Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) has been a long-time member of the Conscience Caucus. She’s a loyal Republican on almost every possible area of public policy, but when it comes to Social Security, she not only disagrees with Bush, she’s not afraid to say so.
And in a sign of just how difficult it’ll be for the White House to start making headway with lawmakers who know the president’s wrong, I think it’s hilarious that Brown-Waite won’t even find time to talk to Bush in person.
When the president came to Tampa in February for a forum on Social Security, he gave Brown-Waite a ride in the presidential limo between the airport and the convention center. Bush made a personal appeal to the congresswoman, but Brown-Waite bluntly responded, ”I’m just not on board.”
”It’ll be OK,” the president said, according to Brown-Waite. But Bush, she said, was not happy. Since then, she has received multiple invitations to visit the White House, but said she hasn’t been able to find time to come by. (emphasis added)
Generally speaking, when a president invites a House member of his own party to come by the White House for a chat, the lawmaker makes time. Indeed, in most instances, he or she drops everything and makes a bee-line for Pennsylvania Avenue. But here’s a situation in which a relatively new lawmaker (Brown-Waite is only in her second term) has ignored “multiple invitations.”
Better yet, Brown-Waite is not only blowing off Bush, she’s publicly mocking him for the way in which the president is making his pitch.
In the meantime, she said, Bush would be well-served by having more give-and-take, instead of fielding softball queries from hand-picked crowds.
”Let me tell you the difference between a GWB town-hall meeting — George W. Bush — and a GBW — Ginny Brown-Waite — town-hall meeting: I don’t load the audience with just the choir,” Brown-Waite recalled telling her fellow Republicans at a closed-door meeting about a month ago. ”He needs to have a GBW kind of meeting, where he fields some questions from the general population.”
The White House may want to go ahead and pull Brown-Waite’s name from the “on the fence” list.