Republicans Ray LaHood, John McHugh and Jon Huntsman all accepted positions in the Obama administration. Stealth war: Obama sabotages GOP

Tuesday’s announcement of Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) as President Barack Obama’s nominee for Army secretary makes perfect sense from a policymaking standpoint. It’s hard to find a member of Congress who’s more well-respected or more steeped in military personnel issues than McHugh, a senior House Armed Services Committee member who has wrestled with issues ranging from recruitment to base closure to the role of women in combat.

Yet it’s also hard to find a choice better calibrated to meet the Obama administration’s political imperatives. All at once, Obama has selected a nominee who burnishes his bipartisan credentials, opened up a seat prime for Democratic pickup and drained the GOP reservoir of one of the few remaining Northeastern moderates.


It’s an event that’s happening with enough frequency to suggest the presence of a design, a plan that not only sketches the outline of a reelection strategy but manages to drive a wedge into the opposition at the same time. Call it a Sherman’s March in reverse — an audacious attempt by Obama to burn down any lines of escape for Republicans from their one refuge of popularity, the deep South.

Since taking office in January, Obama has made an effort to convert GOP moderates in nearly every region of the country, ranging from a former Midwestern congressman, Ray LaHood, who became transportation secretary, to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was recently named ambassador to China.

Obama also made a play for two of the four remaining Northeastern Republican senators — meeting with success in the case of party-switching Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter and near-success in the case of New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, who initially accepted the president’s appointment as head of the Commerce Department before backing out.

And with McHugh’s appointment, Obama has managed to cut New York’s ever-shrinking GOP House delegation by one-third. The state delegation now includes just two Republicans in its 29-member contingent — down from 10 as recently as 2004.

Between high-profile conversions from the Northeast to the Midwest to the Rocky Mountain West — not to mention Obama’s warm relations with the nation’s two most prominent moderate Republican governors, California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida’s Charlie Crist — it’s beginning to look like a strategy that isolates conservatives, reinforces the impression that the GOP is defined by the borders of the Deep South and all the while underscores Obama’s stated goal of working across party lines.

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“It’s very smart politically on a lot of levels. First, it’s a demonstration that he’s keeping his promise to govern in a bipartisan way. Second, the fact is, every time you open up a seat in the House or Senate that an incumbent Republican holds, you give your party an opportunity to win one back. And some of those seats may come our way,” said Tad Devine, a veteran Democratic strategist. “It forces Republicans to defend their own territory and spend money on defense.”

“Boxing the Republicans into a South-dominated party is very good strategy, because the more you reduce the Republican Party, the more conservative and reactionary it will become, and thus less attractive to moderates,” said Tom Schaller, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County professor and the author of “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.” “The Midwest and the Northeast are the places where there are still remnants of old-line Rockefeller Republicans. And these are the places where the Democrats will build durable majorities.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee made reference to the political calculus in a memo released after McHugh’s nomination Tuesday.

“Make no mistake about it, John McHugh is an incredibly qualified nominee for secretary of the Army, and he deserves a swift confirmation,” the memo said. “With that being said, there is no doubt that White House chief of staff and former DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel was well aware of the political ramifications surrounding this selection when this plan was hatched. The party boss in the West Wing saw a political opportunity and he seized on it.”

“They’re making some really strategic moves in terms of sending them to China or plucking them out of New York,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “It’s obviously a loss to us, a loss to Republicans in the House and a loss to the party in that region of the country and generally, but obviously a great get for the new administration. I just hope [McHugh] would stay here instead of going there.”

Former moderate Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) dismissed the notion that politics has played a significant role in White House appointments, noting instead that the administration is simply following up on campaign promises to change the climate in Washington.

“It is a considered endeavor that is very much a part of the president’s personal philosophy, and it’s to be commended,” said Leach, who himself has been mentioned for a possible Obama appointment. “I don’t view this in any way as Rovian politics. I view it as a Lincoln-esque political effort to unify.”

“The truth is that once you put emphasis in the campaign that you’ll put good Republicans in the administration, the media and the pundit class starts counting,” said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns. “But there’s this value-add to it: [McHugh] is from a region where the Republicans are incredibly embattled. Republicans are almost extinct in those areas.”

Republicans were reluctant Tuesday to criticize the well-regarded McHugh, but they also were sensitive to the impression his departure might foster — that moderates like him were deserting the party because conservatives were running roughshod over them.

“John was very dismissive to me about that,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told reporters Tuesday, relating details of a phone conversation he had with McHugh earlier in the day, during which McHugh told Pence that he felt very welcome as one of the few remaining moderates in the conference.

Terry Nelson, a Republican strategist who served as political director for former President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign and who worked briefly for the 2008 McCain campaign, said McHugh’s nomination alone shouldn’t be viewed as a strategic play because one House seat by itself makes no difference given the current Democratic majorities. Rather, the strategic benefit of the appointment is the message it sends.

“Broadly speaking, it’s clear they’re working to put forward as bipartisan an image as they can,” he said. “The strategic advantage is to put forward the bipartisan facade, because they know the American electorate is much more centrist than left-leaning, and they want to put forward a centrist face.”

Patrick O’Connor and Manu Raju contributed to this story.