That memo.

That Memo

WASHINGTON, D.C.--One day back in early April the Republican National Committee's director of communications, Mark Goodin, decided to put together a memo on Tom Foley, the man who seemed likeliest to succeed a beleaguered Jim Wright as Speaker of the House. The point was to publicize Congressman Foley's increasingly liberal voting record: Foley was widely perceived as more moderate than Wright, but in fact he had one of the most liberal records in the House. To make the point, Goodin intended to compare Foley's record with that of the liberal Representative Ed Markey (D., Mass.).

But then Goodin called the American Conservative Union, which was updating its ratings. The ACU suggested that Barney Frank be used instead of Markey, for the simple reason that Frank's frequent citations in the press made him better known nationally. As ACU Executive Director Dan Casey explains, "Barney Frank defines liberalism." And so Mr. Frank was substituted for Mr. Markey.

That substitution would cost Mr. Goodin his job.

The reason, of course, is that by the time the memo was released--June 1--it came in the thick of rumors that Mr. Foley was gay. Thus the memo's comparison of him with Mr. Frank, an admitted homosexual, plus its title, "Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet," were denounced as a clumsy attempt to capitalize on those rumors--rumors spread by friends of Jim Wright. (Ironically, early reports of the RNC memo, including a June 6 piece of the Washington Post, did not pick up on the gay issue; that only came after Mr. Frank called his press conference and raised the issue himself, threatening to expose gay Republicans.) "Dirtball Politics," thundered Newsweek. Time called for Lee Atwater's head. Mark Goodin resigned. Everyone forgot about Tom Foley.

"The story on the memo became Frank's reaction to Frank," says the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist. "What happened was that in the uproar what was really in the memo disappeared as an issue."

What was really in that memo, for the few who bothered to read it, was Tom Foley's liberal voting record and some very partisan political statements, none of them particularly outrageous but all belying the impression of the new Speaker as a gentle moderate. Today the initial impression of Foley's moderation is beginning to change, not least because of a Washington Times story quoting the Speaker as likening President Bush to a "mad dog after a bone" on capital-gains taxes and deriding his "macho style" in an off-the-record talk with European journalists. Mr. Foley has denied the comments, but his moderate image is not going to be helped by the Democrats' class war over cuts in the capital-gains tax, their vote to remove bans on federal funding of D.C. abortions, and their apparently insatiable appetite for raising taxes.

Since all this comes at a time when President Bush is emphasizing bipartisanship, it's interesting to note that the Speaker's record gives little grounds for hope there. This is exactly what the now infamous RNC memo said. Granted, it's impossible to justify the release of the memo under that title in the midst of rumors about homosexuality. But the text of the memo is substantive and worth a second look. The cover letter gives the idea:

"With the expected ascendancy of Representative Tom Foley (D., Wash.) as the Speaker of the House, many in the Democratic Party and the media will be portraying him as the 'darling' of the moderates. In fact, Mr. Foley has a long history of a liberal--including a recent 85 per cent rating by the ultra-liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Among other things, Foley is an opponent of the death penalty for drug kingpins, of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and aid to the Contras.

"Attached please find some talking points on Tom Foley's liberal record which might be helpful to you in setting the record straight in your dealings with the media."

The text did just that. Moreover, it compared Mr. Foley not just to Barney Frank but to Jim Wright and to the average Democrat, using ACU ratings to show that although not as far to the left as Mr. Frank, Mr. Foley was further to the left than Mr. Wright and much further than the average Democrat. On the flip side, on issues important to Americans for Democratic Action, the memo noted that Foley voted with Frank (a former ADA president) 75 per cent of the time, compared to 64 per cent for Jim Wright.

The memo grew out of a concern that even though the Democrats were putting in a more liberal leadership they were being hailed as more moderate. This was most apparent in the gentle treatment given Senator George Mitchell (ACU rating 15, ADA rating 95) when he was tapped as Majority Leader last year; the word liberal went widely unmentioned.

Nevertheless, the RNC memo yielded the exact opposite result of its intention, in that Mr. Foley appeared to be a moderate victim of extremist Republican tactics. To be sure, this image was reinforced by Mr. Foley's personal demeanor, which like Senate Majority Leader Mitchell's is more measured and less vitriolic than that of his predecessor. It has also been helped by the fact that the liberals have been losing on the legislative front. The question is what happens when they recover. "Gephardt, Gray, and Foley are the most liberal House leadership in history," says Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R., Ga.). "They're nice people, but they're nice liberals, and they're serious about their liberal views. We have to remember that in dealing with them, because the gulf between their views and the Administration's is going to continue to cause problems."