We have a young, telegenic, personable, articulate, unthreatening black politician with flashes of oratorical brilliance and an overwhelming advantage in campaign funds, challenging an older candidate prone to gaffes, with a long track record of votes, unpopular with many of his fellow party members, representing an incumbent party saddled with an unpopular occupation overseas, increasing unemployment, higher food and energy inflation, a declining housing market still searching for a bottom, struggling banks, and a declining stock market. Yet we find John McCain at or near a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama, within striking distance in normally blue states like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Some will try to blame residual bitterness over the long primary battle between Obama and Clinton, others to McCain's negative ads. A number of pundits want to make it a referendum on Obama itself, whether he's up to the job. I don't think so. I think certainly Obama's resume is a factor, but I think it goes beyond that.
I think Obama did initially tap into something with his rhetoric about "turning the page" and "post-partisan politics". Perhaps he was viewing it in terms of a Bush-Clinton oligarchy on the presidency over the past generation. However, I think people are paying attention not so much to what he's said as what he's done.
I think people are tired of politicians in Washington arguing the same old same old. Ideological legislators are elected from secure districts where if you show any inkling to compromise or deviate from orthodoxy on even a single issue, you may find yourself in a situation like Joe Lieberman, former Democratic candidate for Vice President, deprived of his party's nomination.
We now see the Senate politicize nominations to the judiciary, threatening to filibuster qualified judicial nominations based strictly on inferences of how they'll decide litmus test issues like abortion: Where in the Constitution does it say that advise and consent requires super-majorities? What about the fact that the Speaker of the House decides to stonewall a vote on offshore drilling? Is she afraid that her House party colleagues won't vote to "save the earth"?
A perfect example of a poorly-played hand is the aftermath of 2006. Bush decided to wait until AFTER the election to fire Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and to change leadership and strategy in Iraq. Bush's rationale was that he didn't want his decisions to be viewed from a political standpoint. But Bush's decisions, if they had been announced in advance of the election, could probably have saved some close elections for GOP candidates, in particular control of the Senate.
However, Bush could have handled it better after the election. He could have met with Congressional leaders and hammered out an agreement including milestones and deliverables with increased Congressional oversight. The Democrats nonetheless overplayed their hand with enough Republican strength in either house to sustain a veto; what they should have done is reassert proactive, constructive Congressional oversight on Iraq operations instead of spinning their wheels on fruitless resolutions. It was already clear from various polls that the status quo in Iraq was increasingly unpopular, and it was also being reflected in Bush's plunging approval ratings.
I think the Democrats created a huge credibility problem for themselves by insisting the changed strategy would not work. Politically it would have been smarter to give Bush time for one last opportunity to make things work in Iraq, then if it failed, to say that the United States had made a final good faith effort, and that now it was time to leave..
I still prefer to read the 2006 elections not so much a referendum on abandoning our moral responsibilities in Iraq as a general dissatisfaction with staying the course there and seeing no progress. I also think the Republican Party was paying a price for having abandoned some of its reformist ideals in 1994, for failing to control the growth of Big Government, for not challenging Bush closely enough on his management of Iraq, and for becoming more concerned with political self-preservation than addressing real problems.
Real problems include the need for energy independence; barring destructive innovation in the alternative energy field, we need to find a way of applying new technologies to developing our own energy resources deployable in today's vehicles and homes. We need to stimulate business growth by revising an uncompetitive tax structure, minimizing the footprint of government regulation, making changes so employers have skilled, knowledgeable workers to staff their businesses, to open US citizenship to foreign entrepreneurs and those with necessary professional and technical skills to enable business growth, etc. We need to get our financial house in order, encourage households to consume within their means and to save and invest for the future; we need to get the national government to live within its means, reengineer its processes, eliminate redundancy and turf battles, with a laser-beam focus on improved services and responsiveness (and baseline metrics thereof) to the American taxpayer, and to get our trade deficit into balance. We need to redesign and modularize our crumbling national infrastructure and lessen our geographical risk, e.g., our reliance on rigs off and refineries along the Gulf coast. We need to revamp the way health insurance is being handled (taxable vs. pre-tax basis), encourage preventive care among people with serious health conditions (e.g., diabetes), and reinsure families against catastrophic health expenses. We also need to pare down unnecessary foreign entanglements and identify and protect against economic vulnerabilities, e.g., satellite technology, power for technology, etc. [I'm not necessarily suggesting John McCain would agree with my summary, but, for instance, when Barack Obama speaks of repairing the infrastructure, it comes across to me more as using the infrastructure more for purposes of job creation than economic priorities. For example, building the infamous Bridge to Nowhere will create jobs, but that money would be better spent improving roads and other necessary infrastructure in Alaska. I would prefer to see infrastructure projects depoliticized in a way similar to base closings vs. distorted by factors such a Senator Byrd's tenure in office.]
Barack Obama wants to portray himself as leader of the new politics, but you don't find arrows sticking in his back like you do McCain. Obama was rated as the most liberal Senator by the National Journal in 2007, just as former Democratic nominee John Kerry was listed as the same in 2004.
The best example of what we might see from Barack Obama's version of bipartisanship is the withdrawn 2007 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. [Just a caution: One should keep in mind the following quotation from Bismarck: “There are two things citizens should never. see—how sausages are made, and how a bill becomes a law.”] The Senate measure bipartisan supporters included: President Bush; Democrats Kennedy, Feinstein, Salazar, and Reid; Republicans McCain, Kyl, Graham, Specter, and Martinez. The subject of most conservatives' anger was the new Z-visa granted to existing undocumented workers. This gave workers the legal right to stay and obtain a social security number. After 8 years, payment of a fine and certain back taxes, and returning to one's home country, a Z-visa worker could apply for a green card (if he or she returned to her home country); after 5 years, a green card holder can apply for citizenship.
The principal concession to conservatives were: (1) a merit/point-based immigration process yielding a green card, with criteria including education, professional skills (and a waiting job), English proficiency, and/or being related to an existing citizen. (The spouse and children of a new citizen are automatically eligible for a green card.); (2) an extended fence along the US-Mexican border, improved Border Patrol staffing, and improved worker/employer verification systems; and (3) a Y-visa system of up to 400,000 guest workers, whom can remain in the U.S. for a term of up to 2 years at a time with a 1-year interval home between visa terms.
Barack Obama has claimed a significant role in the immigration bill process, but according to the Washington Post and others, Barack Obama didn't work with the White House as did Ted Kennedy, and he attended working sessions on an irrregular basis, often uninvited.
However, what particularly irked the Repubicans in bipartisan negotiations is that he worked into the agreement the right of an immigrant given an adverse decision to remain in the country while appeals are played out--and then voted for "poison pill" amendments to the bill outside the compromise: (1) his own amendment, early expiration of merit-based immigration (failed); (2) Bingaman amendment, halving the number of Y-visa holders to 200,000 (passed); (3) Bingaman amentment, removing the rotation-out requirement for Y-visas (failed); (4) Dorgan amendment, early expiration of Y-visa program (failed); (5) Dorgan amendment, early expiration of Y-visa program (passed). [Conservative South Carolina Senator DeMint switched his vote on the Dorgan amendment to deliberately kill the bill over the Z-visa.]
The Dorgan amendment was designed by a core Democratic special-interest group, organized labor, which believes that Y-visa workers undermine opportunities and drives down wages/benefits for the lower end of the American labor market. In reality, it was designed to provide an orderly flow of workers in conjunction with improved border security, whom generally make more in the U.S. than in their home countries for similar types of work for which the supply of American labor is limited.
This reminds me of an incident I may have described in an earlier post when McCain was setting up a bipartisan group (I think this was 2006, when the GOP held the majority) to tackle Senate ethics and lobbyist reform. Obama came to a meeting but decided not to participate further, alerting McCain of his decision via press release in announcing his support for the then-minority Democratic bill. (The Democrats were interested in using the issue for political reasons, given high-profile Republican lawmaker scandals.)
What we know is that McCain, Kyl, and Graham have all arrows in their backs from the media conservatives and their listeners for supporting "amnesty for illegal aliens"; we know Ted Kennedy stood up to organized labor to hold up his part of the bargain. What we know is that McCain and Graham, both members of the bipartisan Gang of 14 which averted a Senate shutdown over judicial nomination filibusters, exploded at what they regarded as breaches of U.S. Senate behavior while Obama went around with this 'what-did-I-do' look of innocence on his face.
I'm relying on third-party reports of just two data points. But it appears that he has been picking up a reputation for exaggerating his involvement in bipartisan efforts, his voting record is more consistent with a hardline partisan than say a legislator voting to protect a bipartisan bill, and he is gaining the reputation of not negotiating in good faith and hence untrustworthy.
Basically, we need to look beyond Obama's post-partisan rhetoric and match it up with his actions: his voting records, his ability to negotiate and compromise, and his cultivating relationships with people across the aisle (which he'll need to minimize filibusters), etc.
We do need genuine bipartisan action. There was a brief time after 9/11 when we came together. I believe a McCain presidency will put America first, before politics. I believe that you will see a White House engaged with the leadership of both parties in Congress. It will go beyond merely turning the page--it will be starting a new chapter.
