Watching NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday morning, I was not mightily impressed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s explanation for why the Senate Democratic Caucus has the constitutional authority to deny Roland Burris his appointment to fill Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. I am not a lawyer, but my sense of the Constitution is that the Senate can deny Burris the seat only if he does not meet the constitutionally-mandated requirements for office. Reid stated yesterday that this hurdle is not an issue for Burris, which leaves the Majority Leader on pretty shaky ground.

 

Rod Blagojevich is still the duly elected governor of Illinois, and has not yet been indicted by the Justice Department. Democrats may not like the pall that the whole seamy Blagojevich episode is casting on their January return to unified government, but that is a political matter, not a constitutional one. They should seat Burris and let the chips fall where they may, in terms of their ability to hold onto the seat in 2010.

 

That said, Congressman Bobby Rush’s recent comments that to deny Burris the seat would represent a legislative “lynching,” are equally ridiculous. The issue here is not whether Democrats want to prevent an African-American from returning to the Senate, but whether they can prevent a loss of the Illinois seat at the next midterm elections. While there may be strategic questions about who will have the broadest appeal for the Illinois electorate, where the political interests of Chicagoland and Downstate Illinois are often at odds, I don’t think race is playing into this in the way Rush suggested.

With a riveting and historic election cycle now finally behind us, I want to thank you all for making 2008 a remarkable first full year for NH Political Capital. And, I wish you all a safe and happy new year. To celebrate in appropriate fashion, I will be away from the website for just a few days. But I will be back on Monday, January 5^th, to kick off a new year of giving you the best political analysis and commentary I can provide. So stay tuned, as there is much more to come in 2009. Happy New Year. -Dean

You can catch me on Sunday morning as a guest on WMUR-TV’s Close Up (Ch. 9, 10 a.m.). We’ll be discussing the biggest state and national political stories of 2008, and taking a first look at who and what to watch in 2009.

Last week’s crazy winter weather forced me to spend some quality time in various airports up and down the East Coast. While sitting around my departure gates, I had the opportunity to take in endlessly repeated scenes of the Obama family vacation in Hawaii on the overhead television monitors. In addition to making me feel even worse about the nasty weather outside, this got me thinking about whether Hawaii would become the vacation White House of choice for the Obama Administration.  Bush 41 had the family retreat on Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport. Bill Clinton usually dropped in on friends on Martha’s Vineyard, and President Bush has his brush-laden ranch in Crawford, Texas.

 

While it’s a long haul from Washington, D.C. to Hawaii, when you are flying Air Force One, it’s probably not a bad trip. I’m guessing the traveling White House press corps would find spending time in Hawaii a lot more amenable than Crawford, but perhaps the cost would be prohibitive for some smaller media outlets. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hawaii gets the nod, and it may even get a few infrastructure upgrades as a bonus. If you have other suggestions for the Obama vacation compound, send them my way.

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