Experienced ‘Boys’ Speak on Change

“Welcome sport fans” is the mantra I use every IFE/INFO Public Policy Round Table Forum, and this week I was welcoming the Beltway Boys, Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke. They are celebrating the 10th anniversary of “The Beltway Boys” on Fox News, and the 12th anniversary of the first election coverage on Fox News. Can you believe that in 1996 Barnes and Kondracke were the only two reporters covering the presidential election? Experience, though its value has been highly debated these last few months, Barnes and Kondracke clearly have it. And here is the buzz.

Jack Limpert, of Washingtonian magazine, asked the Boys, “Will the candidates actually change Washington?”

Fred Barnes replies: “The answer is no!” Obama may ban lobbyists but by the end of his term they will all be lobbyists anyways. McCain, on the other hand, has so many lobbyists in his campaign that it would be hard to ban them, but he will at least clamp down. This is maybe a change, but not the fundamental change that this country needs.

And real change will be difficult to come by, with all this partisanship that is gridlocking Washington. As Morton Kondracke sees it, the only way for things to get done will be through partisanship.

“Can either one of these guys truly end all this poisonous partisanship that we have been living with all these years?” Kondracke asks himself. “I think that the best chance of the poisonous partisanship going away would have to be, if Obama were president and he came in with a big Democratic majority, he wouldn’t have to reach out across party lines. We would just have a lot of liberal legislation on the same basis as Bush passed a lot of conservative legislation with all Republicans while peeling off a few Democrats.

“If McCain gets elected president, the chances of bipartisanship exist, if he is truly willing to reach out, and the Democrats slap his hand. He then would have to go to the country and say, ‘Listen, I offered and they rejected. You have to get to them.’ “

Barnes and Kondracke don’t have much optimism for real change to occur. As Fred Barnes paraphrases George Bush, the way American politics solves problems is that nothing happens until there is a crisis, and not until then will people come together and fix our issues. If this is the modus operandi that we are subscribing to, then we should all be hoping for a crisis?

Kathy Kemper is founder and CEO of the Institute for Education, a nonprofit foundation that recognizes and promotes leadership and civility locally, nationally and in the world community.