The impossibility of bipartisanship?

President Obama was elected partly because of support for his calls for a post-partisan form of governance, one where pragmatism and civility trump dogma and hollering. But a serious question lingers following the debate around the stimulus package: is any of this even remotely possible? Or, put differently, is there any reason to believe that the Obama administration will achieve greater consensus across the aisle than previous presidents? There are two reasons to believe not.

First, Obama presides over a near-dominant Democratic majority. Not all Democrats are of the president's political persuasion, but there is unarguably less of an impetus for him to be conciliatory. He can pass through legislation without straying too far from his comfort level for policy and thus won't need to bow to Republican demands simply to get an imperfect product signed into law.

But secondly, Obama's call for bipartisanship also rests on a faulty assumption: that the Republican core is capable of eschewing dogma. The President presumes that common ground can be found, that the Republican congressional leaders will give him the middle ground from time to time; in other words, that, on major issues, they will favor some form of government initiative over enabling the private sector. This is far-fetched. Republicans have spent the past 30 years lambasting the evils of government spending (outside of national defense). They have wholeheartedly claimed that government is the problem, that it can do no good, that the government that governs least is the government that governs best. Democrats, in turn, have not become polarized to the other ideological extreme: their rhetoric does not claim that government is the solution and that the free market is the problem, but rather modestly proposes that the government can do some good in concert with the free market. As such, if Republicans compromise, they betray their ideology and invalidate their dogma. If the government can indeed, in limited cases, perform some good that the market cannot; if spending programs do indeed shock the economy back into gear, then their ideas are bankrupt.

Conservatism has many merits to it and is healthy for governance. But a party that has run on a platform that no good can come from a tax-and-spend government can't really be bipartisan if they want to save face.

Really?

From CNN...

"Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell compared the plan to President Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' public works program, which he said did not help the nation out of the Great Depression."

Political Clout and the Stimulus

An escalating chorus of Republican pundits and lawmakers have claimed that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (aka the economic stimulus) has lost support with the public. This is untrue and the reality is far more nuanced.

The conventional argument goes as follows: a wave of goodwill accompanied Obama into office during his transition period. As such, people were willing to go along with whatever he put forward, 1) because of the dire economic straits in which the country currently finds itself and 2) because Obama's signature was on it. As details of the plan came to light, however, the American public--an unshakably center-right bunch--have soured on the legislation, viewing it as a pork-filled big government goodie list.

Some polling on the subject support this (though Gallup has shown support for the stimulus remaining stagnant over the past week or so--when the concrete proposal was finally unveiled and Republicans really started lobbying harsh attacks against it). But all of this ignores the underlying reality of the political moment in which we find ourselves:

The only power non-moderate Republicans have in this situation is to make the stimulus as it exists less popular among the general public. Given their current standing in the American public's eyes and the hemorrhaging economy, they cannot afford to appear obstructionist; it would be political suicide. In other words, many Republicans will vote against the bill, but will only do so knowing that it will pass and thus simply making a principled stand in defeat.

Which isn't to say that there isn't some value in souring the public on the stimulus. The problem they will face is what happens if and when the stimulus works?

The Audacity of Sarah Palin

John McCain has made a remarkable VP selection. It's a pick straight out of left field (perhaps right field is a better characterization), one that comes riddled with a number of pros and cons and one that will certainly rehash and muddy the debates over identity politics that presided over the Democratic race. I'm not sure anyone can know whether this was a brilliant pick or a terribly stupid one at this moment; there are prognosticators that it could be either. Much will depend on how Palin handles the national spotlight, how she fares with the modern media, a panoply of other factors. But, for the time being, it is worth noting what must have lead McCain to this pick and it's glaring pitfalls.

First, it's merits. Palin brings a number of demographic audiences to McCain's candidacy that he was sorely lacking: the conservative base that has always been lukewarm to him, a youth vote that has had trouble relating to a 72 year-old veteran and an audience of females--some of who might never have considered voting for a Republican. Palin's Alaska roots and maternal credentials reinforces an outsider status and she has been hailed as a political reformer in her state (a current corruption scandal notwithstanding). If anything, she forces voters to take a second look at McCain, to see him perhaps as more open-minded, more of a risk-taker, more of a progressive thinker. The simple aesthetics of the choice alone make this decision a game-changer and garner massive amounts of attention to his campaign, something that has been hard to achieve given Obama's salience in media coverage. McCain needed to take a risk in order to win an election in this political climate and he has boldly done so.

