The Coop Is Loose
Posted on February 3, 2009 at 2:53 pmUPDATE: Cooper now says his words below don’t mean what you think.
With the withdrawal of Tom Daschle’s name from consideration for Health and Human Services chief, the obligatory speculation regarding whom the next nominee shall be necessarily follows.
Some folks like Howard Dean. Others have less controversial choices.
The Office of Management and Budget was, of course, the main job folks thought Congressman Jim Cooper would end up in if he chose to go to Washington. HHS, however, would not be a bad fit either, considering the congressman’s interest in healthcare.
And FYI for those of you who are operating under the misimpression that the Congressman is on the outs with the new administration for his vote against the stimulus need only to take a listen to Cooper’s interview yesterday with Liberadio(!):
Well, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks for what I’m doing. They know its a messy bill and they wanted a clean bill.
Now, I got in terrible trouble with our leadership because they don’t care what’s in the bill, they just want it pass and they want it to be unanimous. They don’t mind the partisan fighting cause that’s what they are used to. In fact, they’re really good at it. And they’re a little bit worried about what a post-partisan future might look like.
If members actually had to read the bills and figure out whether they are any good or not. We’re just told how to vote. We’re treated like mushrooms most of the time.
Of course, while this is evidence that Coop is still working inside the proverbial Obama circle it is also more evidence why he would never, ever take a job with the administration.
Why go on the inside when, as an independent operator in Congress, he can serve his own agenda AND play good cop or bad cop for the Obama administration depending on the need?
UPDATES:
Politico places Coop on the short list
Nate Rau with some thoughts
Daily Kos links up
Comments
12 Responses to “The Coop Is Loose”
Jim Cooper is less controversial? It depends on whom you are asking I suppose.
Ezra Klein, Eve Gittelson, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, and others would pretty much go off their nut if Cooper was nominated.
Which might be kinda fun, actually…
[...] Kleinheider pointed out that Cooper, who has long been invested in health care issues, would probably prefer to stay in [...]
[...] The Coop Is Loose : Post Politics: Political News and Views in Tennessee writes February 3rd, 2009 4:10 pm [...]
Preparing the way for the return of Bob Clement.
Bob Clement?!
That’s funny, TennDemocrat. Gosh, I hope you were kidding.
[...] Source: politics.nashvillepost.com [...]
Clement? There are only two truly safe congressional seats for Democrats in Tennessee - seats that will survive an (inevitable) republican redistricting - Nashville and Memphis. I imagine that just about every democrat who has ever run for elective office in Davidson County will consider running for Cooper’s seat if it is vacant. Some desperate souls might run even if its not.
[...] there is more to this than meets the eye. In Kleinheider’s original post on Feb. 3, he let’s loose that Cooper is on the short list to replace Daschle as head of HHS. [...]
[...] The Coop Is Loose : Post Politics: Political News and Views in Tennessee writes February 4th, 2009 12:09 pm [...]
[...] to be unanimous.” The next day, the Kleinheider machine over at PostPolitics picked out the money quote and used it in a post speculating about Cooper’s interest in the position of Health and Human [...]
This reminds, in two respects, of something that happened some years back. I called Jim Cooper’s D.C. office during–I think, the debate on the medicare prescription bill . . . it was probably 10:30 at night and I was just planning/hoping to leave a brief voicemail and was surprised when a guy answered the phone. It was Cooper and he said, “I’m actually reading through the bill as we speak.” I was impressed. To Sean’s point, I guess he’d be “controversial” to the Left for not thinking that socialized medicine is swell.