Let's talk about Obama, Hillary, and "Bipartisanship"

[lwcon]

For the record, I'm not trying to start a flame war.

But I'm going to talk honestly and share three links (at the end) I'd like you to check out.

Put simply, this talk about "bipartisanship," "post-partisanship," and "reaching across the aisle," has got to stop.

Pop quiz: who said these things in the wake of the 2006 Midterm election?

"...we need to put aside our partisan differences"
"The election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation."
"The truth of the matter is, the American people are sick of the partisanship and name-calling."

Hint: he lives across the street from 1599 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Gosh, isn't that the funniest coincidence you ever heard? The very second the Democrats get a seat at the table of national politics, it's time for us to chill out and not raise a fuss. Better that we get cozy with today's ruthless, corrupt, incompetent, and valueless GOP.

And two Democrats who would like to move into that Penn. Ave. home are regurgitating this Kumbaya talk.

Hillary Clinton and "across the aisle" have become virtually synonymous, as have Obama and "post-partisan" and "bipartisan." Except when it's Hillary who's being synonymous with "bipartisanship."

Go ahead and love and support whichever candidate you want, but please push back on any Democratic politician when she or he fuels this vapid and destructive meme.

What's so bad about bipartisanship? Please check out the following:

• Blogger Digby on "Bipartisan Zombies"
• Blogger Lambert on Obama's deep embrace of bi-partisanship/post-partisanship
• Yours truly, Blogger Vastleft, in all my video beauty (well...) arguing why bipartisanship is not the answer to the cancer that's devouring our Constitution, and citing a Washington Monthly quote that should be taped to your wall

Before the flaming (if any) begins, let me note following:

Though her handling of this topic and general embrace of so-called "centrism" within today's rightwing framing seriously disappoint me, I am impressed with her strength as a campaigner (if for a less-progressive agenda than I would prefer), and I will strongly support her candidacy against any Republican or Independent.

Though his handling of this topic and church-state issues seriously disappoints me, I'm not uncharmed by the bright and charming Obama, and I will strongly support his candidacy against any Republican or Independent. From experience, I will add that I'm shocked at the quality of debate by his advocates/defenders. Obama will be a better politician if he's not protected by a "cult of personality" shield, and if he has to answer for the disconcerting implications of some of his rhetoric.

If like me, you'd prefer to have a debate instead of a flame war, let's please discuss the issue at hand -- whether bipartisanship is a destructive meme, something we should strike from our vocabulary -- rather than dredging up the old Ronnie Hawkins tune "Who Do You Love?"

The topic at hand isn't who the awesomest candidate is, or whom you should vote for. It's the importance of properly framing the challenge that lies ahead, restoring America's ability to function as a fair and just nation, something that cannot be done in partnership with the soulless souls who ushered in torture and ushered out habeas corpus.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. The same "bipartisanship" that now requires 60 veto-proof votes

to pass anything into law. "bipartisanship" my ass.

[lwcon]

14. Yes, how bipartisan can you get?

Stifling virtually every single piece of legislation proposed by the majority party. How can we not emulate that spirit of compromise!

And from the same people who months before threatened to "nuke" the right to filibuster altogether. "Kumbaya, my lord, Kumbaya...."

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[MethuenProgressive]

2. It's bipartisan if your guy does it, triangulation if the other guy does it.

And really, bipartisan only if the other guys do it your way.

[sniffa]

4. you seem like a staunch Richardson supporter

[MethuenProgressive]

9. It'd be boring here if posters were required to limit thoughts to one candidate, don't you think?

Don't you? Think?

[sniffa]

11. yes. i think.

you. are. wicked. clever.

[lwcon]

6. That's very good.

Is that a quote or an original observation?

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[MethuenProgressive]

7. An original observation from a word-a-holic

It's always interesting to look at how things are framed by people attenpt to convince others.

[lwcon]

12. Good stuff. I'll bookmark it and will cite it now and again. n/t

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[polichick]

3. This calls for my favorite political poem...

It was written by Brad Blanton of Virginia after the 2006 election ~ and it still applies imo.

The election is over, the results are now known.
The will of the people has clearly been shown.
We should show by our thoughts and our words and our deeds
That unity's just what our country now needs.
Let's all get together.
Let bitterness pass.
I'll hug your elephant.
You kiss my ass!

[aquart]

5. Gonna cut and paste this.

And keep it forever.

PS: I think I'll send it to Bloomberg. We should all send it to Bloomberg.

