Looking for Grown-Ups to Send to Washington
I wrote here about a blood and bone marrow transplant screening drive held in the facilities of the congregation I now serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Members of Saint Matthew spearheaded the event. Its members and neighbors here in Logan, touched by the illness of a young woman from Saint Matthew, responded with an impressive love of neighbor.
One thing I neglected to mention in that original post is that two community groups had a major hand in the event: the county Democratic and Republican parties, who provided a good deal of the refreshments and foods.
I loved this because it demonstrates a simple truth about America that gets lost in the sludge emitted by political professionals in Washington and by a vast, undiscerning cadre of journalists and bloggers. That truth is that while Americans may have their political preferences, they still can and do live together, work together, and respect one another. They’re grown-ups.
This truth was underscored for me when I read David Broder’s latest column, one that looks at the findings of widely-respected (and admittedly Democratic) pollster Peter Hart and at a book by former Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein.
Broder reports Hart’s finding that three words describe the mood of the US public as we approach making decisions in the 2008 presidential election. The words? Transparency, authenticity and unity.
Transparency, as explained to Broder by Hart, entails “honesty, openness, forthrightness in expressing views and clarity about the sources of the candidate’s support, I said that sounded right.”
That, I suppose, is something Americans have always expected of their leaders. Or, in more naive times perhaps, thought that they enjoyed it.
But authenticity and unity, which from my interactions with people I believe are major yearnings. They seem to especially flow from the public’s survey of today’s sorry political life.
Americans are tired of being played by partisan hucksters who chant proscribed ideological mantras to rile their bases and then hope to win just enough of those nonpartisan voters who haven’t given up on the political process altogether to win in November.
Then, when these people get elected, instead of thinking, instead of working together, instead of GOVERNING, they carpet bomb each other with bromides and cliches all designed to gain advantage for the next election.
The politician who doesn’t employ political strategy rarely gets elected and is even less likely to be re-elected. I get that. I even respect it. But can you imagine Washington or Lincoln accepting stalemate and policy paralysis as an ongoing feature of American life? Or, for that matter, lesser figures like John Tyler or Millard Fillmore?
This is no way to run a country. No matter what the partisan bloggers and their acolytes say, Americans don’t want partisan robots in the White House or the halls of Congress. Nor do they want actors so tied to their talking points that they’re incapable of governing.
That’s why the yearning for unity may be the most important of the three little words uses to identify what Americans are looking for as we head for the 2008 election.
Writes Broder:
The hankering for unity is…palpable and reflects the conspicuous absence of agreement — and excess of partisanship — in the contemporary political scene. I have been saying for months that voters care less whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican than that the person moving into the Oval Office be someone who can pull the country together to face its challenges.
For most of the past few months, I’ve felt that the 2008 presidential race was the Democrats’ to lose. Frustration with the war and increasingly alarming news about the economy appear to give the Democrats a built-in advantage for next year.
I still think that’s the case. And Democrats, as indicated by campaign contributions, turnouts for candidates’ rallies, and various polls, are more excited about the upcoming election, not to mention more satisfied with their field of candidates.
But there are also signs of disaffection with the way the current, unnecessarily long campaign is unfolding. In both parties. Especially in the early states in which candidates are pouring most of their attention and energy. Recent polls in Iowa, for example, show that Senator Barack Obama is tied with or is surpassing Senator Hillary Clinton. In that same state, former Arkansas governor is within shouting distance of the longtime frontrunner there, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
What do Clinton and Romney have in common? They each strike many voters as flip-floppers too clever by half, as careful parsers of verbiage designed to rile their parties’ bases. In short, they’re difficult to see as transparent or authentic. And, given their deeply partisan and shallow rhetoric, is it easy to see how they intend to work with others.
Obama and Huckabee, in contrast, although obviously both committed to some core principles, also seem willing to look beyond the political cliches and work with others. Obama speaks eloquently about the need for compromise and cooperation. Huckabee describes himself as someone who’s conservative, “just not mad at anybody.”
Whether or not Obama or Huckabee are authentic or they can overcome the enormous money advantages enjoyed by Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani is anybody’s guess.
But that increasing numbers of Americans are alienated from the political process, as evidenced by their failure to vote, or that they want political leaders who cooperate, even when they disagree, is undeniable.
They want an end to what Broder calls, “a dysfunctional political environment that has poisoned relationships between the executive and legislative branches and made this session of Congress notably acrimonious and unproductive.”
Americans want their leaders to be as grown up as the Republican and Democratic parties in Hocking County, Ohio.
