Bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship

December 31, 2007

David Broder reported yesterday, and the NYT’s Sam Roberts adds today, that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is still laying the groundwork for an independent presidential campaign, and will meet a week from today with some relatively high-profile politicians from both parties in the hopes of forming a “government of national unity.”

Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to “go beyond tokenism” in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.

Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former senators Sam Nunn (Ga.), Charles S. Robb (Va.) and David L. Boren (Okla.), and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican organizers include Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), former party chairman Bill Brock, former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.

Boren, who will host the meeting at the university, where he is president, said: “It is not a gathering to urge any one person to run for president or to say there necessarily ought to be an independent option. But if we don’t see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy.”

Apparently, the group even has some deadlines in mind. The Times report noted that Democrats and Republicans would have two months to “formally embrace bipartisanship and address the fundamental challenges facing the nation.”

Now, I try not to be reflexive about efforts like these. I don’t reject bipartisan proposals out of hand, and if a handful of former office holders have some constructive policy ideas, they should certainly be encouraged to be part of the public debate.

But the closer one looks at this Bloomberg group initiative, the more this looks like bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship. Worse, it’s a solution in search of a problem.

A letter from Nunn and Boren sent to those attending the Jan. 7 session said, “Today, we are a house divided. We believe that the next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available — without regard to political party — to help lead our nation.”

I suppose that’s fine, but one wonders if the group realizes that Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson have already said publicly that they would have Republicans serving in their cabinet — a claim no Republican presidential candidate has made.

Indeed, one wonders just how closely the organizers of this meeting have been following current events. Their letter insisted that “partisan polarization is preventing us from uniting to meet the challenges that we must face.” Really? Because it seems to me congressional Democrats over the last year have been negotiating with Republicans on everything from immigration to kids’ healthcare to minimum wage to Iraq to ethics reform. Some one of those measures were vetoed, some were blocked by what is literally the most obstructionist Senate minority in American history, and on still others, Democrats simply caved rather than fighting too hard. But in each instance, “partisan polarization” didn’t prevent much of anything; Republican politics did.

The entire Bloomberg endeavor, which hasn’t even considered dealing with actual policy proposals outside of vague platitudes (the group apparently wants to “rebuild and reconfigure our military forces”), sounds like a daydream of former officials who believe Democrats and Republicans can join forces, solve all of our problems, and “get something done.” Get what done? It doesn’t matter; it’ll be something.

It all sounds pleasant enough, but only in an immature kind of way. They seem to believe Americans need to get unified. Unified behind what? Behind unity.

I realize some people (David Broder, I’m looking in your direction) look at the policy differences between competing parties and ideologies as inherently petty and parochial. They’re not. These arguments are indicative of a serious disagreement about the direction of the country. It’s called politics, and it’s perfectly healthy in a democracy. (To borrow a phrase, debate over substantive ideas is a feature, not a bug.)

Be sure to read Digby’s and Chris Bowers’ take on all of this, but I wanted to highlight a point Chris raised that’s especially significant:

It would be nice, for once, if the constant drumbeat from Aging Wealthy White Men for National Unity Under Billionaire Media Moguls (AWWMNUUBM for short) decrying polarization, the lack of bi-partisanship and gridlock in Washington would actually provide specifics on what legislation their hated polarization, partisanship and gridlock is blocking. Of course, they won’t actually do that, because blaming national problems on vague, undefined concepts like “polarization” and “gridlock” is much easier than actually analyzing the contemporary political scene in America.

I wish that weren’t the case, but Chris is absolutely right. Parties and campaigns are, or at least should be, about ideas and solutions. Bipartisanship just for the sake of bipartisanship doesn’t mean anything.

When I listened to the list of names in this group what struck me wasn’t the bipartisanship, it was the total lack of influence these supposedly important people have in their own parties. Note the number of ‘formers’ there are, other than Hagel.

This is a bunch of people who don’t get listened to anymore, but who still think they should be. So they are going to stamp their little feet and threaten a third party candidacy (where have we heard that one before this year?). To what end?

As CB points out, they don’t have a platform, they don’t have policies, they don’t have a track record. They demonstrate nothing more then the need to coin a word for extremist moderates equivilent of moonbat and wingnut.

