“Most Members will tell staff what they need and leave it to them to do the real work. Not Conrad. He sits through the negotiations. It’s almost as if he does staff work in addition to a Member’s work. He always has paper. He has information. He knows his stuff. And when the doors close, he cuts the deal,” said the staffer.
The question, of course, is whether everyone will like the deal.
Republicans, in particular, were quick to criticize Conrad’s version of the budget last week.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) said Obama’s budget “spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much” — the newest Republican refrain. But he also slammed Conrad when he complained that given “all the bipartisan praise that budget transparency received ... the Budget Committee voted to put most of the gimmicks and tricks back in.”
Conrad’s disagreement with the Obama budget’s bottom line doesn’t necessarily mean that the North Dakotan disagrees with what Obama wants to accomplish. He has only suggested that he is unhappy with the cost of some of the pieces of President Obama’s agenda.
However, Conrad has indicated that he
isn’t ready to throw out procedural niceties, such as the filibuster, to accomplish big changes.
Given the president’s emphasis on bipartisan cooperation and changing the tone in Washington, D.C., as well as the likelihood that Republicans would go nuclear if Senate Democrats tried to use reconciliation to pass cap-and-trade legislation or even fundamental health care reform, Conrad could find himself facing off against his own party’s Senate leadership.
Serious and studious, Conrad doesn’t possess Barack Obama’s charisma or bully pulpit. But because of his reputation and skill as a negotiator, the North Dakota Democrat definitely is a man to watch in the coming months.
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