Memo To The POTUS: Judd’s A Dud (Updates)

This story tells us that New Hampshire Repug Senator Judd Gregg is being considered for the post of commerce secretary within the Obama Administration (and by the way, POTUS is the abbreviation for President of the United States, in case anyone was unsure about that; I needed to conserve headline space).

Here are a few reasons why I think this is a bad idea:

As noted here, Gregg voted against the “big three” automaker loan.

This tells us that Gregg voted against funding highway and transit projects (along with Jim DeMint – nice company Gregg keeps)

This tells us that Gregg voted against helping homeowners who suffered damage from Katrina and Rita.

This tells us that Gregg helped fend off increases for funding of first responders so they could communicate with each other more effectively (block grants to the states are nice, but this is a job for the federal government since we plainly can’t rely on the states for something of this scope, IMHO).

This tells us that Gregg amassed a list of “budget busting” votes, minus the following…

– Transit Security Amendment
– Influenza Vaccine Injury Compensation Amendment
– After School Funding Amendment
– Low Income Home Energy Assistance Amendment
– Air Cargo Security Programs Implementation Amendment
– Future Military Funding for Iraq Amendment

And when he has to, Gregg can “demagogue” with the best of them; he linked Iraq to 9/11 and implied Dems want to “play kissy face” with terrorists, as Bob Geiger put it, here.

Yes, I know that, were Gregg to accept the role of commerce secretary, New Hampshire’s Democratic governor would appoint the successor who would bring the majority party to the magical, coveted number of 60 seats, and that would truly be a prize.

However, I don’t know how much that would be offset by the prospect of Gregg continually “locking horns” with the head of his opposite party; supporting Obama in the Senate on legislation is one thing, but that doesn’t assure me that he would continue to act accordingly in very different political circumstances.

Update 2/2/09: Yep, definitely not seeing the “up” side based on this…

Update 2/3/09: I hope this means nothing more than the fact that Obama has an exquisite sense of irony.

Update 1 2/4/09: What koz sez here…big time.

Update 2 2/4/09: With each passing day, this pick is harder and harder to understand (here).

Update 3 2/12/09: This is one of the most unbelievable acts of political hari-kari I’ve seen in awhile; so, now, Gregg has “burned his bridges” with the New Hampshire Repug Party to the point where he won’t run in 2010, and he gets nothing in the bargain since he passed up the chance to serve in the Obama Administration…wow (and here’s the predictable spin).