Long before the Benghazi tragedy and long before Republicans seized on the tragedy as a means to bring down Hillary Clinton, a U.S. Congressman wrote at the Huffington Post under the title “Enough is Enough”:
A great African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
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It’s going to take real bipartisanship to get our nation’s fiscal house in order and to put people back to work again. I, along with my Democratic colleagues, stand ready to work with Republicans to ensure we get moving.
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Enough with the inaction, enough with the inflammatory rhetoric, and enough with the partisan gamesmanship.
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The American people have spoken. It’s time to listen and act.
While the issue then was jobs and a sluggish economy, those words still resonate today, four years and an election later, as the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform attempts to once again convince his Republican colleagues who want to go fast — and furious — and alone on the Benghazi investigation, to “go far, go together” by working in a non-partisan way and by considering “the truth and nothing but the truth.”
Of course we are talking about Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, the 64-year-old Maryland Democrat who led an outnumbered “let’s-have-some-sanity” Democratic team to victory — if there is such a thing in a political witch-hunt — during the most recent GOP hearing on Hillary Clinton’s perceived Benghazi performance.
Four years after his call to Republicans to stop “the inflammatory rhetoric” and to stop “the partisan gamesmanship,” Cummings, once again, in his opening remarks at the hearings pleaded with his colleagues:
It is time for Republicans to end this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition. We need to come together and shift from politics to policy. We need to finally make good on our promises to the families, and we need to start focusing on what we here in Congress can do to improve the safety and security of our diplomatic corps in the future.
Cummings’ passionate, earnest and stellar performance earned him the highest praise from fellow lawmakers and Democrats in general.
“At the end of the long day, Democrats credited Cummings with successfully keeping Clinton above the political fray in what many believe could be a turning point for her campaign,” says The Hill in a weekend column, adding that, at the hearing, “Cummings showcased the influence he wields in the House as the last line of defense between Republicans and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.”
But also at the end of the long day, speculation has intensified over whether Cummings will run for the Senate seat “soon to be vacated by Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski who will not seek reelection in 2016 after nearly 30 years in office.”
Here are excerpts from the column at The Hill:
First, a little about Cummings’ background:
Cummings has spent decades in Maryland politics, rising to become the first African-American Speaker Pro-Tempore in the state House of Delegates before moving on to his nearly two-decades long career in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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He was a visible presence working on behalf of President Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, and has raised his national profile as a regular on the cable news and Sunday morning network political shows.
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Cummings’s Benghazi panel effort was the latest example of him rising to meet a high-stakes political moment when the lights shined brightest.
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He similarly played the foil to former Oversight chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) 2013-14 investigation into the botched ObamaCare rollout.
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Earlier this year, he memorably marched with a bullhorn through the streets of Baltimore urging protesters to return home during the Freddie Gray riots.
What are his chances?
If Cummings were to enter the race, a poll released last week found that he’d have double-digit leads over two other House Democrats, Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards.
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Van Hollen and Edwards have been slugging it out for months in what is lining up to be a protracted and divisive primary battle.
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“Elijah would the prohibitive front-runner,” declared Dave Heller, a close political confidante of Cummings. “If he gets in, the race is his to lose.”
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Cummings’s early strength stems from widespread name recognition in his hometown of Baltimore, and the deep reservoir of respect he commands among the Democratic establishment.
What are the drawbacks, the negatives?
…Cummings’s propensity to lead is also why many believe he will remain in the House.
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Democrats view him as the indispensable and irreplaceable lynchpin of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where liberals expect the ranking member will be tasked with defending the legacies of Clinton and Obama for years to come.[::]
He must weigh whether to remain in the House, where he has achieved elder statesman status, or enter a tough primary with the upshot of becoming a junior member of the Senate.
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“I think with his senior ranking in the House, that to go to the Senate, where he’d immediately be a freshman with less political standing – he’d be starting over in his 60s,” said [Rev. Jamal Bryant, a Maryland Democratic activist]. “I think he’s in that season where he’s looking more at his legacy and what that means, rather than looking to press reset.”
The Hill adds, “even with an early lead in the polls, a victory in the Democratic Senate primary would be no sure thing” and provides reasons for that.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), told reporters, according to The Hill, “When [Cummings] came on [to the committee] my spirits just lifted because he was such a breath of fresh air…I really felt that there was a presence that was important on that committee.”
But she adds, “Whatever he does, I would be there to help him.”
I am sure most of the people in Maryland will be there, too.
