Bunning Strikes Out

“Tough S**t”
- Sen. Jim Bunning (R- Ken), response overheard by aides on the Senate floor to Sen. Jeff Merkely’s request Bunning drop his filibuster of the extension of unemployment benefits.

Now there is a sound byte for you.

During his filibuster against a bill to extend unemployment benefits, Sen. Jim Bunning (R – Ken.) successfully summed up the GOP’s policy towards unemployed Americans. He was speaking directly to the 1 in 10 workers who lost their jobs as a result of eight years of the Republican’s firm understanding of ideology and weak grasp of economics.

The Republicans have been hammering President Obama for focusing his efforts on health care instead of jobs. Yet, when a jobs bill cames up, the Republicans appeared kill it for ideological reasons.

On Friday, Sen. Jim Cronyn,(R-Tex), in a desperate move to spin Bunning’s actions in some sort of positive light, went to the floor to praise Bunning for standing up to “generational theft.” Too bad Cronyn and Bunning sat down through years of “generational theft” created by Bush and the Republicans, which spent the surplus and ran the government’s finances off a high bridge.

When their unemployment benefits expire, what people will remember is not Sen. Harry Reid’s confused leadership or his inability to break the filibuster, but Bunning’s remarks. The unemployed will not dwell on the fine points of Bunning’s argument that in order to keep the deficit from increasing, the extension of unemployment benefits should be paid for out of already approved stimulus money.

But the Democrats themselves are not necessarily on the side of the angels on this issue. Bunning’s actions are in direct response to Sen. Reid’s confused leadership on the jobs bill. When Reid pulled a version the bill that had wide, bi-partisan support in the Senate, he left his caucus undercut and confused, and the Republicans even more angry and distrustful. Bunning called out the Majority Leader in his filibuster, saying had Reid not acted as he had, Bunning would have seen no reason to filibuster.

Even though Speaker Pelosi has tighter control over her Chamber, the situation in the House is just as confused. The House is supporting a larger benefits bill than the one Bunning is holding up. But the Democratic Caucus is comprised of a wide range of philosophies that must be reconciled.

Stephanie Herseth (D-SD), the leader of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, says the jobs bill goes too far and is too expensive. Barbra Lee, (D-CA) says the bill does not go far enough. No one in the House thinks the Senate version is large enough to do any good. Everyone is still unhappy with Sen. Reid for killing the earlier version of the bill and now don’t know what to expect from the Senate.

But Bunning, always the cranky old uncle at the Senate’s dinner table, provided the Democrats a political out – if they have the skills to take it. Bunning distilled in one simple, easy to remember sentence an image that slices through the chaos created by the Democrats infighting and incompetence. The average voter won’t care about all the inside-the-beltway mistakes made by Harry Reid, or the posturing of Stephanie Herseth. What they will remember is Bunning’s remark, which could easily make him the face of Republican labor policy.

The Democrats can use this in the mid-terms election. Each Democrat in a tough race can cut a commercial with Bunning stopping jobless benefits while complaining about missing the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game. Democrats can use this image to pound home the message, over and over again, that this is the type of help you can expect from the Republicans if they regain power.

If the Democrats are successful with this message, Republicans could be reminded at the ballot box that when a person’s unemployment benefits run out, they will not cheer when someone takes a stand against increasing the deficit at their expense. They will cheer when they can put food on the table, pay the rent and find a job.