10 Responses to “Looking for Grown-Ups to Send to Washington”
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The voices of those calling for an end to the extreme partisanship do seem to be increasing. To that I agree.
However, I’m not at all sure if, when moving from the abstract to particular issues, a majority of Americans are ready to do the walk whete they are doing the talk. In other words, when they speak of comprosmise, they largely seem to envision the ‘other’ side doing all the compromising, while they, themselves, remain immmovable. This has been particularly evident on the immigration issue, but I think the same is true across a broad range.
Unfortuantely, the political venom spouted constantly on the airwaves and on many blogs has become internalized to an alarming degree. I don’t see much effort, or even interest, in thinking things through. It’s just too easy to fall in with one group or another and to quote barbed punch lines instead of trying to understand what compromises it really would take to resolve a national problem.
While Congress and the administration may set a poor example, I often feel it’s the public who push them to be as partisan as they are. We don’t reward those politicians who are the best at reaching compromise. with re-election. We reward the politicians who defend our particular views the most fiercely.
To a large extent, I think we get the government that we, ourselves, create.
I don’t mean to rain on the parade of those who are trying to bridge the gap. I applaud them!
I will keep my fingers crossed that pramatism will prevail, and that people will start to appreciate how fragile a democracy can be. It can be abused and neglected to such an extent that we lose it. So, I certainly hope with all my heart that this us a treacheroerous phase that will pass.
I seriously doubt most people who have an interest in politics really want unity. What they want if for people to agree with them.
What most people want is goodies from the government that are paid for by someone else. Why else do you think that Edwards is campaigning on a massive expansion of the government while claiming it will be paid for by taxes of the rich. The same is the same for Senators Clinton and Obama.
One of the real questions is will there be more or less unity after the collapse of the Republican Party is complete and the U.S. becomes a one party state. When political issues are settled in the Democratic Primary instead of a general election, will people be more unified or will each special interest group have to fight harder for their own interest.
I’m wishing someone would wrtie about the corrosive effect of many blogs.
People seem to converge around blogs that say what they like to hear and never question whether that’s a fair reading on any issue.
The internet communities are, by and large, vertical, when any real progress requites horizontal discussions.
Also, a whole lexicon of partisan shorthand has been created, and the language of ideas is being replaced by shorthnad slogans. BDS, PC and so forth are much more complex than an acronym can express, and using the shorthand cuts off real thought at the pass.
Sometimes it looks as if thinking itsefl were going out of fashion. It’s not a good sign that I can have more open and deeper discussion with older people than with the rising stars on the Internet.
I think Peter Hart’s data is right. There is a certain rabid fringe on both left and right who are so blinded by their passionate allegiance to certain issues that they only care about victory — and defeating their opponents. But most Americans have for a very long time been disgusted with the sort of partisan bickering they see in Washington.
We elect these people because we want them to solve problems and build on America’s greatness. Instead, they seem to spend all their time looking for ways to screw the opposition, such as the childish efforts going on right now during the holiday to keep the Senate technically in session to prevent the President from making any recess appointments.
Now, it’s true that on any given issue, Americans are passionate and rarely unified. We accept the fact that majority rule means winners and losers, but we want to be able to vigorously argue the issues of the day and find ways to come together as Americans after the debates are finished. That’s the part that too many politicians fail to get. Your recent tribute to the friendship between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill shows how an older generation was able to keep the big picture in mind, a picture this younger political generation needs to learn — we are not moral enemies, but political opponents who are also neighbors, and even friends.
To the three words I think I’d add two: cognitive dissonance. Hillary Clinton currently bids fair to get the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Would anyone seriously use the other three words to describe her?
You might use the words competent, determined, and ambitious. But transparent, authentic, or a unifier? Please.
Whoever the Republican nominee will be I have no doubt that he’ll be of much the same stamp. How can you reconcile the findings with the results? People say one thing to pollsters and do another in the voting booth.
I don’t think that Hart is saying that the three words apply to Clinton or any of the other candidates necessarily. I think that they probably do describe what voters are looking for in their candidates. I also think that Americans have nearly given up on finding those three qualities in their presidential candidates.
Mark
[...] first got wind of David Broder’s recent column in the Washington Post by reading this post from Mark Daniels at The Moderate Voice. In the column Mr. Broder points approvingly to the research of Democratic [...]
[...] of those nonpartisan voters who haven’t given up on the political process altogether … themoderatevoice.com/politics/mick-huckabee/16213/looking-for-grown-ups-to-send-to-washington/ The Moderate Voice [...]