Any suggestions?

  • I could get behind some sort of bi-partisan movement, if the bi-partisans stopped insisting that Democrats do whatever the repubs want. The Broders of the world celebrate how serious and grown up the repubs are, while generally viewing Democrats as bastard step children who are lucky to be allowed to eat at the folding card table in the alcove.
    Nevermind which party has done the most to steer us to this sorry state. That would require some measure of honesty and accountability. For the elites of conventional wisdom, honesty and accountability are not serious subjects for our important grown ups to consider.

  • Does anyone remember who these legends-in-their-own-minds were?

    Broder has been wrong about everything he ever wrote about. In 1969 his advice to Democrats was that it would be fatal for the party to fail to cooperate with Nixon about Vietnam. In 1972, Watergate was a “monumental waste of time.” He’s “Dean” of what? The School of Otherwise-Unemployable Incompetents?

  • As Digby notes, bipartisanship is only balleyhooed when the Republicans look like they may be thrust out of office. I don’t remember any of this back in 2004, decrying Republican partisanship and seeking a middle ground. So now we have some fringe Republican front men and gullible, wistful Democrats looking back to the days when the Democratic Party contained the racist southern wing and the Republican Party contained a meaningful moderate wing: the days when bipartisanship was necessary to do business.

    Those days are gone.

  • Yes, the Republicans in the Senate blocked every good bill in sight. Why? So they could blame Democrats for not getting anything done, which gives Republican voters a reason to vote Republican. And it seems to work – for a while.

    I believe that the only way to break the polarization in Washington anytime soon. is for progressives to find a uniting cause that is so compelling and so universally felt that even Republican voters will get on board. That will take real leadership from a progressive president, like the second coming of FDR.

    I believe that the right issue is heath insurance reform.

    When rank-and-file Republican voters figure out how badly they have been screwed by the Bush tax cuts, taxes might be another issue around which most of us can unite.

  • I think OFM as a point.

    Anyone who studies insurance knows the bigger the pool of insured, the lower the premiums can be.

    It’s hard to make a pool bigger than 300,000,000 Americans.

    Single payer!

  • I had enough of Sam Nunn when, as Senator, he forced newly elected President Bill Clinton to abandon his campaign promise to integrate the armed forces with his first executive order. Sam was the origin of the still divisive, cowardly, out-dated and hypocritical “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which distinguishes our military from the rest of the civilized nations in the world.

    Broder really ought to go gentle into that good night. He’s had more than enough time to strut his hour upon the stage. For all his efforts, I can’t think of a single contribution he’s made to the nation’s well being, let alone my own. Sam Nunn, at least, once (April, 1980) was kind enough to my wife and me to show us to a usable elevator in his Senate Office Building.

  • Threats from aging white men pining for relevance – and some kind of paying gig – are beginning to annoy the crap out of me.

    I mean, who the hell do these people think they are? Where were they when Bush was being Mr. Partisan, when Rove was fixing elections, when the Justice Department was playing politics at every turn? Where were they when habeas corpus was going down the tubes and people were drooling over torture? Where were they on S-CHIP – and why weren’t they making threats and twisting arms to help get a veto-proof majority for legislation that had solid bi-partisan support?

    This is the national version of “Connecticut for Lieberman” – can’t get elected on their own, so form their own party, blather on about bi-partisanship and reaching out and coming together, and then sell out the people who voted for you and settle down to business as usual.

    Speaking of Lieberman, look for him to jump on this bandwagon as soon as McCain tells him there’s no way Lieberman will be invited to be the VP on McCain’s please-God-let-me-be-president ticket.

    Grr.

  • With modern conservatism so extremely right-wing, and modern liberalism more or less mainstream, bi-partisanship can only shift policies to the right of most Americans. Better to pursue non-partisanship, where the good of the country and the will of the people trumps party. On New Year’s Eve, one can dream, right?

  • Unless I’m missing something (smoke filled back rooms where Democrats pick on Republicans and make compromise impossible) the bipartisan problem can be summed up in the words “Republican Party”.
    Either Nunn and crew know something most of us don’t, or they are latching onto an empty catchphrase in an attempt to stay relevant. I’d put my money on the latter.

