Every Thursday, the Spy hosts a conversation with Al From and Craig Fuller on the most topical political news of the moment.
This week, From and Fuller envision how a Republican-controlled House of Representatives would impact the Biden administration over the next two years. Al and Craig also speculate on what kind of political agenda the GOP House leadership will have if they are successful in the November midterm election.
This video podcast is approximately sixteen minutes in length.
To listen to the audio podcast version, please use this link:
Background
While the Spy’s public affairs mission has always been hyper-local, it has never limited us from covering national, or even international issues, that impact the communities we serve. With that in mind, we were delighted that Al From and Craig Fuller, both highly respected Washington insiders, have agreed to a new Spy video project called “The Analysis of From and Fuller” over the next year.
The Spy and our region are very lucky to have such an accomplished duo volunteer for this experiment. While one is a devoted Democrat and the other a lifetime Republican, both had long careers that sought out the middle ground of the American political spectrum.
Al From, the genius behind the Democratic Leadership Council’s moderate agenda which would eventually lead to the election of Bill Clinton, has never compromised from this middle-of-the-road philosophy. This did not go unnoticed in a party that was moving quickly to the left in the 1980s. Including progressive Howard Dean saying that From’s DLC was the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
From’s boss, Bill Clinton, had a different perspective. He said it would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From.”
Al now lives in Annapolis and spends his semi-retirement as a board member of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (his alma mater) and authoring New Democrats and the Return to Power. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School and recently agreed to serve on the Annapolis Spy’s Board of Visitors. He is the author of “New Democrats and the Return to Power.”
For Craig Fuller, his moderation in the Republican party was a rare phenomenon. With deep roots in California’s GOP culture of centralism, Fuller, starting with a long history with Ronald Reagan, leading to his appointment as Reagan’s cabinet secretary at the White House, and later as George Bush’s chief-of-staff and presidential campaign manager was known for his instincts to find the middle ground. Even more noted was his reputation of being a nice guy in Washington, a rare characteristic for a successful tenure in the White House.
Craig has called Easton his permanent home for the last five years, where now serves on the boards of the Academy Art Museum, the Benedictine School, and Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. He also serves on the Spy’s Board of Visitors.
With their rich experience and long history of friendship, now joined by their love of the Chesapeake Bay, they have agreed through the magic of Zoom, to talk inside politics and policy with the Spy every Thursday.
Reed Fawell 3 says
As best I can discern, the participants to this podcast feel that should the GOP gain a majority of the House of Representatives in November’s election, the impact on Biden would be to thwart his agenda and replace Biden’s Democratic agenda with GOP House of Representatives investigations into the Federal Government’s and Democratic party’s illegal activities over the past 8 years in the United States and into the causes of the lawlessness and chaos and has been rampant in America during that same period of time.
Hence, the podcast’s participants warn of impending doom should the Republicans regain a majority in the US house of Represents. In short, this approach seems to opine that a divided American Government, in lieu of today’s complete Democratic control via unpopular Biden Administration policies, will result in lawlessness and chaos akin to a cat chasing its tail, as a GOP majority in the House of Representatives that looks into the rampant chaos and lawlessness that has arisen over the past 7 years will result, according to the podcast in at least another two years, and likely six years, of continuing chaos and lawlessness in America, in addition to the 8 years we’d already endured.
This, of course, suggests another iteration of President Biden recent doomsday address in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, kicking off the upcoming November mid-term elections. In my view, this grounds that campaign firmly in camp of the leviathan state as formulated by Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, arguing that only state coercion imposed from above by a very few on the many assures order.