Bill Clinton's success as a President began when he lost the House and Senate to the Republicans in 1994. That loss forced the necessary bipartisan collaborations that drove a decade of economic prosperity and social and environmental gains, all while eliminating the federal deficit.
The historic loss of Ted Kennedy's seat to Republican Scott Brown can signal the start of the successful Obama Presidency. But he needs our help to make it happen.
Republican party leaders have been ruthless in wedge politics this year, threatening moderates who dare admit that there may be bipartisan solutions to climate or health care.
But many Democratic leaders have been equally ruthless, placing party politics above the interests of the country and world.
Let's admit it: both parties are straitjacketed by the special interests that own them - the GOP donors whose interests will never be tread upon by GOP-backed bills, and the Democratic donors who are equally well protected by their party.
When Obama was elected, moderates and liberals were too quick to proclaim him the Messiah, after eight years under Mephistopheles. Instead of building the bipartisan movement he would need to be independent of special interests an govern effectively, they sat back and waited to for bread and wine. Meanwhile, opponents worked hard to discredit and destroy the Obama administration as quickly as possible.
As one of the few people who attended both the PowerShift and CPAC conferences the same day, I saw it first-hand. Obama's supporters spent their time celebrating, while opponents were working with enormous determination to undermine the new President.
As a green fiscal conservative and social libertarian, I still believe in the President. But he cannot be a transformational leader without followers ready to work hard to defeat the backwards social conservative ideologues who are busy destroying my Republican Party.
More than half of the American people are fiscally conservative, socially liberal or libertarian, and green. They want to protect the environment, are pro-choice, like technology, and believe in small, smart government. And, with a little more time, they will fully support gay marriage.
The mistake the Democrats have made to date is to focus on big government "solutions" on health care and environment that scare middle Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. The smart policies that set strong standards, but harness a dynamic and competitive marketplace to drive actual solutions, have been sidelined as "moderate" - they don't provide the political wedge that will assure more Democrats are elected next time.
Of course, they haven't chosen "liberal" solutions either, like single-payer health care. That's would be encouraging, if it were for the right reasons. But their alternative has been corporate-friendly and interest-group friendly proposals that just drive up costs.
It's time to put smart solutions to work - even those that don't line the pockets of contributors. The only ways they can win is by bringing together the forces of the left and right who are genuinely interested in solutions.
With no cohesive left-right alliance to pressure Congress, Obama has no choice but to deal with the political powers-that-be, on both the left and the right.
But it is not too late. This mistake was predictable, and perhaps inevitable. Now it's time to learn from it, before the mid-term elections. If we want real health care reform, real climate protection, real change, we need to build a powerful grassroots alliance of the left and the right, right now.
I have said it in past posts: The left and the right are the feminine and masculine of American politics -- the heart and the head, the purpose and the power, the meaning and the means. Liberal compassion is the heart of American politics -- it tells us what we want to be. Conservative discipline, the type that Bush forgot about, that derives from scientific rationalism, is the means of American politics -- it tells us how to get there. When progressive transpartisans unite the "what" and the "how," they gain the power to birth new ideas, and grow them to fruition.
We can't achieve the liberal goal of health care for all, for example, if we don't apply the conservative principle of fiscal responsibility, and drive down today's costs. We can't create green jobs, without green profits to pay for them. We can't stop global warming, if we don't build an information-based and clean tech economy to replace our consumptive industrial one.
What would a Red Blue (and Green) Alliance do?
Decide elections, that's what. The political purpose of a left-right alliance would be to capture the so-called "radical middle" -- the voters who are socially progressive, but fiscally conservative; who believe business and the environment can be compatible; that social and economic objectives are entwined.
Like a political party, a Red Blue Alliance would endorse candidates who support our agenda. Republicans could not get away with offering zero alternatives. Democrats could not get away with cow-towing with lobbyists. Both would be pressed to support policy options that are socially progressive and fiscally responsible.
We don't need 51% of the vote. We need to capture the middle, the swing vote that decides elections. A coalition that can bring together people like Michael Lind and Ted Halstead, journalist Mark Satin, philosopher Ken Wilber; and organizations like the Progressive Policy Institute, the New America Foundation, the U.S. Climate Task Force, Radical Middle, NDN, New Policy Institute and many more. (See especially Mark Satin's list of organizations that have advanced selected radical center ideas.)
