the road and simply “win” the daily spin cycle.
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There is more.

It is hard to show your independence when you refuse to vote on an issue.  What is happening in 2014 is that Republicans have found a way to make Democrat tactics an issue and they have made the "war on women" meme look like unserious pandering.  That is what happens when you don't want to run on what you really believe in.  The GOP should not fall into the same trap if they get control of the process.