Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is finally making national news after four years as a do-nothing GOP wallflower. But… it’s probably not the knid of publicity that will help him come 2010.
Yesterday, the House passed a bill that would give the FDA power to regulate tobacco products by a vote of 298-112. Next, the bill will head to the Senate, where one senator has threatened to filibuster it. That senator is… Richard Burr.
I can understand Burr’s opposition to the bill. North Carolina is the number one tobacco-producing state in the country, and the congressional district Burr represented from 1995 to 2005 includes Winston-Salem, the home of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
But Burr’s opposition to this bill has been reported in virtually every news story on this bill, including these stories from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. This is bad politically for Burr for several reasons:
1. It will empower national Democrats to defeat him in 2010. Burr’s decision to filibuster this bill, which many Democrats and liberals support, turns him from just another Southern Republican into a specific opponent. He is making himself more vulnerable because he is giving Democrats a real reason to strongly dislike him besides the fact that he is a Republican. They will want him out because of this action.
2. It doesn’t really help him a lot back home. Although North Carolina has long been known for it’s tobacco (people used to joke that the state motto was “Tobacco is a vegetable”), the tobacco industry no longer commands the influence it once had. The NC House just approved a bill to ban smoking in most businesses and restaurants, and polling showed that roughly two-thirds of North Carolinians supported the ban. By being so vocal, Burr will alienate urban and surburban voters in RTP and Charlotte who want tobacco to be more regulated. Most tobacco farmers would probably have voted for him anyway, so he will potentially lose more votes than he will gain from this. This
3. It furthers his image as an obstructionist. The Senate GOP has fallen in love with the filibuster, and Burr has been no exception. He has very few accomplishments he can point to other than being an ultraconservative, partisan Republican who opposed the Democrats who have controlled Congress for most of his term. The one time he gets a lot of national exosure, it is for opposing rather than supporting something.
In my opinion, Burr is the most endangered Republican incumbent in 2010 other than Jim Bunning. And unlike in Kentucky, it is unlikely that the GOP leadership will try to get Burr to retire or defeat him in a primary.
So I think this race is being overlooked by many national pundits, and it will prove to be one of our best pickup opportunities next November.
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back when I first saw the returns coming in the 2008 NC Senate race, and I saw Dole losing by a lopsided margin to state senator Hagan, my first thought was “Damn…Burr is so screwed in 2010”.
If we get a top-tier candidate in like AG Cooper, it’s not even going to be close (probably a Santorum-like outcome).
I think it’s more likely we get Burr than win the open Florida Senate race.
Most endangered incumbent is an interesting phrase. Does it include Republican-held open seats in NH and OH? They look pretty iffy for the Republicans. I’d put Specter ahead of Burr because I don’t think he’ll win the primary.
Does any Republican besides Bunning have a big gaffe quotient. Maccaca. Nuff said.
The Democratic wave in the Senate is moving out of the Northeast. It is possible that both PA and NH will flip. leaving Republicans with only the Maine ladies. VA is gone and this could be the fate of NC. WV is safe and the remaining seat on OH is in trouble. Potentially, Republicans are left with only Richard Lugar in a huge swath of territory.
In the case of VA and NC, migration from NY, NJ could be part of what is turning VA and NC more blue.
Looks great on a map.
The scary thing is that 298 House members KNOW this is delusional, counterproductive policy but still voted for it because there’s nothing more politically expedient than getting a potshot at “Big Tobacco”. Hopefully, 41 Senators will be grown-ups about this, but I’m not confident.
There are two main reasons why FDA tobacco regulation is a fool’s errand. First, the FDA’s cup already runneth over. They have neither the staff nor the resources to properly regulate food and pharmaceuticals as it is. Forcing them to divert their limited resources towards picking and choosing allowable ingredients for cigarettes is a good way to end up with even worse oversight of the food and drugs that the FDA is already dropping the ball in regulating. Enjoy last year’s peanut recall? Or the fatalities related to the green onion issue from a few years back? Then you’ll just love the years ahead when the FDA is forced to redirect its efforts to engage in a sin crusade against smokers rather than protect us from dangerous food and drugs.
Secondly, the cigarette black market is already the fastest growing criminal enterprise in America today (indeed across the globe) and just got another shot in the arm this past month when Congressional dipshits further artificially inflated domestic cigarette prices to decimal point percentages above their market value. If all of the ingredients in cigarettes that smokers enjoy are taken away and cigarettes begin to taste like burning turds to them, you can be sure that foreign cigarettes not subjected to these regulations will become that much more popular….and the criminal element distributing them across U.S. borders will become that much more entrenched. Do you think America is locking up insufficiently few nonviolent offenders smuggling and selling drugs? Do you believe the violence at our southern border trying to smuggle illegal drugs into the U.S. should get even bloodier? If so, then you’ll LOVE FDA tobacco regulation!
Loathe as I am to support Burr, I got his back on this one. And even if every other Democrat in America except me believes it’s the role of the government to micromanage every consumption choice of the proletariat, I will defiantly kick and scream in protest as my party wages this pointless and hypocritical culture war.
Burr’s lifetime Progressive Punch score ranks 91st (of 99) at 3.90. The next most conservative senators from states carried by Obama are Ensign (80th, 7.13) and Grassley (72nd, 8.92)followed by announced retirees Gregg (69th, 10.31), Martinez (66th, 13.66), and Voinovich (62nd, 17.51) and the three actual moderates of Collins, Specter, and Snowe. For the first time since the defeat of Lincoln Chafee, Specter is no longer the most liberal Republican being inched out by Snowe.
Fwiw, the most conservative Democrats from Obama states are (in order): Bayh, Carper, Lieberman (sort of), Bill Nelson, Kohl, Bingaman, Harry Reid, Feinstein, Webb, and Inouye. Carper, Lieberman, Kohl and Feinstein are not representing their states too well. Bayh is a publicity grabbing jerk but in tune with Indiana.