  • As usual, Glenn Greenwald gets it perfect:

    Clearly, this is just exactly what our country desperately needs, what it is missing most — a neoconservative, combat-avoiding, Bush-supporting, Middle-East-warmonger who sees U.S. and Israeli interests as indistinguishable and inextricably linked, with a fetish for ever-increasing government control and surveillance, and a background as a Wall St. billionaire. We just haven’t had enough of those in our political culture. Our political system, more than anything, is missing the influence of people like that. That’s why it’s broken: not enough of those.

    Bloomberg is basically just Rudy Giuliani with a billion or two dollars to spend to alter the election. When it comes to foreign policy, war-making and government power, he offers absolutely nothing that isn’t found in destructive abundance among the most extremist precincts in the Republican Party, while his moderate to liberal stance on social issues would prevent him from actually winning the support of his natural GOP base.

    A Bloomberg candidacy would have no purpose other than satisfy his bottomless personal lust for attention and bestow the wise old men threatening the country with his candidacy with some fleeting sense of rejuvenated relevance and wisdom. His political views are conventional in every way and he’s little more than an establishment-enabling figurehead. The whole attraction to his candidacy has nothing to do with any issues or substance and everything to do with an empty addiction to vapid notions of Establishment harmony and a desire to exert control, whereby our Seriousness guardians devote themselves to a candidate for reasons largely unrelated to his policies or political views, thus proving themselves, as usual, to be the exact antithesis of actual seriousness.

  • If the Democrats were as partisan (if only) as the Rethugs there might be a credible call for bi-partisanship, and some meeting of the minds in the middle. Having now witnessed the Democrats willingness to endlessly play nice, and losing their pants everytime they wade into a fight, a call for bi-partisanship is really a demand for surrender. The Rethugs have moved so far to the right, and sucked the Dim-Dems right along behind them that what we have now is something approximating the center (there is no left) arguing with religious fascists. The new mid-point is somewhere near the John Birch Society, and migrating still further to the right.

    When Pat Buchannan, in 1992, made his blood-and- guts call for an all-out culture war at the Rethug convention it was clear the country was not as conservative as his blinkered vision called for, and with the significant help of Ross Perot the country elected Bill Clinton, who governed Rethug-lite for eight years, because of the endless, and largely groundless attacks from the right. The country is still not as conservative as the Rethugs want it to be. If anything, the past seven years have seen a slight awakening to populist concerns among the largely powerless public. The political markers, as represented by the two irrelevent parties haven’t really been moved back. The Rethugs have gone over the radical cliff, and the simpering Dems are standing at the edge wondering if they should jump in after them.

    A major realignment of American politics is trying to be born, and the proper third party candidate may well perform the ceasarean that will likely be necessary to relegate both the Dim-Dems and the Rethugs to a well-deserved obscurity.

  • ***Tom Cleaver comment 11*** Thanks for posting that.
    Members of this group are the very members we do not want in congress. Bloomberg’s idea of bipartisanship is more date rape. He holds that it is the dems who must give in to the repukes and holds them responsible for the obstructionism in the senate. Rather than pointing the finger at the culprits responsible and stating that these senate repubs must stop their partisanship he complains that it is both parties. His policies are the same policies dems must stand against..

    Now, more than at any other time in this country, progressive democratic partisanship is absolutely necessary to get this country out of the mess these republican neocons have put it in. Not a word from these people over the last 12 yrs while the republican controlled congress and a republican president have all but destroyed our democracy and our economy, shredded the constitution, done nothing to stop global climate change, and removed are personal freedoms. NOW they say well we must work together,…NO, we need to get rid of these very same people who put us in this position, getting rid of all the policies they have put in place and start down a totally different path. Bloomberg is part of that centrist philosophy…the insider beltway…the dinosaurs of pork…the porky pigs…who has taken a huge chunk of the pie and then turns around and says, “Can’t we all just agree to get along?”, with the crumbs dripping from his mouth. He doesn’t really want change…he wants control. He will say and do anything to get us into that vulnerable position so he can rape us. He may find good running mates in Lieberman and Feistein but he will only succeed in splitting party votes…question is …which party will suffer most?

