Progress depends on building trust between parties and president

The question now for President Obama and the rest of us after this midterm election is the same: Will the center hold? Or is the center now only the hole in the middle of the doughnut? Some might believe Nancy Pelosi’s decision to stay on as Democratic leader in the House points to more polarization. But she has been effective as Speaker precisely because she knows her caucus and knows how to give each of its members the leeway they need to represent their constituents.

{mosads}I once asked Hillary Clinton, when she was serving as a successor to Pat Moynihan in the U.S. Senate, what it would take for Congress to get serious about the real problems facing the country.  Her answer was simple and direct: “trust.”   

She went on to explain that any effort to forge consensus on difficult issues requires some compromise, which means saying “no” to elements of your political base. And it also means leaving yourself vulnerable to attack from your opponents. And, she said, no one feels they can trust the other side to make the first move toward consensus without getting their head handed to them on a campaign platter.

Trusting that your adversary will deliver a promised concession is practically impossible when you have never sat down and looked across the table at a person, eye-to-eye. It is astonishing to me how little members of Congress know about each other. One depressing piece of news in the avalanche of coverage these past days was that a newly elected member of the new House majority steadfastly refuses to move her family from her ranch out West to Washington, meaning she will always beat a fast retreat home in between votes in the middle of the week.  She will never have any real opportunities to develop relationships of trust with members on the other side of the aisle.

Building relationships is hard work. Barack Obama does not yet seem to have mastered the art of small talk. When you are in a hurry, you probably don’t develop good skills for listening, but the president is soon going to need a ton of patience for idle chatter. He and John Boehner can go out and play some golf and sneak a butt or two, and that will be good for the country. But will they both be willing to listen to their strident factions and then, when necessary, gently overrule them?

If we are going to get serious about the hard work of governing, then leaders on both sides will have to tell their operatives and consultants to tone it down. No more e-mail blasts with talking points that are so divisive. No more “permanent campaign” mentality, as in starting the effort today to win Senate and House seats in 2012. Someone needs to step in and moderate the vocabulary of our coming political debates because otherwise, we are in for more of the same.  Boehner, Pelosi, Reid and McConnell are capable of that if they genuinely want to change the way Congress does its work.

In the contentious days of 1995, when Bill Clinton was battling the new Republican Speaker, Newt Gingrich, I would frequently go into the Oval Office before my daily press briefing to check my “guidance” (from the rest of the White House). On more than a few occasions, President Clinton would advise me “Don’t say that! Newt will get angry, and he and I just tried to work on that last night.” There was a conversation underway about making sure the center would hold.  I knew from the lessons taught by Professor Moynihan that I should appreciate and not interfere with that work.
   

McCurry served as White House press secretary during the Clinton administration.