Sunday, December 03, 2006

The House of Representatives wastes no sympathy on defeated members. So at
the beginning of this week, Jim Leach of Iowa sat in an office almost devoid
of furniture, the walls stripped bare of the mementos of his 30 years of
service -- with just a few hours remaining before the painters moved in to
prepare his domain for its new occupant. Leach, who once was chairman of the
Banking and Financial Services Committee, would have been in line to head
the Committee on International Relations in the next Congress, had
Republicans maintained their majority and had he been reelected. But he
lost, 51 percent to 48 percent, to college professor David Loebsack, as
Democrats won top-to-bottom victories in Iowa this month. Leach, noted for
his independence, was the only Iowa legislator to oppose going to war in
Iraq. That kind of record helped him prevail in past races despite his
heavily Democratic district, which gave a higher percentage of its
presidential vote to John Kerry than any other district held by a
Republican. But this year two special factors helped tip the balance against
him. First, he became a target for crafting the Unlawful Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act, which passed Congress as part of a larger bill in October
and was signed into law just before the election. The Poker Players
Alliance, which had fought the measure banning banks and credit card
companies from servicing Internet gambling firms, targeted Leach and other
sponsors with e-mails to its members and publicity in poker magazines. A
post-election survey paid for by the gambling group found a net 5-point
swing against Leach attributable to that issue. John Pappas, the spokesman
for the alliance, said it is putting together a presentation for the new
members of Congress using Leach's experience to show that "this issue is not
a winner for them; in fact, the main proponent was hurt by it." The alliance
wants poker exempted from the Internet gambling ban or the ban lifted in
favor of government regulation and taxation. In addition, the Christian
Coalition criticized Leach for his support of embryonic stem cell research
and for his insistence that the national GOP drop a planned mailing
attacking Loebsack on the issue of gay marriage.

"But the big force," Leach said in a conversation in his nearly empty
office, "was the accountability thing -- the overwhelming dissatisfaction
with the Republican Congress."

Because he can understand and even sympathize a bit with that feeling, Leach
said, "I am probably the least disappointed defeated member" of the vanished
Republican majority.

On the other hand, the man who was known as "the conscience of Congress"
because of his personal high standards -- no PAC money or out-of-state
contributions -- said he regrets not being part of the policymaking at "a
really critical moment for the United States in its relations with a
changing world."

And he worries about the political dynamics of a Congress that is more and
more polarized -- and therefore less and less representative of the American
mainstream.

Leach was one of eight members of the dwindling tribe of Republican
moderates who lost their seats this election, unable to separate themselves
from the public rejection of a conservative-dominated White House and
Congress.

In Leach's view, while presidential races tend to pull candidates to the
center, in Congress the abundance of "safe" seats, gerrymandered to
guarantee victory to one party or the other, makes party primaries the
critical elections. And in those low-turnout primaries, it is the
activists -- usually no more than "one-quarter of one-third" of the
electorate -- whose views prevail.

"The Republicans have been governing from within" their party base, rather
than reaching out to the other party, he said, and now that Democrats have
the majority, they will be tempted by electoral dynamics to do the same
thing.

It is possible, Leach said, that a new president could change the pattern,
and he is rather hopeful that his early picks for the nominations -- Mitt
Romney and Barack Obama -- might do that.