[polichick]

8. I keep it on my bulletin board at my desk...

So I'll NEVER FORGET! :)

[MethuenProgressive]

10. Ha!

That's a keeper! :O)

[lwcon]

32. Witty and naughty in one! n/t

[MGKrebs]

13. In a more parliamentary type system I would agree.

Where multiple parties can run on relatively pure agendas and then form a coalition reflecting their success. Here, we effectively only have 2 parties right now, so each of them must appeal to a majority of voters just to get elected. What happens after that depends on how successful their party was and how far they are willing to go ignoring the other 49% of the country.

Such a purist agenda is unlikely to succeed with any of these candidates at this point in time. If Edwards were to win, I can imagine a scenario where he would have a lot of momentum to make significant changes, because he will have done so by overcoming huge obstacles.

I guess a candidate can grow into the role of "revolutionary" leader, but I don't really see it from any of these candidates. I would think the kind of leader we would need to be able to dispose of bipartisanship would be pretty obvious to a lot of people, and that's just not the case right now. If we win the election by 70-30, then I will stand corrected.

For example, "saying" you are a populist but only winning 52-48 means you would have to defy 48% of "the people" you purport to represent. Is populism really populism if it is imposed against the will of so many?

[lwcon]

15. It's not about being a purist

It's about not embracing the disempowering language of the opposition.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that national politicians -- including most Democrats -- are to the Right of most of the country. Cowed by a the right-leaning so-called liberal media and elections lost/stolen past, Beltway Dems keep buying into a Republican Lite agenda that the majority of Americans does not support.

As to "mandates," that's another IOKIYAR area, where a one-state victory/theft in 2004 was deemed a "mandate" by the blabbing heads, and an even more diaphanous victory/theft in 2000 led to a presidency that led like it had Saddam Hussein's 100% voter approval.

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[MGKrebs]

16. OK, throw something out there. What language do you like?

And I don't buy that bit about the polls. It reminds me of the story about how no one admits to rubbernecking, but every time there's an accident, the cars going the other way sure do slow down a lot.

[lwcon]

17. Truly, this isn't intended to be a vote-for-Edwards thread

But since you asked, this is the language I like:

http://correntewire.com/john_edwards_wants_better_democrats

For months on end, opinion polls have shown the public's approval rating for Congress even lower than that of one of the least popular presidents ever. Why do you think that is? Do they want Democrats to be even more generous in their support of the failed policies of the last seven years?

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[MGKrebs]

26. OK, I'm all about messaging.

I think I'm with you now.
My focus is on getting the Party to have a message. We, as a party, have to stand for something. People have to know what we stand for. There is a philosophy supporting progressivism, liberalism, and Democrats. We have to find ways to articulate that in a way that people understand and respond positively to. Candidates will be measured by how close they come to the principles that the party stands for. Right now, it seems like a Dem candidate can say pretty much anything they want and still be considered a Dem. Not only is it bad for the brand, it means that the candidates have to reinvent a message every election. If the Party would get a consistent message out there, candidates would have a running start and can explain how they are going to get us there, rather than having to start from scratch and tell people what the goals are before we even get to how.

I don't have a particular axe to grind with the word "bipartisanship", but if we are talking about making little or no progress on our agenda, I think the problem is not so much in Congress as it is at street level. I have low expectations of candidates "leading" us in this way. Candidates have to win elections, and they will generally do what they think they need to do to win. They don't really get to play in the REAL "let's go in a new direction" sandbox. Until we- the Party members in the states and local activists- create the conditions where a candidate who doesn't have to talk about bipartisanship can win, they will continue to talk about it. And the thing is, even if we were a very dominant party, we would still talk about it because it's the democratic thing to do.

[lwcon]

29. I agree that we have to make ourselves heard

That's why my fellow bloggers and I invest a lot of time in holding so-called progressives' feet to the fire when they screw up... but without losing sight of the goal of marginalizing today's ruthless, corrupt, incompetent, and valueless Republican Party.

A particularly good way is to support primary challenges:
http://www.actblue.com/page/blueamerica

As I've argued, it's a myth that running as an accommodating "uniter" is what's called for. People are angry, that's why they dramatically reconstituted Congress in '06, and they're angry that the change hasn't paid any discernible dividends. People don't want shallow, wimpy Kumbaya talk as much as they want a real promise for a better America. They want the war in Iraq to end. The want health care. They want a more robust economy and a stronger dollar. They want to be able to afford to pay their mortgages and/or rent and to be able to send their kids to college. They want the environment to be saved.