  • The idea of Chuck Robb (who?) on this team makes me laugh. People with good memories or access to Wikipedia will remember that Robb’s last attempt at political relevance was the Iraq Study Group. Remember that? No? No reason you should, really.

    It was that oh-so-very-serious bipartisand panel that presented that supposed-to-be-very-influential report on what we should do in Iraq? If you try hard, you may remember that in the news briefly, just before W. dumped it in the circular file, and “surge” became the new buzzword for escalation. A sterling example of the magical power of ‘bipartisanship’ to make us face the urgent challenges of our time. You betcha.

    Robb, of all people, should know that it’s GOP stubbornness that is the problem. It wasn’t the Democrats who have been explicitly working at gaming the system to ensure a “permanent Republican majority.”

    Glenn Greenwald’s take-down of these guys is excellent.

  • Tom, I love ya, and I generally like Greenwald, but this is so wrong I don’t know where to start:

    Bloomberg is basically just Rudy Giuliani with a billion or two dollars to spend to alter the election.

    “Bullshit” is too weak a word to describe this smear. Giuliani’s an unhinged authoritarian whose vision of governance is driven by his own psychoses. In his mayoral tenure, his “successes” all had to do with picking fights and winning them–and in the meantime, his policies gleefully widened the gaps between rich and poor, black and white, inner-city and outer-borough. He declined to take up many of the big challenges, from schools reform to housing development, preferring to fuck his way across the city and pick fights with supposed enemies of the people like the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

    Bloomberg is far from perfect–he was wrong about west side redevelopment and is generally a little too Robert Moses-ish for my tastes, his education reform plan is problematic in some respects, and you can argue he tends toward excessive paternalism. On the other hand, he’s continued to cut crime and reduce the welfare rolls–Rudy’s two “accomplishments”–while calming the racial and ethnic tensions and expanding access to education and employment services. Just on that, he’s already miles ahead of Il Douche.

    But there’s a lot more to this guy’s record. He at least is trying to fix the schools. He committed to building more than 200,000 units of low-income housing. He’s better on anti-poverty policy, certainly in terms of action and commitment of public resources, than any of the leading Democrats.

    And, while I find this isn’t a good argument to make to partisan Democrats, his political and financial independence is a big deal–not because it means he can identify and occupy a soft, creamy political middle, but because it will mean he isn’t beholden to trial lawyers, teachers’ unions, the NRA, the Club for Growth, or any of the other parochial groups whose self-interest has proven an ill match for the best interests of the society.

    Bloomberg is, at the very least, a clearly better choice for progressives than Hillary Clinton. He’s well to her left on social issues like gay rights, slightly to her left on domestic policy by virtue of his embrace of an active governmental role in alleviating poverty, and probably to her left on foreign policy by virtue of not being scared to oppose the next imperialist war.

    I know it’s fun to reflexively bash asshats like David Broder. But consider that you might be off-base on the merits here.

    Take it from a New Yorker who works in policy and not only didn’t vote for the guy but actively canvassed against him in his first run, and who’s never been more happy to be wrong about a politician: Bloomberg isn’t who you think he is. If he runs, give him a closer look.

  • Anyone with half a brain and even a short-term memory will recognize this for what it is: a blatant, arrogant, euphemistic effort by the party-about-to-lose-power to avoid the marginalization it so richly deserves.

    Where were these bipartisan “unifiers” when the Republican Party was dismantling the U.S. Constitution? From the paranoid, corrupt, greedy, equivocating administration of Richard Nixon to the paranoid, corrupt, greedy, equivocating, and incompetent administration of George W. Bush, many of these guys (hint: the republicans) were content to remain silent.

    Now a slate of candidates legitimately selected under our electoral process needs THEIR approval? Since when?

    Here’s what the republicans bring to the table: ABSOLUTE PARTISANSHIP.

    The last decent republican to occupy the white house was Dwight Eisenhower. Over the past 40 years, here’s what republicans have contributed to the political landscape:

    Nixon gave us Watergate.

