leach article (online poker mentioned)

[mikeh1975]

Leach looks toward life after Congress
By JANE NORMAN
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU


December 3, 2006
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Washington, D.C. - Two huge blue recycling bins half filled with paper flanked the door to Rep. Jim Leach's office in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Inside, stacks of boxes with labels such as "Press clippings - 1992" lined the walls, the Iowa state flag stood furled in a corner, and a cart awaited the next shipment to the basement.

Last week was moving time for the Iowa City Republican after 30 years spent straddling the center line of his party as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Unseated by Democrat Dave Loebsack of Mount Vernon in an upset on Election Day, Representative Leach will return to life as Citizen Leach come January.

The exit process from Congress is so swift that Leach had to vacate his office by Friday, and during a lame-duck session this month he will work from a spare desk and telephone in a subcommittee office.

But the soft-spoken, sweater-wearing Leach is hardly a politician bitter in defeat.

"The appetite for change is real," Leach, 64, said of the wave that swept him and the Republican majority from control of Congress. "If, for example, the Republicans had prevailed, I think the disappointment in America would have been tremendous."

As for his own race, so low-budget and low-key it was nearly ignored outside of Iowa until it was over, Leach said he would have done nothing differently.

Leach lost by 5,854 votes to Loebsack, a Cornell College professor making his first bid for elective office.

Hardly an attack dog of a candidate, Leach nonetheless startled a teary-eyed crowd of supporters in his concession speech on election night when he said it was the "happiest day of his life" and the outcome was as if "a burden has been lifted."

In an interview last week, he said that at that moment on election night he was looking back at his tenure in Congress.

Leach and his family had discussed retirement for several election cycles before this one and made the "close decision" he should continue, he said.

"I feel comfortable with myself," Leach said. "I have served in the U.S. Congress for 15 percent of its history. I never considered it to be a career, but it kept going on.

"It's possible that psychologically I was ready for it to end. ... In a way, I felt it ended on my terms. I had done my best to run a positive election and keep at bay what I consider to be some of the darker forces and techniques in American politics."

Winners and losers in elections are not candidates but the public, he said.

"It's important to respect outcomes and respect opponents," Leach said. "The temper and integrity of the process is more important than the outcome of the election."

Hundreds of letters and telephone calls from both Republicans and Democrats have flooded Leach's office, and his loss has been discussed at length in the media as a sign of the waning influence of Republican moderates.

Leach's deep experience in foreign policy and financial affairs have been remembered, along with his advocacy of AIDS relief in Africa and his work on behalf of the Peace Corps.

One of the first to call after Leach's defeat was official was former U.S. Rep. Neal Smith, an Altoona Democrat who was defeated in 1994 when Republicans took control of the House.

Another was former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske, the Des Moines Republican who beat Smith.

Pundit Mark Shields wrote a column praising Leach that was featured on the Washington Post editorial page. A Democratic colleague paid tribute on the floor of the House. National Public Radio noted Leach "insisted on running a principled campaign" and opposed the war in Iraq, yet still lost.

All the factors that went into his defeat are still not clear to Leach, although he knew it would be tough to prevail this year in a district with 40,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.

Yet he said that internal Republican polling about 10 days ahead of the election found him with a considerable lead, so there was a "big change at the end."

Some of it could have been the influence of online poker players angry with his sponsorship of a bill that banned Internet gambling, he said. Some could have been social conservatives displeased that he disavowed Republican mailings on gay marriage.

But, he said, he's not sure.

There was also the issue of stem cell research, brought into the headlines in Iowa in the last week before the election when actor Michael J. Fox was in the state to boost the campaign of the Democratic nominee for governor, Chet Culver.

"Nobody supported me because I was pro-stem cell research, but more than a few opposed me because I was pro-stem cell research," Leach said.

What Leach will do next is the subject of much speculation.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., are circulating a letter among colleagues suggesting Leach be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, should the nomination of John Bolton fail in the Senate.

"The likelihood of the U.N. position would be not high," said Leach, given his repeated characterization of the Iraq war as the greatest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history.

He does not have much to say about other rumored possibilities, such as a State Department post or the presidency of the University of Iowa.

"I have not been approached by the regents, at least directly, in this," he said. "I assume they will be looking in other directions."

However, he said he has been offered professorships by both his alma mater, Princeton University, as well as Georgetown University. He has been offered a fellowship at Harvard University, and he has been approached by several schools in Iowa. Foundations have contacted him, as well as the private sector, he said.

"I don't expect to retire," he said, and academia and public service are "both attractive."

He and his wife, Deba, have homes in suburban Washington and Iowa City. When they do eventually retire they plan to live in Iowa, he said.

While Leach has not talked with Loebsack since he conceded, he said there are no hard feelings.

"I have liked virtually everyone I have ever run against, particularly afterward," said Leach. "Most people in campaigns really come to dislike their opponent. I never felt that way."

But he will not run again for Congress, he said. There's a feeling of release in the prospect of a life in which he does not have to be on guard at all times, worried about whatever he might say or do as a public figure.

He will be Citizen Leach.

"To look forward to a transition in which you become a citizen, with all the ability and discretion to be singular, is a great circumstance," Leach said.

[MagCFO]

him acknowledging online poker could have played a part is his loss is pretty big for us. Other politicians will see that and take note.

[mikeh1975]

i think you are definitely right,him and frist made a real bad mistake and i'm glad they are paying now.could you imagine bill frist as president? i think i'd have to consider dying first.