Some frustrated thoughts on “bipartisanship”

Every time the President talks about bipartisanship and working with Republicans I cringe.

Enough already, I want to scream.  It’s not working!  It’s not going to work!  It’s never going to work!

Then I remember.

The President is smarter than I am.

Look, he knows what the Republicans are doing and why.  But he knows something else I keep forgetting.

Not every Republican in the country whose cooperation and support the President wants and needs is in Washington.

He has to work with Republican governors.  And Republican mayors.  And Republican small and large business owners.

He would like the votes of some rank and file Republicans.  He would like some of them to figure out that they are no longer Republicans.

He won’t get any of this if he starts talking about “Republicans” and “conservatives” the way I often do, which is with bulging eyes and a red face and a voice shaking with rage and frustration.

Then there’s this.

There’s more going on in Congress than health care reform.

No, he probably can’t convince any Republicans to vote for his big signature initiatives, mainly because that would require them to vote against their own political interests and, for a lot of them, against their principles.  Hard to believe, I know, but many Republicans have principles.

But on a range of other issues, large and small, the President, and the Democrats, have won over Republican votes.

Sonia Sotomayor was not confirmed by a 58-40 vote.

The Lily Ledbetter Act passed the Senate with the votes of five Republicans.  But it would not have gotten passed if a dozen Republicans hadn’t joined in to vote for cloture.

Thirty Republican Senators voted against Al Franken’s amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would defund any government contractor that did to any of its employees what Haliburton did to Jamie Leigh Jones.  Thirty is an appallingly high number.  It should have been 0.  But the fact is that 10 Republican Senators voted for it.

Day in and day out, in the House and the Senate, lots of things move through committees and onto the floor, with some Democrats and Republicans joining together to vote for them, and some joining together to vote against them.  Some of these things are trivial, many of them are important although not glamorous, and many of them are routine but necessary.  It should be noted that this kind of bipartisanship practically vanished from Congress when the Republicans ran both houses, and one of the reasons Democrats objected so furiously is that it wasn’t simply a matter of the losing party being locked out.  The people Democrats represented, including Republicans residing in their states and districts, were locked out too.

Republicans in Congress deserve to be treated the way they treated Democrats.  But the people those Republicans represent don’t.

This is very hard to keep in mind, especially whenever a Republican Congressional leader opens his mouth or shows up for a Tea Party rally.

Or David Broder writes a column.

Now…

If health care reform had been a done deal back in the fall, it probably would not have been an issue in the Massachusetts Senate race.  And it should have been a done deal in the fall because it should have been a done deal by the end of summer.

But the reason it wasn’t a done deal even by Christmas isn’t that the President was too hung up on achieving the illusion of bipartisanship.  Nobody seemed to notice or care that he did not achieve that in the House or need to.

Nevermind the courting and near-coronation of Olympia Snowe.  She was only important, and only symbolically important at that, because she sits on the Senate Finance Committee which is chaired by a Democrat, of course, one Max Baucus of Montana.

The bill was stuck in committee and the reason it was stuck in committee had little to do with Olympia Snowe and almost everything to do with Max Baucus’ ego.

Baucus was convinced that he could write and pass a better bill than anyone else and that he could get it passed with bipartisan support.  In short, he was out to make the President’s signature issue his own.  He was the one who wasted the summer trying to get Republicans on his committee to support his version of health care.

Now the fact is that Harry Reid should have slapped some sense into him.  The Democrats should have been content---no, happy---to let Baucus’ bill die in committee.  But he wasn’t about to let anybody else’s bill go through (see Jay Rockefeller, Chuck Schumer) and all the bills had to go through his committee.   Max Baucus had veto power over health care all summer and into the fall.

Then the veto power fell to Joe Lieberman and health care became all about his vanity.

Then it fell to Ben Nelson and health care became all about Nelson’s pride.

You can argue that this shouldn’t have happened, although I’d appreciate it if you could also demonstrate how it could have been avoided, preferably by saying more than Reid should have been tougher or the President should have said something.

Tough how?  Said what?

