Gephardt considers future: Said to be eyeing 2004 White House bid
You've just presided over a history-making electoral debacle for your party. You have no message, and the party is disintegrating into finer-pointing and recrimination. What are you going to do? Well, if you're House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, why not run for President?
The elections marked only the second time since 1934 that a president's party did not lose House seats in a midterm ballot -- the first time for a Republican president since 1902.
That increased pressure on Gephardt. Some liberal Democrats complained he was too quick to back the president's approach on Iraq and did not do enough to force a coherent party alternative to President Bush's approach on the economy.
One Democrat who publicly called for Gephardt to step aside was Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tennessee.
"Dick Gephardt, let me say this, is one of the finest leaders this nation has known. He's the hardest working, biggest money raiser and frankly the most passionate Democrat in the House," Ford told CNN's "CrossFire." "But much like a manager of a baseball team who really, really wants to win, is beloved by his players but simply can't win -- sometimes it's time to move on. And now might be a time for infusion of new ideas and new faces within the leadership of the House on the Democratic side."
Rep. Peter Deutsch of Florida -- a long-time Gephardt critic -- was even more direct: "If no one else will challenge him, I will."
Another House Democrat who asked not to be identified said the discontent with Gephardt's leadership pre-dated the elections but were exacerbated by the results, calling them "an absolute blowout."
On one level, I admire Gephardt's chutzpah. Still, presidential aspirations seem a bit inappropriate at the moment. The Dems just got their @##$# kicked, and rather than try to determine how to right the ship, Gephardt is thinking of his own political future. That's not exactly the type of leadership that will get the Democrats back to a place where they can compete in 2004. How about we try to figure out what is broken and fix it first??
