On November 22, here on TMV, I riffed off of an insightful column by David Broder, saying that as US voters prepare to pick a new President in 2008, they, above all, are looking for grown-ups, explaining the recent surges of Senator Barack Obama among the Democrats and former Governor Mike Huckabee among Republicans. Near the end of the piece, I wrote:
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…”
In his New York Times column of Sunday, Rich dismisses the conventional wisdom that Huckabee’s surge, particularly in Iowa, but elsewhere as well, is only attributable to evangelical Christians flocking to support him. In short, Rich agrees with me that Huckabee’s increased support is traceable to the same broad sentiment contributing to Obama’s recent uptick in the polls:
What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.
Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology…
Read all of Rich’s column. Like him, I’m convinced that these two surges have to do with a bipartisan, nonpartisan yearning for politics that gets things done and for politicians who, even when committed to varied general ideological principles, want to work with others so that things do get done.
Americans want politicians who may have opponents, but not enemies. That isn’t a statement of idealism. Rather, it reflects the very practical assessment growing among Americans, even members of groups who have often been intransigent in their politics in the past, that the Red/Blue kabuki dance of recent years must go!