This Politico report from yesterday suggests it might be …
After nearly a year, this is what’s become of the health care debate: Democrats hunkered behind closed doors on a bill struggling to gain public support, Republicans lobbing one partisan grenade after the next.
In the wake of this grinding fight, Obama’s campaign pledge [of bipartisanship] now seems hollow, either hopelessly naïve or deeply cynical. Far from being a show of bipartisan goodwill, the health care debate has proved to be just the opposite, with the most polarized, party-line votes on a sweeping social-reform bill in the modern era.
The problem with this analysis is that it defines “the middle ground” as a static space between parties. In other words, if something is “bipartisan,” then it is, by conventional wisdom, “middle.” But is that accurate? Is the middle best defined by what satisfies Democrats and Republicans alike? Or is the middle best defined by the compromises made between competing philosophies, regardless of party? For instance, some will argue that it was the ground staked out by conservative Democrats, not obstructionist Republicans, that forced the primary compromises made to the reigning versions of the House and Senate health care bills.
Granted, there’s extensive precedent for defining the middle vis-a-vis parties rather than philosophies. And President Obama, when he was Candidate Obama, contributed to this precedent in his campaign rhetoric, as the Politico article notes. However, political reality, not rhetoric, suggests no party can remain a majority party without casting a “big tent,” without building a broad coalition of divergent views, without inviting those with conservative and progressive tendencies to run under the same party moniker.
In turn, this reality suggests it might be time for a revised, more accurate definition of “middle,” one that considers political mindset more than it considers the initials D and R — one that focuses less on the goal of bipartisanship, more on the goal of mixing or blending perspectives.