I thought you might enjoy the following article, 'Lessons in Bipartisanship' by Alan Wolfe.
A political scientist I much admire, James Morone of Brown University, has an op-ed in today's New York Times reminding us that there is nothing virtuous per se
in bipartisanship. Although politicians talk about it all the time,
they rarely do it--and we should not expect them to, he argues. Let the
parties stand for ideas and let them fight them out. Morone is right about this, and so is the Harvard political
scientist Nancy Rosenblum--his former colleague at Brown--who has
written On the Side of the Angels, a vigorous defense of parties reviewed in TNR
by Paul Starr. Yet there is one aspect of the recent efforts on the
part of Team Obama to win Republican support that should not be
overlooked. In his first term as president, George W. Bush reached out
to Democrats. Unlike the Republicans today, they reached back. Bush had wanted to be known as the Education President. The Senate's
man on education was Teddy Kennedy. Eight years ago, Kennedy was
considered by most conservatives to be the most liberal member of the
U. S. Senate; if you wanted to send out a scare letter to raise funds
for conservative causes, Kennedy's was the name invoked. Think Pelosi
and double the venom, and that, pretty much, was how the right treated
the man everyone now rushes to honor. Given that level of vituperation,
it took some courage on Bush's part to seek Kennedy's help. The two
would work together on a number of causes, including immigration reform
and Medicare. The heirs of two political dynasties, natural rivals,
never became friends, but they did make it possible for a couple of
laws to get passed. As important as No Child Left Behind may have been, it is
minor-league stuff compared to the current fiscal crisis. Barack Obama
not only had political reasons for reaching out to Republicans, he had
policy ones as well. An economic catastrophe is not quite like a
natural disaster. But there is so much suffering involved that
politicians can be forgiven for seeking some common ground to relieve
it. Who wants to be on the side of deprivation? Despite all this, not a single Republican assumed the role Teddy
Kennedy played during the Bush administration. Of course three
Republicans in the Senate voted for the stimulus package. But none of
them were as far to the right in the Republican Party as Kennedy was to
the left among Democrats. Nor were any of them promising to work
together with the president on other issues. This is not to criticize
them--their role in helping get the stimulus bill passed was essential.
But their actions simply do not possess the same symbolic significance
as Kennedy's did. Bipartisanship can be approached in a bipartisan manner: Either
party can initiate, and either party can respond. Yet the lesson here
seems to be that Democrats are more willing to work with Republicans
than the other way around. I try to explain why this is the case in my
book, The Future of Liberalism.
Conservatives, I argue, like to stand on principle. Liberals, by
contrast, like to get things done. There is much to be admired about
principle, but in politics, it is not always a virtue. Sometimes we are
better off finding common ground than fighting things out. When we are,
liberal flexibility makes more sense than conservative
intransigence. --Alan Wolfe
