Neo-Hooverite of the Day

Lamar Alexander.

Mr. Alexander, the senior senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, offers the usual invocations about seeking agreement with his former colleague who is moving into the White House. Indeed, he likens Mr. Obama’s moment to his own election 30 years ago as a reform-minded governor who received cooperation from a Democratic-controlled Legislature in Nashville.

Yet the Washington of today no more resembles Nashville than it resembled Austin, Tex., where Gov. George W. Bush served as a self-styled “uniter, not a divider.” And Mr. Alexander’s interpretation of the Election Day verdict hardly matches that of whom he calls the “hyper-partisan” Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“The change that people voted for was a change in management,” he said in an interview. “If they think the change the country elected them to provide was a lurch to the left, they’re in for a big surprise.”

What is a lurch to the left? Big spending, among other things. As Obama advisers prepare an economic stimulus program approaching $1 trillion for swift Congressional action, Mr. Alexander sounded a note of caution. “I don’t even want to think about a number that big,” he said. “We’re going to have to have a long discussion about what kind of stimulus package.”

[...]

“I’m skeptical about subsidies for energy,” said Mr. Alexander, 68, a member of the Appropriations Committee. Instead of financing “giant wind turbines” — a power source he has long criticized — “I’d much rather spend that money on energy research.”

Ah, irony. Research is important and I'm pretty sure it will be a part of Obama's agenda. But putting people to work seems to be a foreign concept to Republican leadership.