But make no mistake: this is a risk. This is an enormous risk. Palin undercuts the central (and I think most effective) argument McCain had against Obama: that he is not ready. Palin is three years Obama's younger, she was mayor of a town of 9,000 and then governor for a year and a half. She has zero foreign policy experience (zero as in zero, not zero as in "Well, Obama has only been a senator for a short while and he doesn't have as much as McCain"). She manages a state outside the contiguous United States and isn't an economic wonk by any stretch of the imagination. The argument that Obama "is not ready" to be president is now dead. And what is McCain left with?

Similarly, there is an underlying motive regarding former Clinton supporters with this pick: draw those whose pocketbooks lie with Obama this election, but hate how he fared against Hillary to the McCain camp by picking another women. But this seems to overlook a crucial factor in Clinton supporters choices: Hillary Clinton herself. After the Clintons gave a single speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama received a 5-8 point boost in the polls. This number could still increase. Come fall, the Obama campaign will be saturating the air waves with ads featuring both Clintons and holding joint campaign rallies in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania with Hillary and Bill. The fact that Hillary supporters have held out from Obama for this long clearly shows that they aren't entirely swayed by issues, that they have enormous reservations about him. But the most effective person to bring them into a given political camp is Hillary Clinton herself, not a woman from another party.

And a final word about the choice of Palin: it smacks of tokenism. It is important that the Republican party has finally nominated a women for this role. It shows progress for the country and, as a woman, Palin would no doubt bring a vital perspective on life and policy to the office which she aims to serve. But let's not kid ourselves: this pick is not aimed at finding a partner in governance, a counsel in times of need. This pick was intended to make sure the Bush base turns out at the polls and to lure Clintonites to a platform that stands in direct contradiction to everything Hillary has advocated during her entire life. The assumption, however correct it might prove, that disgruntled "feminists" will vote against the pronounced interests of their gender's aspirations for equality simply because McCain's running mate has ovaries betrays an insulting lack of progressive thinking. Here's to hoping that the country is smarter than that.

John McCain

Why does John McCain preface everything he says with, "My friends..."? I'm not his friend.

The two races

There are currently two races going on for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. One of the races is over, it has been for some time now. And the other is wide open.

The completed race, of course, is the one that actually matters, the one that will determine who will be the Democratic nominee for President. After Obama's string of February victories, the Clinton camp pointed to Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania as big states that would essentially even them out from a mathematical standpoint with Obama. As predicted, these races are over and Clinton won each of them. And as predicted, she is nowhere near mathematically even with Obama. She cannot catch up to him in pledged delegates. She is losing in the popular vote count and the only way she can make a case that she has received more votes is if she discounts all the caucuses and pretends that Florida AND Michigan count. Obama will finish this race with more states won, more votes and more pledged delegates. Clinton will need a sizable majority of superdelegates to overturn these metrics, effectively unleashing a maelstrom of criticism and alienating inspired youths and African-Americans. To repeat, none of this information is new. It was known two months ago.

A large chunk of American though, specifically the media, seems caught up on a different contest--we can call this a contest for the hearts and minds of the American people. In this race, Clinton and Obama are virtually in a dead heat, each drawing on different coalitions, battling to knock each other of their respective pedestals. This race is decided not by votes but rather by exit polls, gaffes and whatever the punditry decides to obsess about on any particular day to milk a viewer-drawing story. In this race, the public seeks some kind of closure. They know the nomination is "Obama's to lose," but they need him to knock some kind of decisive knockout blow on Clinton. As long as she's still around, this race remains wide open.

Here is what is so silly about the second race: it doesn't matter. In fact, so little has changed in the Democratic race since two months ago that it's almost shocking. Bittergate, the Reverend Wright controversy, Bosnia and sniper fire have all had a relatively negligible impact on where the race stands. Each candidate has different coalitions built from varying demographics and how well they do in a state is largely dictated by these measurements: age, race, income level and education. It's quite possible that Obama will never land a knockout blow on Clinton. But it's because she has always enjoyed a quite firm base of support in the Democratic party and that has not wavered one bit. Obama's support is just a little bit stronger and in the end that makes him the winner. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, all of this was known 2 months ago.

Wow

This is kind of brilliant.