Ali-Frazier, Borg-McEnroe, and Now Dingell-Waxman

The intraparty "Clash of the Titans" between veteran Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and his challenger for that position, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), is taking on the trappings of a traditional political battle, complete with letter-writing and petition campaigns. The Michigan Democratic Party sent an urgent appeal to its statewide e-mail list last week urging people to write a letter or sign a petition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support the 82-year-old Dingell's effort to fend off Waxman, the 69-year-old chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The first test will come Nov 19, when the four-dozen-member House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee meets and votes on a slate of committee chairmen and members to present to the party's full caucus on Thursday. As it stands, the handicappers are having trouble predicting the winner in this one, as the votes and trends seem to conflict. In part that's because the caucus is fractured into multiple, sometimes overlapping policy and political segments: California liberals vs. more conservative Democrats, anti-gun folks vs. pro-gun, strict committee-seniority devotees vs. fans of looser seniority rules, enviros vs. General Motors, and so on.