    Ford gave us “the pardon,” an early example of bipartisan drivel done in the name of unity. At a minimum Ford should have held Nixon to the same standards as the rest of us. At best, he should have held him to a higher standard given the stakes and Nixon’s position.

    Reagan gave us Iran Contra, soaring deficits, farm foreclosures, the savings & loan debacle, a weakened labor movement, deregulated banks, and the white house astrologer. He also gave us a pathetic, misguided, futile “War on Drugs,” which has led to ridiculous incarceration rates in federal prisons.

    (Prison is too good for the treasonous Scooter Libby but just fine for a dope addict whose recreational stash rose to the level of “possession with intent to sell.”)

    Reagan also gave us (apparently) his permanent visage, invoked as it is constantly by desperate republican wannabees who have at least enough sense not to put W on a pedestal.

    George H.W. Bush, whose “Read my lips,” oath gave way to a modest (bipartisan) tax hike and who had the good sense to stop short of Baghdad, was rewarded with a one-term presidency. Apparently NON-tokenism isn’t really the reward track that Bloomberg & Company claim it is.

    Against a backdrop of decades-old republican doctrine, with its thinly veiled racism, fever-pitch nationalism, and supremely spun morality, George W. Bush stole into office with a mandate to be, well a guy you’d have a beer with, and with a pledge not to build nations. Oh, yeah, and like the repubs before him, he is a bonafide fiscal conservative.

    Seven years later, what do we have? Wiretaps, torture, and tax breaks for the rich. A war we started without provocation and without worldwide support against a sovereign nation whose leader we have executed and which we are paying for OFF THE BOOKS. Habeas corpus suspended. Sanity has left the building along with most of the architects of its demise.

    Of course the natural outgrowth of republican government deregulation has resulted in the subprime mortgage crisis, usurious interest rates on credit cards, and an unavoidable recession. It has also lead to a reworking of federal bankruptcy laws to favor credit card companies over consumers and corporations over pensioners.

    How did one guy, who amuses himself by clearing brush, cause so much damage in such a short amount of time? Bipartisanship, that’s how.

    Unlike Rudy Giuliani, I have never thanked God that George W. Bush was president on Sept. 11, 2001. When we needed leadership, we got a tyrant, no better than the petty despots he so loves to demonize. What we got is a bully, unable to recognize much less acknowledge his mistakes, who surrounds himself with sycophants and nincompoops.

    Congress may have lower popularity ratings than Bush, but many people recognize that in large measure, the legislative deadlock is the result of an obstructionist republican minority and a petulant lame duck president. Come November, the electorate will reflect that sentiment when it throws the bums out.

    So these old rich guys say bipartisanship is the answer? I say it’s the problem.

    Partisanship (republican) created this mess; and partisanship (democratic) will clean it up.

  • Once again the Democratic leadership and like-minded independents like Mayor Bloomberg show how utterly clueless they are about the nature of today’s Republican Party and today’s Republican leadership. They foolishly think that they can make common cause with the reactionary movement that is driving the GOP and the “Conservative” movement.

    Get a clue, you fools! The leadership of the reactionary Republican Party isn’t interested in compromise or genuine bipartisanship. As demonstrated by their actions since they took control of Congress in 1995 and the White House in January, 2001, the reactionary Republicans’ idea of “bipartisanship” consists of gutless opposition party politicians falling meekly into line with the most extreme and reactionary social and economic policies that reactionary Republican pols can cudgel their elected partisans into backing. We’ve seen their actions when Gingrich, Hastert, and DeLay controlled the House and Lott controlled the Senate. We’ve seen their actions when George W. Bush and Richard Cheney took over the Executive Branch.

    The days of genuine bipartisanship with the Republican Party ended sometime around the ouster of George HW Bush from the White House and the departure of Robert Dole from the US Senate. There is no compromise with the obstructionist, amoral, ideologues who have taken control of what was once called the Grand Old Party.

    What is needed (And what the Democratic leadership is too clueless and gutless to provide) is the sort of prosecutorial vigor that laid low the Prendergast and Tamany Hall machines (Only this time laid upon the GOP) and vigorous trust-busting. Too bad for the republic that the Democratic leadership isn’t likely to provide it.

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