Robert Novak has a scathing piece on the way in which President Bush has completely screwed over Sen. John Thune (R-SD). It appears likely that South Dakota’s Ellsworth Air Force Base will be put on the chopping block thanks to the BRAC list, despite Senator Thune’s tireless efforts. The White House has shown absolutely no interest in helping Senator Thune despite the fact that he was their hand-picked candidate for the Senate. As Novak explains:
President Bill Clinton saved Ellsworth for then Sen. Daschle during the last BRAC process in 1995, but President George W. Bush was detached in 2005. The resulting closure demolishes Thune’s home state prestige and threatens Republican domination of western South Dakota (where Ellsworth is located) by eliminating 6,000 civilian jobs. Local political setbacks may be reversed, but damage to Thune as a national fund-raiser and candidate-recruiter seems irrevocable. He has been transformed from regular to maverick. Bush might ask himself: Is closing one air base worth this?
BRAC’s defenders say the price is not too high because no military installations could be closed if politics prevailed. Yet, to ignore Thune and consider Ellsworth the same as big-state base closings contradicts the image of a White House that puts politics first. Instead, the Bush team looked like tone-deaf, old-fashioned Republicans interested more in going by the book than winning elections.
President Bush has no problems with being a big spender, so why in the world is he leaving Senator Thune out in the cold on Ellsworth? A base closing in Connecticut is a blow to the local economy. Losing 6,000 jobs in a state like South Dakota with a population of 700,000 is a major loss. Surely there are other uses for Ellsworth if the B-1 Lancer program isn’t enough reason. However, it appears as though the people of South Dakota and Senator Thune are being left completely in the lurch.
I’ve been critical of Senator Thune’s obstructionism, although I give him credit for at least voting to give Ambassador Bolton a fair up-or-down vote in the Senate. However, the treatment he’s received from the White House has been horrendous. Senator Thune represents the future of the Republican party – he’s young, charismatic, and a great political asset to the state of South Dakota. In a state where the Republican Party has suffered the atrophy of years of political power and patronage, Senator Thune was a ray of sunshine.
Now the White House has made Thune look like a fool and failed to give him the support he needed. They asked him to run for the Senate and now they’ve pulled the rug out from underneath him. That sort of action is politically idiotic – the White House should have known better.
The White House needs to realize that leaving one of their brightest stars out in the cold is simply unacceptable. The White House should work with Senator Thune on drafting a plan to either save Ellsworth or work on finding some way of spurring economic development in western South Dakota. Building someone up only to tear them down is not the way a party builds a lasting majority. The treatment of Senator Thune at the hands of the White House has been nothing short of shameful, and it is time that President Bush shows that his support is not confined just to filling a Senate seat.
South Dakota’s decision to get rid of Tom Daschle and replace him with “somebody who’s gonna cooperate with the President” is sure working out so far, isn’t it?!?!
And by the way, Jay, were you really so embarrassed by how badly I smacked you around the room on the debate about UAW vs. non-union autoworkers that you had to remove the whole thread? That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you sink that low in an effort to suppress the truth.
Daschle wouldn’t have saved Ellsworth either – it’s not like Bush would have been willing to grant him any favors.
Now that I’ve stopped laughing, you can find the thread at The Daily Impromptu link above (
Impromptus don’t yet go on the main page, although I think I’ll change that laterNow Daily Impromptus get listed in the previous post listing at the bottom of the page. The Daily Impromptu graphic at the top will always lead to the latest edition).So President Bush should have played pork-barrel politics despite the fact that the lack of military necessity for the base? I’m sympathetic to the people of SD and to Senator Thune, but saying that political payback should trump policy because the Democrats would do it isn’t exactly a good political philosophy.
You can bet that if Ellsworth was located in Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania and Thune was the rookie Senator of one of those states, Ellsworth would be saved. South Dakota is in robotic alignment with the Republican Party in national elections, and Bush is playing the “where else are they gonna go?” game by shutting down Ellsworth. He’d better be careful though. Clinton thought the same thing when he signed NAFTA in 1993, and the Democratic Party has had one winning election cycle out of six in the 12 years since as working people have shown the party exactly how many other places besides the Democratic Party that they can go.
Jay, I DISSENT!
As a former RC resident, I can fairly say that too many Chamber-of-Commerce types got fat, lazy, and stratified by EAFB’s presence. A presence that is only contributing about 7% of the total economic activity of Meade and Pennington counties (if the $278 million figure is to be believed.). I’d say Bush is doing John a big favor by ending the money drain that EAFB had become. And let’s face facts: That is exactly what EAFB is now!
What needs to happen, and likely will start happening by the end of the week, is planning for the closure and disposition of base assets (namely, the base housing). There are quite a few community institutional needs in the Black Hills region that will still need to be me, even with the AF leaving.
BTW, that 6000 job figure Bob NoFacts is quoting is a flat-out LIE. Per DOD’s own figures, the total job “loss” would be about 3800 personnel, about 3300 military. Nearly all the remaining 500 civilian personnel would most likely move with the Airmen.
Any other figure the RC Journal or anyone else promotes as an “economic impact” figure goes by a mistaken assumption that the air base is the only customer base the local business community has. Which is not even close to being true.