The problem isn’t the President’s obsession with bipartisanship.  The problem is that the President needs bipartisan---that is, Republican votes---so that he doesn’t have to rely on the ego, and vanity, and pride of various Democrats.

Comments

[Shawn]

It’s not working!

Step One: Actually try it once.

Step Two: Decry its failure.

I'm reminded of the political cartoon where Obama is in his football gear talking to the opposing bench of elephants in uniform:

"Okay, this next play is going to be bipartisan. That means we're going to run the ball into the endzone while you guys fall down and let us."

Bipartisanship does not equal surrender and acquiescence.

Sorry Lance, but you had a year where you could pass any... repeat ANY of the most Progressive bills you could dream up.

And you didn't pass any.

Uh... Blame Bush, I guess.

[Victoria]

Every time I read news related to federal legislation I wonder how anything ever gets done. Almost everyone agrees that the system is badly broken. Plenty of senators, representatives, and staffers have said as much, even written whole books about it. So how does a president negotiate a broken place with over 500 voting parts to make something, anything move forward? It just sounds like a colossal headache.

I remember, with still-live frustration, the ridiculous challenges of getting small committee consensus among a group of academics, most of whom had very little at stake & were 100% secure in their jobs. So every time I see people jumping up and down, with simple "bang heads" notions about how to get things done within the incredibly complex ecosystem of DC - with such high stakes plus ego plus survival issues plus big money, I wonder if these people have ever had to make something happen as a group collaboration...

There's a reason why all my students just hated it when profs assigned team projects.

[Cathie from Canada]

To some extent, it all falls into the "if we knew then what we know now" category, doesn't it.
Except that some people did "know it then" and they wanted to cut to the chase but there were too many people who kept on believing they could add ponies like "single payer" or "public option" or "ignore Lieberman" to the bill if they just kept dicking around with it -- not that these things wouldn't have been nice to have, but nobocy ever came up with a strategy to achieve.
In retrospect, I think the congressional democrats saw health care reform as a losing issue for them by last September, but they kept going because they were stuck with it. The Mass election, when it became even more difficult to achieve, gave them the chance to dump it entirely and they jumped at it, thinking they could blame the whole mess on republicans. Barney Frank's statement on election night just demonstrated that thinking.

[Rich]

You have great stuff, Lance. I've been coming more often lately and expect to continue. I understand your points, they have been made elsewhere. And I agree that those were constraints. I do think the president did screw up significantly. If Harry Reid couldn't or wouldn't slap sense into Baucus, then the president should have. He's the president AND the leader of the Democratic Party. He has a great deal of influence to set the tone and the agenda. Or at least I thought he did. On this issue - his signature issue - he didn't show up, at least not obviously, and when he did, he caved...to the insurance companies, pharma, Nelson, Lieberman. That's really bad optics. Furthermore, his job - if he wanted a transformational presidency - was to construct a new narrative to combat the still ascendant right wing narrative. That's as important as all those issues you mentioned. Like you, I'm dumber than he, so I don't know how to do that, it's really hard when you have a media wired for Republicans. But he wanted the rock...

[Rana]

That last line is telling...

I do think, though, that Obama could be doing more right now to reach out directly to those Republican voters that you mention. Point out the ways that the Republicans in Congress aren't doing what they promised. Point out the ways that those Senators and Representatives should be voting, if they really care about conservative Americans and their needs. Obama does need to remember that he is president of all Americans... but that doesn't mean he has to accept the GOP agenda. Obama, himself, may need to be bipartisan... but it frequently seems like he forgets that Congress, by its very nature, is a deeply partisan creature. So go over the heads of those reluctant Senators and Representatives, on both sides of the aisle, and appeal to the American people...

I really wish he would do much, much more of that.

[lina]

You can only play Lucy and the football for so long. Eventually you've got to get a clue they're not interested in giving you anything you want. Then you've got to come up with Plan B and move forward - quickly. Otherwise you lose the message and the respect of the people who voted for you. It's a prescription for a one term presidency.

[KLG]

Sorry, Lance. Not convincing at all.

