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CAFTA: Part 3 the night of the vote
By Patrick O'Connor

An eerie calm fell over Capitol Hill on the morning of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) vote.

Police cars blocked all roads leading to the Capitol, and a helicopter hovered over Constitution Avenue in anticipation of a presidential motorcade.

In the Capitol basement, a press gaggle had gathered to glimpse President Bush on his way to HC-5, the basement conference room where he would thank Republican House members for their efforts in the first seven months of the year and make one final conferencewide appeal for members to support his controversial free-trade bill.

As he passed the assembled reporters, photographers and television cameras accompanied by Vice President Cheney, a handful of Cabinet secretaries and most of the Republican House leadership, one reporter yelled, “Mr. President, do you have the votes to pass CAFTA?�

Bush smiled, waved to the cameras and kept walking.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and his team had been aggressively selling CAFTA to Republican members for almost two months when it came to the floor that last Wednesday in July. The bill had momentum in its favor, but passage was not a guarantee that hot and humid morning.

The whip team had been whittling down the official list of member concerns since mid-June, after Blunt’s 15-member task force completed its preliminary count of the votes. There was still much to be done, but the entire apparatus of Republican leadership was now behind Blunt and his team.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the iconic former whip whose effectiveness and outspoken manner have made him a forceful and controversial figure on Capitol Hill, volunteered to take on many of the hardest cases during that final stretch.

In addition, Bush unleashed the full force of his Cabinet for the final push. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez all spent much of that final day on the Hill lobbying. By visiting congressional Republicans that morning, Bush also put the entire weight of his office â€â€