I just got off of a press conference call with the New Hampshire Edwards campaign. Representative Mike Michaud from Maine's 2nd district is endorsing John Edwards! Maine only has two representatives in Congress, so he represents half their congressional delegation. As Maine is right next to New Hampshire, I would think that this is a pretty important endorsement.

Mike Michaud is a lifelong millworker. He made the point that John can win in red states, because of his message. He believes that the other Democrats will not be able to win in red states, so that if we want to elect Democrats down the ballot, we need John as our presidential nominee.

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I've been in meetings this morning with various liberal groups, as well as on the Hill at a few member offices.  I learned very little that's actionable, but one thing that is happening is a big caucus meeting today on trade.  I've been able to look at a copy of the talking points handed out to members last Thursday, and there's very little there that we haven't seen.  I'm sure that a huge point of contention is going to be the discussion over side letters versus reopening the FTA agreements.  I think that the promise a few weeks ago was that the Peru and Panama agreements would have to be reopened, but that may not be the case.

We'll know more in a few hours, after the members are done with the meeting and start talking.  Passions are high on both all sides.  This is very painful for the New Democrats and Charlie Rangel, I don't think they expected this level of opposition and anger.  They thought they could just roll the single-issue groups and frankly, if it were up to those groups, they would have been correct.  What the neoliberals are encountering is internet politics and a kickass freshman class.

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This is from Inside Trade and I got it from Lexis, so I can't provide a link.  But I'm beginning to think that the 'deal' announced on trade actually was just a press conference and a Rorschach Test mashup.  Here's what I mean.

Lawyers for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are exploring ways to make the new free trade agreement template "legally binding" without reopening the Peru and Colombia free trade agreements, according to House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Jim McCrery (R-LA).

He acknowledged that this would require convincing Democrats such as Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin (D-MI), who last week said the new template announced May 10 requires the reopening of already signed FTAs.

What was announced was an agreement to move forward on trade based on specific principles, and Sander Levin was a key figure bringing credibility from labor.  There was no legislative language because there was no legislation or new trade deals to vote on.  All this 'deal' consisted of was a set of principles around which negotiations would happen.  Apparently Sander Levin thought that this meant trade deals before Congress would be reopened, while business lobbyists and the Bush administration did not.  Each side saw what they wanted to see in the announcement, and now it appears that this disagreement wasn't resolved in the 'deal'.  So what exactly was this except for a press conference?

I'm not sure, but Rangel is really mad.

"I think there's a lot of misunderstanding with the agreement," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, told PBS' Nightly Business Report. "I cannot see how anybody would be upset in the Democratic Party, except for one thing: they were not included when we had the press conference."

Well since the only thing that proponents really seemed to have in common was this press conference, I suppose that his perspective makes sense.  Or maybe this was his first bad day since.

I will say that Rangel would have a lot more credibility if he had actually managed to get the minimum wage increase through that the Democratic leadership promised.  That is a popular and obvious piece of legislation, as well as a campaign promise that Bush promised he'd sign.  The only thing holding it up is wrangling from Rangel, Baucus and Senate Republicans, who will crumple if forced to filibuster.  The minimum wage hike will happen, I'm sure, but it's clear that his priorities are out of whack since he's not actually expending enough effort to make it happen.  He's too busy cutting bipartisan trade deals that don't actually seem to be anything but press conferences.

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During the NAFTA fight, pro-NAFTA forces were able to peel off just enough environmentalists and pro-labor members with a series of 'side agreements' that pledged to uphold labor and environmental standards.  The key point to remember in the 'deal' announced last week is that the 'deal' was more of a promise to rewrite the trade agreements between Peru and Panama.  Apparently, though, what may actually be going on is that free trade forces aren't going to rewrite the deals so much as they will add side agreements for environmental and labor standards.

To put this in context, for people who remember the NAFTA fight, this is like the Bush administration putting to Congress a resolution for the authorization of the use of military force in Iran and promising to do everything possible to avoid a military strike, including inspections for nuclear facilities.  So it shouldn't be a surprise that the Senators cut out of the process are livid.

Five Senators with strong ties to labor unions expressed outrage today about the side deals negotiated between Congressional leaders and the White House to include labor and environmental standards in a new trade policy proposal, and said that they want to be invited to the table.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said at a press conference today that they want to push for new benchmarks in future trade agreements to measure their success and allow Congress to review any agreement in any five-year period.

"We would say to all of those who played a role in these negotiations that we intend to be a part of the negotiations and will be with respect to what we described: benchmarks and accountability," Dorgan said.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Trade Ambassador Susan Schwab reached an accord with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) to include environmental and worker protections in new trade deals with South Korea, Colombia, Panama and Peru.

However, Brown said in a statement that "if the plan is to offer side deals, then nothing new is on the table except a $5.00 Rolex."

I don't like sequels in general.  And this is surely a sequel: a slowing economy, a President named Bush, a decimated labor force, a neoliberal group in Congress, strong business coalitions, a Clinton running for the Democratic nomination promising to be on the side of the people while surrounding the campaign with corporate-allied operatives, a country looking for change, and a secretive trade deal on the table.

Sequels are always worse than the original.  This one is no different.

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I just got this from a source.  Apparently Sirota's right that there's immense strife in the caucus around this trade deal.  The other side tends to tell me that they got the Republicans to cave on big demands, and that labor shouldn't be complaining that much.  The problem is that labor got pushed out of the room when the deal was negotiated, as did Fair Trade Democrats, and the New Dem Democrats don't have such a great record on trade.

It's becoming pretty clear that the politics here are too screwed up to move forward.  There's also the lobbying reform issue to tackle, and the budget.  Lots and lots of sticky stuff.

And a hot breakfast. They really want people at this meeting.

Update [2007-5-16 18:20:42 by Matt Stoller]: Rep Brad Miller calls me out in the comments.

There's a joint caucus and whip organization meeting every Thursday morning at 9:00 in HC-5, and a hot breakfast is always served. There may be ultimately be strife in the caucus about the trade deal, but that's kinda thin evidence of intra-caucus warfare.

I'll take Miller's word on this. Note to self: don't blog while hungry and thinking about breakfast. It's my favorite meal of the day by far.

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