The Bipartisan Policy Center
Four former Senate leaders. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D. have formed the The Bipartisan Policy Center aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation’s biggest issues.
“We’ve all been leaders and you know how difficult it is,” said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. “We’re all partisan in a way,” Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that “compromise is not a bad word.”
Congress, evenly divided and sharply partisan, in recent years has turned to outside commissions for advice on politically sensitive topics. Two of those nonpartisan groups, the Sept. 11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, have had considerable influence on policy.
The former senators believe the new group “can help create common sense solutions to key national challenges and can help foster a return to more civil political debate,” Baker, the Senate leader from 1981 to 1985, said in a statement.
The center has a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million for 2007, funded by several philanthropic groups. At first, it plans to concentrate on projects dealing with agriculture, energy and national security policy.
This effort to build consensus is a refreshing contrast to the recent high profile commitment of Ann Coulter to inflame divisiveness. I hope for a collaboration of this group, The Republican Main Street Partnership, It’s My Party Too, Gov Schwarzenegger and Mayor Bloomberg to promote candidates similarly inclined to collaboration. Perhaps this group of Centrists can also focus on non-partisan redistricting and campaign finance reform to help reduce the influence and distraction of special interests on public policy.
This high minded effort to build bridges also contrasts with this recent article summarizing the big business of political negative attack ads.
Ex-GOP candidates turn attacks back on national panel
The GOP independent expenditure operation spent $77 million attacking Democratic House candidates, while spending $6.6 million in positive ads boosting Republicans, according to FEC disclosures.
Certainly both parties do resort to negativity and distortions but the GOP seems to have elevated it to central offensive strategy with much more weight than promoting why voters should choose GOP candidates. As a Moderate Independent I value learning the truth about a candidate’s relevant behavior such as voting records and taking large amounts of money from donors with interests in conflict with the public good. But the politics of distortion inclines me to give the Dems the benefit of the doubt when it comes to conveying facts and context.
