CyberAlert -- 05/24/2001 -- Jeffords Mislabeled "Moderate"

Jeffords Mislabeled "Moderate"; In Wake of Jeffords Defection Bush Should Move Left; Fault of Conservatives for Moving GOP Too Right

1) Jeffords Defection Theme #1: Bush should move left to the center. CBS's John Roberts relayed how a Democratic pollster hoped, "he may be forced to govern from the middle." NBC's Campbell Brown pushed Bush to the left: "The President's options? Political analysts say bi-partisan compromise."

2) Jeffords Defection Theme #2: Label him a "moderate," or a "maverick," but never what he really is, a liberal. Looking at ideological ratings, Jeffords' record makes him 24 points less conservative and 25 points more liberal than a true moderate like Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine.

3) Jeffords Defection Theme #3: Blame conservatives for making the Republican Party too conservative. ABC's Linda Douglass referred to his "frustration with his increasingly conservative party." NBC's Lisa Myers worried about how he "was treated as a pariah in his own party." On MSNBC, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter suggested the Republican Party left him.

4) Jeffords Defection Theme #4: Scold the Bush White House for punishing him for working to eviscerate their bills. NBC's Lisa Myers credited his departure to how "he is deeply offended by lack of respect from the White House and from key Senate Republicans."

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Jeffords Defection Theme #1: If Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont leaves the GOP President Bush should not, as conservatives advise, take to his case to the public and make clear his difference with liberal Democrats, but move left to the center, advised CBS and NBC on Wednesday night.

CBS's John Roberts relayed how the switch "could be a good thing politically" for Bush since, counseled a Democratic pollster, "he may be forced to govern from the middle." Roberts lectured: "He'll also need to walk the walk on his promise to change the tone in Washington." NBC's Campbell Brown similarly pushed Bush to the left: "The President's options? Political analysts say bi-partisan compromise."

-- John Roberts on the May 23 CBS Evening News: "With Jeffords' departure, the President's legislative agenda would be filtered through a Democratic lense. Ironically, says Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman, that could be a good thing politically for the President."
Hickman: "It may end up helping George Bush. He may be forced to govern from the middle in a way that he wouldn't have if he had been able to maintain control of the Senate."
Roberts: "Where the new balance of power may affect the President most is in his judicial nominations. Democrats had already geared-up for a fight over two conservative judges. Without control of the all-important Judiciary Committee, Mr. Bush may need to re-think future nominations. He'll also need to walk the walk on his promise to change the tone in Washington, says Republican strategist Scott Reed."
Reed: "Washington will be re-defined in the next 24 hours with George Bush and Tom Daschle being the two marquee players and he needs to re-think how he's working with Democrats and give and take a little."

Hard to imagine how Dole lost in 1996 with Reed running his campaign.

-- Campbell Brown on the NBC Nightly News: "The question now though, what happens to Bush's agenda? Republicans say Bush's tax cut should still win approval, his education plan faces new hurdles but also has bi-partisan support. At risk, any other new legislation and confirmation for judicial nominees. The President's options? Political analysts say bi-partisan compromise."
Stu Rothenberg, political analyst: "They've talked that game, Democrats say they haven't really played it. But now with Democrats controlling the Senate I don't think the White House has any alternative."

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Jeffords Defection Theme #2: Label him a "moderate," "independent," or a "maverick," but never what he really is, a liberal. Jeffords' record makes him 44 points less conservative and 25 points more liberal than a true moderate like Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, according to 2000 ratings from the American Conservative Union (ACU) and Americans for Democratic Action (ADA).

His 2000 rating from the ACU: a mere 36 percent. Compare that to other northeastern Republican "moderates." Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter: 62 percent; Maine's Olympia Snowe: 80 percent; and Maine's Susan Collins: 76 percent. For more on ACU vote ratings, go to: http://www.conservative.org/ratings2000.htm

From the left, Jeffords voted the way the ADA liked a majority of the time in 2000, earning a 55 percent "liberal quotient." Specter had a 40 percent rating from the ADA, Snowe a 30 percent approval level and Collins voted liberal 25 percent of the time. For more on ADA ratings, go to: http://adaction.org/voting.html

So, while Jeffords is not a hard core leftist, he's also quite a bit to the left of moderates and so should be described as a "fairly liberal," or at least as "a moderate to liberal." But, over the past 24 hours the networks have studiously avoided any type of liberal tag.