There is nothing stopping Obama from being "bipartisan" with GOP governors and mayors. All he had to do was use some of the money pissed away on bankers to make up state and local deficits. Results: No local and state government layoffs and furloughs, no budget cuts in public school systems, no budget cuts in university and community college systems. And the people would have gotten it, Republican and Democrat alike. If all politics is local, Obama would have cut the legs out from under the GOP in one fell swoop.

So, no. He is not smarter than you. Or me. Or anyone else. His Rasputin from Chicago is living proof of that assertion.

[Lance]

Rich, thanks, and I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. And I agree with you that the President let things go with health care when he decided to leave it up to Congress. My point here is simply that the President's apparent obsession with "bipartisanship" or even "post-partisanship" is the problem or anywheres near the problem that other Democrats are. But again I ask, how do you slap sense into Max Baucus, one of the most powerful members of the United States Senate?

KLG, to some extent my post on Thursday was about how the President should be shoveling money to the states right now. But the fact is that the stimulus bill did and is sending money to the states. The stimulus wasn't large enough, and it doesn't send enough money t the states, but the reason for that is that Max Baucus set the cost limits.

Of course there are a lot of things the President could have handled better. There would have been even if he'd done everything Progressives believe he should have done the way they believe he should have done them.

The point here is that no matter what other course he chose, he still have had to get his proposals through the same Senate. And as Victoria and Cathie point out you don't put a bunch of smart, accomplished, powerful people with big egos in a room and shout at them My way or the highway and then expect them to do what you want them to do.

[KLG]

Sorry I missed your Thursday post, Lance. I try to keep up but fumbled that one. But my argument is that Obama should have made it explicit that a substantial portion of the Stimulus was going directly to "revenue sharing" with the states. Leaving California aside, and they should be left to stew in their own juices indefinitely, it would have been possible to cover all of the state shortfalls. "Sending money to the states" is not sufficient if you do not make it clear that this is EXACTLY what you are doing and the reason for it. It worked for Nixon all those years ago! I think Obama could have made it work today.

I agree that "...you don't put a bunch of smart, accomplished, powerful people with big egos in a room and shout at them My way or the highway and then expect them to do what you want them to do." But neither will you get anything out of them by perpetually giving in to their parochial interests until you have nothing left to even argue about. Vito Corleone, never raised his voice. Obama is the 11-dimensional chess-playing genius who also elected with a very strong mandate all across the country. It seems to me that he could have figured put a way to make several offers that could not be refused. He didn't or wouldn't (I refuse to believe that he couldn't), and now we all have to live with the consequences. Except him and his minions, who are above all of this. For the immediate future anyway.

[Leo Leahy]

KLG, the money that was used for the bank bailouts was appropriated during the Bush administration. Obama and the Democrats in February appropriated $787 billion for economic stimulus, including $53.6 billion to help states prevent cuts to essential services and $87.1 billion to help states cover Medicaid costs. Many Republicans seem to confuse the bank bailout and the economic stimulus.

[Victoria]

Nagourney's piece on Harry Reid in today's Sunday Times Magazine is a good follow-up to these musings.

[KLG]

Leo, who are you calling a Republican?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'll defer to Joe Stiglitz and to a lesser extent Krugman on Obama and the Stimulus. And I stand by my original point. And add that the President is letting Rahm lead him around by the nose for some unfathomable reason.

Thanks, Victoria. But the last thing any Democrat should do is read anything about Harry Reid, unless it is about his return to private life, most likely on K Street, but no longer in the Senate. There is no way his GOP successor could be any worse.

[Rich]

Lance -

I went dark over the weekend. I agree with the question is how to influence those egos. Presumably Obama has an equivalent ego, so they should be playing in the same ballpark. I guess my Machiavellian brain tells me that I should know who will hurt and who will help my agenda and should know what carrots and sticks are available to me when the confrontation inevitably occurs. Maybe we see a problem with Obama here - being relatively inexperienced, he doesn't know where the bodies (metaphorical or otherwise) are buried. Certainly the hands-off treatment to the Congressional Dems is a serious mistake.