These groups and others develop many of the policies we need. But they don't build the grassroots support that makes them viable. We need a political movement of progressive transpartisans dedicated to advancing these collaborative solutions.
We won't win over everyone on the right, or the left. But with ten percent, we will hold the balance of power, and gain a governing majority with its eyes on the future, not the past.
It's our time.
Follow Bill Shireman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Future500
I too would like to see happening the same thing. But the problem I see is that real conservatism is dead in America and has been dead since Reagan, if not Nixon. Since the special interests succeeded in putting a puppet in the White House in 1980 and manipulated the Congress and the public opinion into letting them pllage the Treasury for their own oil/bank/millitary equipement/other profits, conservatism died.
I know there are many people like who still are true fiscal conservatives, but these people are not in political offices, they're probably not even in the GOP or formally in any political formation. Some of them are in the Democratic party, because as you, they are social liberals. I don't know how these people would be able to gain any political control or power, I really don't.
The same conventional wisdom that cost Democrats the House and Senate under Clinton is not going to help Obama.
Clinton's politics of the wishy-washy never won a majority of votes. Obama's (empty) promise of change won substantial a majority. Obama's/Rahm's turn from the promise of change to Clintonuesque triangulation will be his undoing.
It's not to late to dump Rahm and the Clintonista retreads. It's not 1993 anymore. .
The only solution is for Democrats to ram things through by themselves, using whatever procedural methods necessary.
As long as Obama continues to let Pelosi/Reid set the agenda, he is in trouble. He needs to reach out to the right, something he promised, and hasn't done. He could have bi-partisanship, he could have changed the tone, he could have been open, but he wasn't. If he swallows the bitter pill of his current ratings and keeps his promises, he can succeed. He won't get much accomplished if he continues to let Pelosi/Reid run roughshod, drunk with power.
The GOP tried to have a seat at the healthcare table and were rebuffed by the White House, who said they didn't need their help.
The far left agenda has been rebuked time and time again. Much to the media chagrin, and their attempt to ignore it, this is still a center-right country.
The country doesn't want cap and trade, a public option, or any of the other failed loony left ideas.
It is the economy stupid. The unemployment rate must come down and jobs must be created. Every time Obama recommends a fee or a fine or a tax on the rich or corporations or bailed out banks or this and that, to pay for this and that, he prolongs the recession. A majority of the country don't care about the other issues when they can't find a job or pay their bills.
And how, pray tell, will the unemployment rate go down and jobs be created? A magic wand?
"Conservative discipline, the type that Bush forgot about, that derives from scientific rationalism, is the means of American politics -- it tells us how to get there"
Bush isn't the only one who forgot about it. When's the last time you saw "scientific rationalism" in the same sentence as "conservative" without a hefty dose of irony?
There is a healthy conservative tradition in this nation, that has been completely subjugated by the religious know-nothings. They've claimed conservatism for themselves. And although I wish you the best of luck in taking it back, and bringing some real rational discourse to the scene... I'm not holding my breath.
If you could reason with religious fundamentalists, they wouldn't be fundamentalists.
As for fundamentalists: my experience is that many of them CAN be turned, but they have to feel that we understand their underlying fears. Otherwise they just grasp all the more tightly to their extremism.
Negotiation does NOT mean appeasement. Most organizations' memberships ramp up if there's a bogey man. It would be truly something special if moderates (of this man's definition) could come together over actual policy.
No one GOPer thought it important enout to have malpractice reform. After years of kvetching, not one even bothered to try to get it in the health bill. they were so intent on denying Obama any victory they didn't even want their stuff!.
So stop the nonsense talk. when the GOPers decide to re-enter the market place, then there will be bi-partisanship.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/30/AR2009093004376.html
I don't think the GOP planned on backing a bill that raised taxes on healthcare equipment and taxed the middle class' "Cadillac" plans, but they did offer amendments.
The amendments you mention were too outrageous for anyone to take seriously, or, they were meant only to delay the reform bill's passage.
Merely offering an amendment isn't a sign of contribution or negotiation