May 27, 2001
(from the Front Page section)
By DIRK VAN SUSTEREN Staff Writer
Suddenly, James Jeffords, the low-key senator from the small New England state, had become a national political figure. His words Thursday, “I will leave the Republican Party and become an independent,” reverberated across the political landscape, making him an instant political legend, praised and reviled, quite likely a figure for the history books.
Suddenly, he became the hottest commodity on the interview circuit as journalists scrambled for every quote and networks flashed his face and remarks and lined up pundits for the weekend’s talking-heads shows.
Normally reserved, he seemed even more so after his momentous decision that gave the Democrats the Senate and threatened President Bush’s conservative agenda. Jeffords made time for a meeting with the Vermont press, but individual interviews were tough to come by. When reporters caught him, it was on the run.
But Thursday evening, nine hours after delivering the most remarkable speech of his political career, he and two aides were climbing aboard the regular 6:35 U.S. Airways flight to Washington, one that I, by happenstance, was also taking.
Jeffords, who is occasionally physically and verbally awkward, a characteristic some supporters find endearing, bumped his head slightly on the overhead baggage compartment as he moved to his mid-plane seat. A passenger in front applauded in support of his political defection. A boy, probably 10, wearing a “Sox” baseball cap walked up the aisle to get the senator’s autograph. The only other intrusion came from me. I chicken-scratched a note obligingly delivered by a flight attendant: “Know you’re worn out, but would you have 15 minutes for an in-flight interview?”
What Jeffords offered in a short visit was a further glimpse of the tremendous emotional strain that enveloped him during the past few weeks as he weighed his options. The pressure had not been magically released when he made his announcement, he said, but at least he was confident he had made the right decision.
“The last three days have been the most trying, emotionally, in my life, (but) I feel very good about myself,” he said. “And I feel that the message got through.”
The message at least was being delivered. The White House and Jeffords’ former GOP colleagues were greeted with a banner headline Friday in The Washington Post that read: “Jeffords Tips Senate Power.” In anticipation of Jeffords’ speech, The New York Post on the previous day took the partisan and humorous approach: “Benedict Jeffords: Turncoat Senator Imperils Dubya’s Agenda.” The tabloid had a Jeffords mug shot superimposed on a drawing of Benedict Arnold.
The senator, a political moderate and party maverick in his 27 years in the House and Senate, said he felt the most strain last week when he met with eight fellow moderates in the vice president’s office at the Capitol. At that meeting, Jeffords said, he revealed his plan. He said he felt tremendous pressure to stay in the party.
“There were unabashed expressions of feelings,” Jeffords said. “There were tears, concern about how I was doing, the harm I was doing, how this was affecting their lives. They had the opportunity to remain the majority. There were expressions of love for me. They asked me to reconsider.”
To protect their privacy, Jeffords declined to name those who attended the meeting, but news reports mentioned Olympia Snowe from Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and other Senate moderates — in Jeffords’ mind an endangered species — most of whom are from the Northeast and whom Bush and the Republican Senate leadership may now have to mollify. Like Jeffords, they tend to be liberal on social and environmental issues. Jeffords said there were some “frank expressions of anger” at the meeting, because some senators would lose political clout and possibly favored committee assignments.
“Obviously I was going to change their lives,” he said. The senator said he felt “anguished” on Wednesday afternoon during his flight to Burlington as he was preparing for his speech the next morning. But he said he “was very reassured” by the “overwhelming” support he said he received from Vermonters during the day. He also said that on Thursday he received a few calls while in Burlington from some GOP senators, whom he declined to name, who wished him well but didn’t endorse his decision.
Jeffords said that since he entered Congress in 1974, Democrats have been after him to switch parties. As a member of the moderate-liberal wing of the GOP, he said, he has always been in the sights of the Democrats, but he resisted leaving his party because, until recently, he felt comfortable and effective urging moderation in the GOP. He said the pressure mounted from Democrats just after President Bush took office and began pressing his conservative agenda in an evenly divided Senate.
Jeffords, who during the previous administration voted for President Clinton’s health-care legislation and against his impeachment, seemed proud to recall that Clinton “called me his ‘favorite Republican.’”
But Jeffords became an independent, not a Democrat, last week. And the decision to go independent was largely because of politics back home and not in Washington. (The Democrats nonetheless are expected to reward him with the chairmanship of the Environmental and Public Works Committee.) “If you look at the demographics of Vermont, you will see that half the state is independent, 30 percent Republican, 20 percent Democrat, so where I fit is obviously as an independent,” he said.
But Jeffords went on to suggest this may not particularly matter because he doesn’t know what he will do in five years when his Senate term ends. Will he run for re-election, or for governor, as some have suggested? “I can only think of this job and this term,” he said. “I am 67 years old, and I don’t want to die in office. I won’t stay here forever.”
As the plane landed smoothly at Reagan Airport and passengers filed out, Jeffords and his aides stayed on board. One had said earlier that they intended to “whisk out” of the airport. They probably wanted to avoid any noisome press or protesters, like the guy at the Burlington airport on Wednesday who carried the sign that read: “Jim Jeffords Is Slick Like His Buddy Willie.” It seemed comical, almost: Jeffords hanging out in the plane awaiting the chance to slip back into the town he had upended.
He had quietly toiled for years, almost anonymously, in the Capitol, and now he didn’t seem to relish the attention. He said he hoped for some semblance of normalcy this weekend before the return, after a week’s recess, to a roiling Senate, where he will be hero to some, villain to others. He said he planned to attend a family member’s law school graduation but wouldn’t name the relative or the school because he wanted privacy.
On a short shuttle-bus ride to the terminal, I happened to sit next to a reporter from Washington, who had taken the trip to Burlington just to hear Jeffords’ speech. “Get anything?” he asked.
“Personal stuff, a short interview,” I said.
“How’s Vermont going to take this?” he asked, a question that last week seemed almost answerable.
The real puzzler, over the next few weeks, seems to be: How will the White House and the rest of the country take this?
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