WASHINGTON
In the months since Sen. Judd Gregg's surprise withdrawal from his nomination to be President Obama's commerce secretary, the New Hampshire Republican has remade himself into one of the most fervent critics of the administration's budget policies. Obama, he says, has already begun to do more damage to the country's finances than all his predecessors combined.
For Gregg, the decision to withdraw -- and the awkward confessional press conference at which he declared "I couldn't be Judd Gregg and serve in the Cabinet" -- may still be vexing to others, but he no longer wrestles with his identity. Instead, he has uncovered new euphoria for the once low-key life of a fiscal scold.
"I think my influence on these issues has been raised, ironically, because of the Commerce exercise," Gregg said. "I'm not saying anything that's different from what I have always said, but in our culture there's a little bit of notoriety that comes when you get your 15 minutes."
Rather than drum him out, Republicans have put Gregg -- and his seemingly endless collection of line graphs and pie charts predicting budgetary doom -- forward as a spokesman.
He was recently assigned to deliver the party's response to Obama's weekly radio address, and he says that Republican leaders regularly push him to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection next year, though he insists he's ready to retire. Many in the party think Gregg, a 61-year-old former governor and the son of another, offers Republicans their only solid chance to hold on to his Senate seat.
"Conservatives felt good when he was going to be their voice in the administration, but they felt excellent when he said he was not going to sell out his principles," said former New Hampshire Congressman Jeb Bradley. "He wins on both counts from conservatives."
Unlike many of his fellow Republicans, who have resisted personalizing their quarrels with the popular new president, Gregg has been happy to put Obama's face on the disagreement. One recent visual aid Gregg displayed on the Senate floor featured a large version of Obama's formal portrait, juxtaposed unfavorably against the visages of 42 other presidents who Gregg claimed had generated less federal debt combined than the current one will.
"He's said all the right things, but his actions are the opposite," said Gregg. "They're doing it consciously, they know what they're doing, and I'm opposed to it," he added, referring to Obama's administration.
Obama's $3.5 trillion budget passed the Senate earlier this month largely along party lines, but with Congress back from its Easter/Passover recess, Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, says he will not waver in his insistence on fiscal discipline.
Gregg says his priorities will be working on the health care system and rewriting the tax code and financial-sector rules. Gregg says he fears that Congress will overreach in imposing new regulations on financial institutions, as he says it did in 2002 when imposing the Sarbanes-Oxley rules on corporations.
"I expect to be an aggressive player on a lot of big issues for a foreseeable future," said Gregg, who is participating in various bipartisan working groups while insisting that his party present its own agenda so that the public can compare Obama's plans with GOP alternatives. "We're not going to pass any of this. Hopefully, we can affect what comes out of the Senate."
All of a sudden, Gregg's experience as an erstwhile Obama ally -- and the stolid, serious mien that made him so appealing to the administration in the first place -- has turned him into a particularly useful figurehead for Republicans seeking to shake off a Democratic caricature of the GOP as a reflexively combative and negative "Party of No."'An effective advocate'
"That he was willing to accept the Commerce Department position suggests his willingness to work across party lines," said Jim Merrill, a Manchester, N.H., lawyer active in Republican politics. "The fact that he is perceived as a conservative who is willing to buck the party line, to work with Democrats, makes him an effective advocate."
Gregg's behavior probably comes as little surprise to Obama. "It's not that he enjoys saying 'no,' " Obama said when he nominated Gregg. "Although if it's directed at your bill, you might feel that way."
Gregg is quick to point out the places where he has said yes. He applauds Obama's approach to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has backed many of the president's efforts to deal with the financial crisis.
Gregg was one of only six Republicans who voted for releasing the second $350 billion in funds to bail out financial institutions and among only 10 who voted for the nomination of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. In personal dealings, Gregg said, the president has been "very gracious" to him and Obama's famously combative chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has been "courteous."
"They obviously don't really have a lot of need to talk to me these days," said Gregg. "I'm not at the top of their list, and my opposition in response to their budget has not made me any more liked."
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who worked with Gregg on the financial bailout package, said Gregg's yes-no commerce secretary decision was foreshadowed by his agreeing last fall to serve on a bailout oversight board and then withdrawing, saying the post would conflict with his Senate duties.
"You wanted to say, 'What were you thinking when you accepted it?' " said Frank. "I was surprised that the president picked him, surprised that he decided to do it, and then surprised that he decided not to do it."
For his part, Gregg appears to be done meditating on what led him to make his "mistake." Friends say that Gregg is back where he always belonged -- getting national attention for his once-underappreciated obsession with public thriftiness -- even if it took an unlikely detour along the way.
"The chapter in Judd's life in which he was a candidate for the Obama Cabinet is an aberration," said former Rep. Charlie Bass, a New Hampshire Republican. "It think it's something he'd just as soon forget as quickly as everyone else."