However, most Americans haven't, apparently, caught onto the structural changes that have brought us to this pass, the changes that Lambert so articulately describes in the linked post. They don't realize that we have a reactionary rather than a liberal media. They don't realize that the Republican Party is truly bent on the destruction of the Constitution. But they're starting to smell that smell, and the 2006 vote makes that plainly clear.

Sure, there are the dead-enders who will vote for the Christiest candidate they can find (as long as that doesn't mean actual kindness or charity). And Barack Obama will be disappointed to find they're not going to vote for him or any Democrat.


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[Armstead]

18. It's more about class than political party

If bipartisanship means the elites of both parties getting together to screw the rest of us, then it's just a bunch of bullshit.

On the other hand, if bipartisanship means actually engaging misguided Republicans among the grass roots around issues shared by the majority (middle and lower classes) then it can actually be productive.

That's how I see it in a nutshell.

[ruggerson]

19. What I find anecdotally amusing about the whole Obama "unity" meme

is that at the first opportunity to act like a divisive politician he did just that: but not with Republicans - lo and behold he threw gay and lesbians under the bus, a core Democratic constituency.

His supporters here, in general, have maligned and insulted the GLBT community for their demands that Obama apologize - so a lot of his supporters seem to be more concerned with lip service to the absurd idea of unity with Republicans than unity with their very own GLBT brothers and sisters.

I agree that the entire "bipartisanship" frame is a total joke. Obama started to lose me when he offered up Tom Coburn as the type of Republican he would like to "do business" with and characterized him as his "good friend."

These people are no friends of ours and will chew Obama up and spit him out to further their agenda.

I want to put the culture war behind us as much as Obama does, but you don't do it by mouthing slogans about moving on and new generations and change. You do it by getting elected, gaining power, and institutionally winning the culture war decisively once and for all. You crush the religious right, you hand them defeat after defeat at the ballot box and in the courts and, before you know it, you HAVE changed the country.

[lwcon]

20. Amen n/t

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[Hippo_Tron]

30. The problem is that we've been getting our asses kicked by that method for the past several decades

Taking the culture war to the ballot box got us Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush. Perhaps the country has changed enough and the Democrats have refined their strategy enough that we have a fighting chance now. I do know that Obama is trying very hard to appeal to young people and the more young people that vote, the better chance we have of winning the culture war.

[lwcon]

31. "Culture war" is another GOP meme

What "culture war" was Hubert Humphrey advocating? Or earnest technocrat Mike Dukakis?

Al Gore in 2000 was, I think he now realizes, too hemmed-in in 2000, when he made his running mate a neo-conservative religious scold and downplayed the successes of his and Clinton's terms. Ditto for Kerry in 2004. These guys were afraid of their own shadows because the GOP and the media that loves it had made "liberal" into a dirty word. After getting kicked in the nuts during their campaigns, they realized they'd have been better served had they been more outspoken.

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[Perry Logan]

21. No bipartisanship EVER. Bipartisanship is treason.

[lwcon]

22. I would love to have a political system where...

... bipartisanship would be legitimate. But that would require two parties that are legitimate.

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[Stop Cornyn]

23. k & r # 5

[lwcon]

27. Thank you! n/t

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[WA98296]

24. As long as they don't have to EARN YOUR VOTE, why should they care what you think?

Face it, you're a shoe in. At least they believe it.
You'll vote "democratic" no matter who the nominee is.
So, with your vote in the bag the only votes they care to court are repubs. Then, when the votes are in, they court the corporate interests.

[lwcon]

28. That is a problem, I agree

But with the Dems up against a fascist front, this ain't a time to indulge in vanity voting.

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[philly_bob]

25. Bipartisanship only works if both parties accept the rules.

There has been lots of evidence that the national neocon/religious right coalition isn't playing a game of Rational Compromise. Before Gingrich, the Republicans did. And in many smaller units of government, like cities and states, the Republicans still do play Rational Compromise.

But the national Republican Party doesn't. Not since Gingrich. "Bipartisanship is date rape," the Young Republicans said in 2000. And remember when Bush refused to listen to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group?

I agree with the poster. Some folks have to be expelled from the political dialogue to get back to a situation where bipartisanship is possible.

[lwcon]

33. Yes

And in the context of Hillary, this time, here's a movie quote that sums up the foolishness of this accommodation:

http://correntewire.com/caught_up_in_circles_confusion_is_nothing_new

[Stop Cornyn]

34. 100% agreement