Max Baucus retires: Another Obama 'frenemy' bites the dust

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With friends like Sen. Max Baucus, does President Obama need enemies?

The powerful Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, recently announced his retirement, just days after voting against the highly popular gun control legislation that would have expanded background checks.

The gun control vote was not the only time that Baucus—who enjoys an A+ rating from the NRA— was a thorn in the side of the White House.  He supported the Bush tax cuts, and held the Obama health care reform package hostage, delaying it for months while collecting millions of dollars from lobbyists in the health sector and the insurance sector.  And Baucus sided with the banks by voting against a bankruptcy reform bill that would have allowed 1.7 million homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes by renegotiating their mortgages in bankruptcy court.  That would have preserved $300 billion in home equity.

Democrats who damaged Obama’s agenda

And Baucus has not been the only problem child among the Democrats in Washington.  Other Democrats have retired from office, but only after damaging President Obama’s agenda.  Often called Blue Dogs, these centrist, moderate and conservative Democrats are witnessing their twilight years in Congress as their numbers dwindle.  While voting with their party on some issues, they have challenged the Democrats on others, causing problems for President Obama and party leaders in the process.  They have served as both friend and foe to Obama.

Perhaps the most legendary among Obama’s “frenemies” was Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.  Known as the “Republicans’ favorite Democrat” due to his right-wing leanings on some domestic policies and his neoconservative orientation on foreign policy, Lieberman was an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Iraq.  He supported the bombing of Iran and intervention in Syria.  Meanwhile, the former vice-presidential running mate of Al Gore in 2000, Lieberman gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008, completing his gradual transformation from Democrat to excommunicated former Democrat.  The former senator now works with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Recently retired Congressman Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma), a conservative Democrat in a red state, voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009, and was only one of three Democrats to vote for its repeal in 2011.  “They can break my arms. They can do whatever they want to. They’ll never get my vote—ever. They’ll have to walk across my dead body if they want my vote on this issue,” Boren said of his Obamacare vote.

Funded by Obama’s opposition

In 2011, Boren—who received more than $690,000 from the oil and gas industry during his career— also voted for a bill to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate air quality.  And he co-sponsored a bill to further limit the federal funding of abortions to pregnancies due to so-called “forcible rape.”

Former Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who benefited from his support of Obamacare by becoming head of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, often clashed with Democratic leadership on a variety of issues.  Among the most conservative Democratic senators, and often to the right of a number of his Republican colleagues, Nelson received endorsement from the gun lobby and anti-abortion groups.

In the Senate, Nelson also stalled efforts at financial reform, and climate change legislation designed to limit carbon emissions. Yet, he voted for the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  His retirement signaled the decline of Blue Dog Democrats, who have become an endangered species.

The youngest woman elected to the Senate—and the first woman to serve in the Senate from Arkansas in decades—Blanche Lincoln was a centrist Democrat.  She opposed a public health insurance option during the debate over national health care.

Running for reelection in 2010 by distancing herself from the Democrats and depicting herself as an independent, Lincoln lost to her Republican opponent John Boozman. In her post-Senate career, Lincoln joined the right-wing, Republican-dominated National Federation of Independent Business, which opposed the health reform bill.  She also has opposed the EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and recently became a lobbyist for Wal-Mart.

A popular but Democratic senator in a red state, former Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) was viewed as a moderate, ordinary legislator.  Some of the headaches he created for the president have come after his tenure in Washington.

Leaving the Senate for greener pastures

After leaving the Senate, Bayh spoke out on issues such as the tax on medical devices in the Affordable Care Act, claiming the law “threatens thousands of American jobs.”  Bayh—who was the 60^th vote in the Senate for Obamacare— is now a partner with McGuireWoods LLP, a law firm which represents several medical device companies.  Decrying the bitter partisanship in Washington after he decided not to seek reelection, Bayh became a Fox News contributor.

Before the 2012 election, fellow Democrats criticized then-Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) for going too far to the right on the issue of the dealing nation’s debt limit, and demanding massive spending cuts.  The Blue Dog Dem was one of the strongest opponents of the public health insurance option in health care reform that Obama lobbied for early in his first term.  Further, Conrad said he would allow the Republicans to filibuster any bill that contained a public option.  And he demanded bipartisanship even as he conceded the Republicans wanted to kill the president’s health care legislation.  Conrad retired early this year.

Meanwhile, Senator Baucus is one of six Senate committee chairmen who have opted to retire rather than run again for office.

Thanking Baucus for his 35 years of service, President Obama revealed nothing of his rocky relationship with the retiring lawmaker: “As Finance Committee Chairman and a senior member of both the Agriculture and the Environment and Public Works Committees, Max has been a leader on a broad range of issues that touch the lives of Americans across the country. Michelle and I commend Senator Baucus on his career, and wish him and his family well in the future.”

A frenemy, indeed.

Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove