It’s really hard to be bipartisan when one partisan side doesn’t want to.
For the political media the big takeaway from last week’s elections has to be the idea that bipartisanship is the new theme in Washington. Even the president seems to have jumped on the bipartisan bandwagon announcing last week that, “I am not going to judge ideas based on whether they’re Democratic or Republican — I’m going to be judging them based whether or not they work…”
So are we in for a new era in bipartisan cooperation in Washington? Well as Kevin Drum pointed out if Republican voters have anything to say about it, probably not. Pew’s latest mammoth survey of public views came out earlier this week and it shows that while the public at large may want bipartisan cooperation in Washington, self-identified Republicans seem to favor a different strategy:
Overall, 57% of the public says Republican leaders in Washington should try as best they can to work with Barack Obama to accomplish things, even if it means disappointing some groups of Republican supporters, while 40% say they should “stand up” to Obama on issues that are important to Republican supporters, even if it means less gets done in Washington. And by about a two-to-one margin (62% to 30%) more say Obama should work with Republicans than say he should stand up to the GOP…
Within the Republican Party, only about a third of Republicans and Republican leaners (32%) want to see the GOP leadership work with Obama if it disappoints some groups of Republican supporters. About twice as many (66%) say GOP leaders should stand up to Obama even if less gets done. This reflects a shift away from wanting to see their leadership work with Obama in the wake of his reelection two years ago, but is little different than opinions among Republicans after the party’s 2010 midterm victory.
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Republican politicians are not fools. They know what their constituency wants and work hard to try and give it to them, after all who wants to end up like poor old Eric Cantor? Or to put it another way, all the polling signs out there point to a hardline stance against Obama as being an important part of staving off a primary challenge. Either way the end result is pretty clear: if the hardline conservatives that dominate Republican primaries don’t want bipartisan cooperation and want confrontation, then all the incentives are lined up for Republican politicians to give them just that.
As a child I was often told that “it takes two to fight” and in many wants that’s true. But it’s also true that it takes two parties to have bipartisan cooperation during a time of divided government. If one of America’s two great political parties isn’t interest in cooperation and is interested in confrontation, well then there isn’t a whole lot the other can do.
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As an independent, I find both parties hilarious to watch. But especially the Democrats right now. They didn’t start pulling the “voters want us to work together” line until they lost the midterms. Now suddenly they’re nothing but “bipartisan,” even though exit polls show voters now prefer Republican solutions. That is, until the GOP overreaches, and the pendulum swings back the other way.
Frankly I’m sick of both parties, and I’m looking forward to when they both self-immolate, which shouldn’t be long now. (a few years for the GOP… and the Dems a year or two after, is my prediction)
Horseshoe politics for the lose
One more quick add…. Do you know the number of bills the House passed, including those with votes from both parties (the whole “bipartisan thing”), that the Democrat-controlled Senate did…. nothing with? A Senate led by a party who was interested in compromise or accommodation could have passed and bargained for their own versions of those bills, but instead they didn’t even allow the bills up for discussion – let alone ever come up for a vote. Why?
It truly does work both ways, and to suggest otherwise is to live in an ideological bubble.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Really liked this site until this story came up. All the bills that were squashed by Harry Reid and it’s the evil Republicans that aren’t interested in bipartisanship. The House passed budgets that the Senate wouldn’t act on, taking us deeper and deeper in debt. Democrats and the President wouldn’t negotiate one whit during the shutdown (and bragged about it) and somehow its only the Republicans who aren’t interested in bipartisanship. It’s easy to want to play nice when you’re in a weak position. Democrats weren’t so interested in it before their shellacking. Harumph!
Democrats and the President wouldn’t negotiate one whit during the shutdown
Well, um, that’s right. Y’see, Susan, negotiating with terrorists seldom leads anywhere helpful.
So your three examples are immigration, health care, and climate change. In other words, three primary Democrat issues. Thank you for proving the exact concept of my post.
I don’t think there’s anything about issues like health care, climate change, or immigration that makes them “Democratic” issues. Republicans talk about immigration all the time, and indeed a number of Republican senators voted for bipartisan immigration reform! The problem here is that Republicans, outside of the reformer camp, have never articulated a strategy about what to do about the issue. In fact if you look outside the world of “things-we-are-against” (that is everything Obama favors) the policy cupboard for the GOP is pretty much bare, other than Keystone, tax cuts for the rich, and stopping terrorists infected with Ebola… Read more »
“…In fact if you look outside the world of “things-we-are-against” (that is everything Obama favors) the policy cupboard for the GOP is pretty much bare, other than Keystone, tax cuts for the rich, and stopping terrorists infected with Ebola from sneaking into the US via Mexico…”
LOL, I see. I made a mistake by thinking you wanted to actually engage in discussion… OK have a fun weekend!
The generic polls of “working together” are meaningless in actual governance and the creation of legislation. Those polls mean: Sure I want everyone to work together… as long as it advances what I think they should be working on. Would Democrats suddenly support bipartisan legislation that eliminated the progressive income tax? Would Republicans suddenly support bipartisan legislation that eliminated the private health insurance industry? Of course not. People like the theoretical idea of being bipartisan, but do not want anything bipartisan if that anything doesn’t already align with their own political ideology. Neither of the two parities want to be… Read more »
You’re right that nobody wants to be bipartisan just for the sake of being bipartisan but you’re wrong to think that this is some sort of problem that both parties have. Immigration reform is a great example of this, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to deal with the problem of 11 million folks in the country illegally with 68 votes, that very bipartisan! The Republican response in the House was to…do nothing. A party interested in compromise or accommodation could have just passed their own bill and bargained hard to try and get the best deal they could, but… Read more »
Do you think a survey of Democratic supporters would have looked any different?
Neither side is interested in bipartisanship.
That’s right, StevenS, neither side is interested in bipartisanship. I think that sends a very loud and clear message that it’s really past time for some sort of “parting of the ways”. We should have a choice in how we’re going to be governed either as a Democrat or a Republican. No one should be pushed into accepting either, but rather, have a choice between the two. Think that’s impossible? Well, that’s what life is all about … change, and choice on how you’re governed would be a change for the better.