Bipartisanship: Noble call to handy weapon

President Obama came to Washington
promising a new era of bipartisanship, during which the old ways of politics
would be laid to rest. Six weeks into his tenure in the White House, the notion
of bipartisanship has once again become a cudgel with which the parties beat
each other when trying to prove bad faith.

The White House says it has put a
public priority on working with Republicans, and in fact Obama has reached out,
hosting dozens of GOP lawmakers for cocktail hours and Super Bowl parties and
sitting down for one-on-one meetings with Senate centrists in advance of votes
on the economic stimulus bill.

{mosads}Republicans, too, say they want to
reach across the aisle to aid Obama in solving the country’s big problems.
Party leaders preface their comments on the new president with high praise and
lavish encouragement for his purported moves toward the middle.

So far, neither party is satisfied
with the results.

“We don’t know what more to do
in terms of bipartisanship,” lamented Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a
Feb. 15 appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“If this is going to be
bipartisanship, the country’s screwed,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said
on the same program.

In reality, in an era of perpetual
campaigns, battles over approval numbers and the race to pin blame on the other
guys, neither party actually benefits from working together, a fact that often
puts the majority’s floor strategy at odds with its campaign committees.

Though a majority of the American
electorate say they want their leaders working in a bipartisan fashion, each
party’s base has been highly resistant to reaching out. At this weekend’s
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, for example, some of
the loudest boos were reserved for Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Florida
Gov. Charlie Crist, two Republicans who backed the stimulus bill.

“On big-ticket items, I think
you’re just going to have the bases of both parties just pulling away from each
other,” said one senior House Democratic aide.

“The last round of
redistricting basically protected incumbents. Their main competition is people
they face in the primaries,” said Rhodes Cook, the independent political
analyst. “Bringing out the knives for ideological reasons to appeal to a
conservative Republican base or a liberal Democratic base is good for them
politically.”

Indeed, the massive $787 billion
stimulus bill passed the House without a single Republican vote, while only
three GOP senators backed the measure.

Democrats howled that Republicans,
given the opportunity to offer amendments to the stimulus measure, then voted
so overwhelmingly against it. Republicans countered that they had no real
input.

“From [Republicans’] standpoint,
bipartisanship is they get whatever they want,” said one Senate Democratic
leadership aide. “Many of them are still not used to not being in
power.”

But Republicans fire back, saying
promises made during the 2008 campaign make bipartisanship a bar Democrats must live up to.

“The president campaigned on
the need to work together to solve the big problems facing our country,”
said a House GOP leadership aide. “To a certain extent, there’s the matter
of living up to a campaign promise.”

Republicans argue that the current
majority needs bipartisanship more than the minority, both for political cover
on what could become controversial legislation and to make good on its pledge
of working together.

“Elections have consequences,
and if one side or the other runs the table in the elections, then arguably
they have the right and the opportunity to govern fully. But that’s not what
Obama said during the campaign,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) told The
Hill in an interview this weekend. “He said the old ways of Washington …
are tired and worn out. He made a different commitment.”

“There are clearly times when
you’re getting big, politically difficult things done that bipartisanship is
the only way to go,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority
Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “And … the way that you do it is to
get both parties in the room at the beginning of the process so there’s buy-in
on both sides so you get a bill that is not exactly what either party wants,
but that can get majorities on both sides.”

But for party strategists focused on
winning elections, the calculations are different. Democrats, who have a strong
chance to win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2010 and who hold a
sizable majority in the House, do not want Republicans joining their successful
and politically popular initiatives. Republicans win elections by watching
Democratic legislation turn unpopular.

“Tough votes are what make
elections, and that is where you draw the contrast,” said one GOP campaign
strategist.

If the economic stimulus bill loses
some of its luster, Republicans will have ample opportunity to attack the hundreds
of Democrats who voted in favor of it. But the party won’t be able to target
Reps. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), Parker Griffith (D-Ala.), Bobby Bright (D-Ala.)
or any of the four other Democrats who voted against the bill.

Top aides to both parties say there
is hope for true bipartisanship yet.

“In our individual
conversations with our recently elected members, we strongly encourage them to
reach out across the aisle, find opportunities to be bipartisan,” said
Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen
(D-Md.). “Many of them are partnering with Republicans or with
organizations that might not necessarily have a long record of working with
Democrats, groups like the Chamber [of Commerce]. I think our guys are making good on their
pledge to change Washington.”

“The president has expressed a
desire not to play small ball, to deal with the serious issues that are facing
our nation. … We recognize the need to deal with those issues,” agreed
Steel, the Boehner spokesman. “The question is, will there be any genuine
effort by the Democratic leadership to include any Republican input in
legislation going forward?”