An exception: On Tuesday night's Inside Politics, MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth noticed, CNN's Jonathan Karl twice referred to Jeffords as "one of the most liberal members" of either the Republican Party or Senate: "Well, what's happened here is there has been intense speculation that Senator Jeffords, who has long been one of the most liberal members of the Republican party here serving in the Senate, would switch parties, either to become a Democrat or to become an independent....The impetus for all this is that Jeffords has long been one of the most liberal members of the Senate, but he also is the person Republicans think single-handedly caused the Republicans to forced to scale down their tax cut."

Still, at another point, anchor Frank Sesno delivered the usual network description: "At issue: Will Republican moderate James Jeffords of Vermont switch to the Democratic Party?" Wednesday night, at the top of Wolf Blitzer Reports, the anchor of the same name declared: "There are 100 members of the U.S. Senate. For most of today nearly everyone in Washington was focusing on one of them. He's a Senator many people probably never even heard of, the moderate Republican from Vermont, James Jeffords."

Other examples of mislabeling from the night and morning of Wednesday, May 23:

-- ABC's Nightline. Anchor Chris Bury: "mild-mannered maverick."

Linda Douglass: "He is a maverick, he is an independent. This was really about having his own moderate views heard within what he thinks is an increasingly conservative Republican Party."

-- ABC's World News Tonight. Linda Douglass: "His friend and fellow moderate, Maine's Olympia Snowe, said a Jeffords defection should be a wake-up call to the Republican Party."

Terry Moran: "It was clear that a White House strategy of trying to muscle the maverick Republican had backfired."

(Douglass, however, did acknowledge how senior Senate Democrats are liberal: "If Jeffords switches, Democrat Tom Daschle would be the Senate's leader. Democrats would control which legislation comes up for a vote. They would chair the committees. Liberal Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee with power over the selection of Mr. Bush's judges; liberal Ted Kennedy the Health and Education Committee in charge of prescription drug legislation. Conservation-minded Jeff Bingaman, the Energy Committee overseeing Mr. Bush's energy plan.")

-- ABC's Good Morning America. George Stephanopoulos: "Jeffords has voted against the Republican Party for an awful long time. He voted against the Reagan tax cut in 1981, he was the first Republican to come out against President Clinton's impeachment and he had been comfortable in that position, a maverick Republican."

-- CBS's The Early Show. News reader Julie Chen announced, MRC analyst Brian Boyd noticed: "Senator James Jeffords is expected to announce today whether he will leave the Republican Party. A switch by Jeffords would give control of the evenly divided Senate to the Democrats. The three term moderate from Vermont has been at odds with the GOP, especially over President Bush's tax cut plan."

-- MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek: "He voted against Clarence Thomas, against the Reagan tax cut, against impeachment, pro-choice, pro-environment, so he's been this moderate Republican -- fiscally conservative, socially liberal -- for many years now."

It's "fiscally conservative" to push for higher spending, as he's been doing all year?

-- NBC Nightly News. Lisa Myers: "The turmoil overshadowed what would otherwise have been a day of celebration for Republicans: Senate passage of the President's $1.3 trillion tax cut. Instead, all eyes on a quirky moderate from Vermont who has a black belt in Tai Kwon Doe and now threatens to shift the balance of power in the Senate."

-- NBC's Today. Lisa Myers: "Some conservative Republicans treat Jeffords as a pariah because he and other moderates buck the party."

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Jeffords Defection Theme #3: Blame conservatives for making the Republican Party too conservative, not him for being too liberal. ABC's Linda Douglass referred to his "frustration with his increasingly conservative party." On MSNBC, Newsweek's Jonathan recalled how Reagan said the Democratic Party left him "and I think that's the way Jim Jeffords feels about the Republicans, that there was a place in the past for moderate Republicans from the Northeast."

-- Linda Douglass on ABC's World News Tonight, May 23: "Jeffords' frustration with his increasingly conservative party has been building for a long time. Even with a Republican in the White House he's been voting with Democrats on big issues....Jeffords felt his views on taxes, the poor, the environment were dismissed by Republican leaders. His friend and fellow moderate, Maine's Olympia Snowe, said a Jeffords defection should be a wake-up call to the Republican Party."
Senator Olympia Snowe: "We have to fight to make sure that our voices and our views and our agenda is heard, you know, within our party."

-- MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams, May 23. Williams asked: "Newsweek magazine columnist and NBC News contributing correspondent Jonathan Alter has known and covered Senator Jeffords for many years and knows well the dynamic of the Senate, of course. He is with us tonight here in our studios. Jonathan, simple question: Why the switch?"
Alter: "Well, I was thinking about Ronald Reagan, of all people, when I heard the news. He, when asked why he changed parties, he said, 'I didn't leave the Democratic party,' back in the '50s, 'The Democratic party left me.' And I think that's the way Jim Jeffords feels about the Republicans, that there was a place in the past for moderate Republicans from the Northeast, and he has been that all along. He hasn't changed his politics much at all. He voted against Clarence Thomas, against the Reagan tax cut, against impeachment, pro-choice, pro-environment, so he's been this moderate Republican -- fiscally conservative, socially liberal -- for many years now. And he thought at the beginning of this year, Brian, that there would be a place in a 50-50 Senate for these moderate Republicans, and he's found over the last four months that that simply hasn't been the case."

-- Lisa Myers on the May 23 NBC Nightly News: "Jeffords often was treated as a pariah in his own party, undercut on key bills like education."
Senator Lincoln Chafee, (R-for now, RI): "I think this is a culmination of a long shift in the Republican Party, particularly here in the Senate, towards the right and his discomfort with that."

Gee, you vote against Reagan's tax cut, against the confirmation of Clarence Thomas and spend this year fighting a tax cut and pushing for more spending. Then you really are a "pariah."

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Jeffords Defection Theme #4: Scold the Bush White House for punishing him for working to eviscerate their bills. NBC's Lisa Myers credited his departure to how "he is deeply offended by lack of respect from the White House and from key Senate Republicans." How about his lack of respect for the policy views which won Republicans control of the House, Senate and White House?

More from May 23:

-- ABC's World News Tonight. Setting up a full story on how the White House threatened to kill dairy price supports for New England and how Jeffords was not invited to the Teacher of the Year ceremony in the Rose Garden for a Vermont teacher, Peter Jennings argued: "The rhetorical question in Washington is, who lost Jeffords? And all fingers are pointing at the White House."

-- ABC's Good Morning America. MRC analyst Jessica Anderson caught this exchange. Diane Sawyer asked: "So, what is going on and is Jeffords doing it for politics or because somebody made him really mad?...Linda, so what's it about?"
Douglass replied: "Well, it is a little of both, as you say, both personal and politics. Jeffords often does vote with the Democrats on key issues, but this year he had a big battle with the White House. He wanted more funding for special education in the President's budget. The White House wouldn't give it to him, so Jeffords cast the key vote that forced President Bush to scale back his tax cut and at that point, say Republican sources, it appeared to them that the White House began punishing Jeffords, not inviting him to a ceremony at the White House honoring a Vermont teacher and even more importantly, appearing to threaten to oppose an agreement that would lock in high dairy prices in Vermont."

Sawyer soon turned to George Stephanopoulos, asking him to react to the proposition: "An attempt to tame a Senator backfire?"
Stephanopoulos agreed: "Yeah, I think that's almost exactly what happened because, look, over the long-term, Jeffords has voted against the Republican Party for an awful long time. He voted against the Reagan tax cut in 1981, he was the first Republican to come out against President Clinton's impeachment and he had been comfortable in that position, a maverick Republican. But this is his pride at stake now. The White House comes out, they start calling Vermont reporters when he votes on the tax bill and put pressure on him that way, they start to threaten the life blood of his state -- dairy farmers -- and then he has to stand up for his state."

-- On the CBS Evening News Bob Schieffer contended "the ham-handed tactics" by he White House "apparently backfired."

-- Lisa Myers on the NBC Nightly News: "So why is Jeffords on the brink of bolting? Mostly, friends say, because he is deeply offended by lack of respect from the White House and from key Senate Republicans. Sources say Jeffords is angry about being bad-mouthed by the President's political guru Karl Rove and top lobbyist Nick Calio. The last straw: After Jeffords's votes against Bush's tax cut, the White House retaliates by not inviting him when a Vermont educator is honored as teacher of the year."

-- NBC's Today. Lisa Myers delivered the same reasoning as she did later, MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens noticed: "Why would Jeffords defect? One reason, he tells friends, the White House. Jeffords repeatedly joined with Democrats to pair down Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut. He was asked whether that wasn't a bold move for a Republican."
James Jeffords: "Yes."
Myers: "But the White House wasn't laughing. It retaliated. Jeffords was not invited when a Vermont educator was honored as National Teacher of the Year. Threats were made about changing dairy price supports, critical to Vermont."

Well, now there will be one less "moderate" Republican for the media to promote.

-- Brent Baker

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