I was previously critical of the way House Democrats handled the impeachment process because I felt they gave ammunition to the GOP by seeming to be high handed about things.
It seemed to me (and still does) that since they know they have the votes they could provide a very open process that would give the GOP no room to claim bias or unfairness.
For example when the decision was made to delay the committee vote until the following morning, it appears the Democrats didn’t even bother to consult the ranking member. It would have been fairly easy to do that in open session, make a little statement about not wanting to cast the vote late at night, maybe even quote a GOP member on the topic and say how they are going to concede the point and do what the GOP wanted.
Then they would have looked fair minded and given the GOP nowhere to go.
The same thing could be said of waiting so long to have a formal vote to authorize the investigation. When you know you have the votes it hurts nothing to try and look bipartisan and cut the legs from the opposition argument.
Well it now appears the GOP is (big surprise) going to make the same mistakes in the Senate.
They know they have the votes, yet they are still going to come off as high handed and unfair.
Senator Schumer has put forward a fairly reasonable proposal on what sort of rules to set for the debate. About the only thing that it doesn’t include is calling of some witnesses that the GOP wants but Democrats consider non relevant.
From a strategic POV I can see why the GOP would want to muddy the waters by calling these witnesses but nobody is paying attention to the process at this point so I don’t know calling them would accomplish much.
So why not basically accept the Schumer proposal (with perhaps some minor adjustments), thus cutting the legs off a claim of bias ?
And why say openly that they are working with the White House on this process ?
To be fair I’m sure the Democrats in the 1999 Senate were working with the White House too but at least they were a bit more subtle (and more importantly they didn’t have control of the chamber). To be in charge of the process and then saying you are working with the defendant doesn’t play well. Nor do statements that you don’t plan to be unbiased.
The bottom line is that the outcome is a foregone conclusion but the Senate GOP leadership has the ability to determine how much ammunition Democrats have in terms of claiming bias and using this as a campaign issue.
Of course for most voters the die is cast, you are either pro impeachment and nothing the Democrats or Republicans do will change your view that an acquittal is wrong or you are anti impeachment and nothing will change your view that the whole process is wrong.
But those voters aren’t going to decide 2020.
The key to 2020 are the small number of voters in the middle. Those who, for the most part, are upset with what Trump did but not sure that it amounts to impeachment.
So when you know you are going to win, and you know that what you say or do won’t change that, why not be as transparent as possible to appeal to that small middle group that could actually be swayed by the process ?