That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post on Substack. Here’s an excerpt:

Some weeks [after Bill Clinton’s election in November 1992], Senator Hatch and his chief of staff (who in Hill jargon bore the confusingly modest title of “administrative assistant”) held an all-hands meeting for the dozens of staffers in Hatch’s personal Senate office and on his various committee staffs. At the outset of the meeting, the chief of staff declared: “We’re in an election cycle, so we’re not going to do anything controversial” and “Clinton won on health-care reform, so we’re not going to fight him on that.”
Stunned, I recall thinking: An election cycle?!? We just had an election. And what’s the point of being here if we’re not going to fight against bad policies? …
Never underestimate how prominent re-election is in the minds of a senator and the senator’s top staffers….

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