The Gregg Ploy
By Dylan Matthews - Jan 30th, 2009 at 12:40 pmLike my fellow Granite Stater Tim Fernholz, I relish any opportunity to talk about New Hampshire politics outside the context of the primary. So I’m loving the recent speculation that Obama will appoint our senior senator, Judd Gregg, to be Secretary of Commerce, which has recently been confirmed by Gregg himself.
That said, I don’t think it’s the political masterstroke some are making it out to be. As Gregg is a Republican and our governor, John Lynch, is a Democrat, it seems reasonable to assume that Democrats will net a Senator if Gregg goes to commerce. Moreover, that will be, assuming Franken wins, the Dems’ 60th senator, giving the caucus a filibuster-proof majority. Given how useless a post Commerce is, trading it for 60 votes in the Senate seems like a good deal for Democrats.
The flaw in this logic is the assumption that Lynch will appoint a Democrat. I am willing to bet good money that won’t happen. Lynch has some degree of party loyalty, but he has far greater loyalty to his identity as a post-partisan, non-ideological official.
Picking a Republican, be it a caretaker, like former governor Walter Peterson or former Congressman Bill Zeliff, or a viable candidate, like former Congressmen Charlie Bass or Jeb Bradley, would be a great way of shoring up that reputation. Obviously, this doesn’t rule out the seat changing hands in 2010–current Congressman Paul Hodes could probably beat either Bass or Bradley in a statewide race–but if Obama’s goal in appointing Gregg is to gain a Senate seat, I suspect he’ll be disappointed.
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