Left and Right Miss Lesson of Specter Switch
Bloggers and political analysts from the right and left have commented on Senator Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic party. So too have politicians. And most of them are missing the forest for the trees.
The focus has been on Specter's obvious political motive, on the whether this switch will give the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate once Al Franken's election in Minnesota is certified, on how the decision was reached, who influenced it, and what guarantees Specter obtained before announcing his switch.
According to most reports, the Democrats have guaranteed the Senator that he will not face primary opposition, that he will be able to put his case before Pennsylvanians in a general election. And that is what Specter wanted.
In exchange the Democrats near the magic number of 60 -- the filibuster-proof Senate -- and that is what they want.
A great deal for everyone. Right? Wrong! These factors all seem trivial if one focuses on the forces that led Senator Specter to become a Democrat.
The real problem is that Specter does not have a home. The Republican party has become so homogeneous, so monolithic that the mere mention of Ronald Reagan's Big Tent draws derisive laughter. Specter became persona non grata to conservative Republicans with his vote in favor of the President's stimulus package. His Republican party no longer welcomed him.
Maine's two moderate Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have responded to the desertion of the only other moderate in their caucus. In a New York Times Op-ed, Snowe argued that Specter need not have been lost, that her party must reach out to moderates to succeed. She is right, of course, but she has been pleading that case for a long time -- and it falls on deaf ears.
Senator Collins will stay in the GOP because it is good for the party and would be bad for the country if she switched. Her last point might be debatable -- the country has and can survived worse -- but Senator Collins is right about the implication of a party that narrows its appeal.
I am struck by the congruence of four political events -- seemingly unrelated but all of a piece. The first, is Specter's party switch, caused at least in part by ideological extremism in the Republican party. Specter could not stay in the Republican party, because Republicans would not accept him; his fatal flaw in their book was negotiating with the enemy, specifically the Democrats and President Obama.
The second is the national fetish with assessing President Obama as he reaches 100 days in office. He has done a great deal in a short period of time. Mostly, in my view, he and his associates have learned how to govern. They came in as smart but inexperienced. They learned under fire. The question is what lessons have they learned.
The President ran as a conciliator, reaching out to Republicans in Congress in his first months in office. On the stimulus package, on the budget, and on large legislative initiatives he has received no positive feedback from his efforts. But he persisted. His style is non-confrontational. His strategy has been to go to the public over the heads of GOP legislators, to have their constituents convince them to work with him.
One possible response to the Specter switch would be for Obama to move further to the left, to take the gloves off, to govern without seeklng GOP support. The proposed strategy on getting a vote on health care using the reconciliation process to avoid a possible filibuster was evidence that this strategy is under consideration -- and that was before the Specter announcement.
That response would be a mistake.
While politicians in this country move further toward ideological extremes, the majority of our citizenry remains closer to the center. Citizens away from the Beltway want solutions to problems, not clinging to ideology, certainly not Washington one-upsmanship.
The third and fourth events are further from the public view, but may well give us the best insights into the future. Yesterday Kathleen Sebelius was confirmed at Secretary of Health and Human Services, completing the Obama cabinet. But the delay in confirming Cabinet officers, caused largely by partisan and ideological bickering (but also in part by poor vetting as the administration sought to apply stringent ethics standards) has led to large gaps in public officials below the Cabinet level. The kinds of individuals put forth for these positions and how the Republicans in the Senate respond to nominees will speak volumes for governing in the three years ahead.
Similarly, the Senate is reviewing the nomination of President Obama's first judicial appointment, the elevation of District Court Judge David Hamilton of Indiana to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Specter switch might make confirmation easier, but how the Senate handles the process merits our attention.
On these matters, the ball is now in the Republicans' court. Here are their choices. They can continue to resist all of President Obama's proposals, be overrun by Democratic majorities, and pout. If the economy improves, if Obama remains popular, they will face overwhelming and deserved defeat in 2010 and again in 2012.
Or they can move from the party of "NO" to the party of "Let's see what we can find to agree on." Rather than attacking Obama and hoping for failure, more Republicans can work with him, look for partial solutions to problems on which they can agree, and move on. The politics will take care of itself.
The Specter switch should be more than a wake-up call for Republicans. It should be a sign for all in Washington that the governing process is out of whack. It is time to get back to the business of solving the nation's problems, not winning partisan battles.
L. Sandy Maisel is director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College.
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" The proposed strategy on getting a vote on health care using the reconciliation process to avoid a possible filibuster was evidence that this strategy is under consideration -- and that was before the Specter announcement.
That response would be a mistake. "
If by this he implies that UNIVERSAL, SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE is somehow a LEFTIST solution, then I disagree on this issue.
Doing a PIECEMEAL reform of healthcare that includes numerous options will FAIL, because it is only the CONSOLIDATION of care into ONE SYSTEM that will bring about the SAVINGS that will PAY FOR UNIVERSAL COVERAGE!!
BE PREPARED>>>> The healthcare industry will spend billions to keep their profitable enterprise intact!!!
Even Dems like Max Baucus are trying to railroad bogus healthcare reform through the Senate that does NOT include a workable solution, but instead transfers enormous sums of federal dollars into the health insurance industry!! The American people need to stand up against this onslaught and educate themselves......SPEAK OUT!!!!
The realm of bipartisanship will shift to resolving differences between the left and right wings of the Democratic Party. The Republican rump in the House and Senate is dominated by purists who are philosophically incapable of compromise; the few who think about it live in fear of Limbaugh, Beck, and O'Reilly.
"It should be a sign for all in Washington that the governing process is out of whack. It is time to get back to the business of solving the nation's problems, not winning partisan battles."
Mr. Maisel,
A powerful post! So very well said, and right on point.
I think the republicans have been so stubborn about their position, that it will be some time before they are able to abandon the "winning partisan battles" and switch to solving the nations problems... which is what their constituents have voted for them to do in representing them in DC.
Breaking news for you, Mr. Maisel. With their "base" anxiously talking secession, the GOP won't be into compromise for years. With a rudderless divide between deciders and mouthers, Boehner gets his charges to bloc vote to no avail, and how many Americans know McConnell "leads" the Senate Repubs? Not exactly a household name, is he?
Yet, every big-time Repub: Cheney, Rove, Palin, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, O'Reilly (check his voter reg until he got outed) sit outside the Beltway, looking in.
Which leaves the 2012 Repubs exactly what? Pawlenty and Jindal have the commanding presence of muppets. Like Jesse circa 1984, a gifted motivator for the opposite party, only Sarah thinks she's electable. With no one of national caliber surfacing, the Repub back alleys have been fierce.
Meanwhile, the Dems biggest potential problem is what took down Paul Martin's Canadian Liberals 3 years ago - hubris begets corruption. Yeah, I know... Paul who? Americans are really that insular.
I believe you have offered a handful of commonsense, pragmatic observations here.
However -- and maybe I'm just old and cynical -- everything that I observe tells me these two things:
1) The Republican Party is primarily interested in being able to dictate policy; and
2) When they cannot dictate policy, they turn always and only to 'partisan battles', high rhetoric,
media manipulation and a myopic intransigence that is breathtaking in its scope.
Over the course of my adult life, the Republican Party has gradually replaced the notion of 'political discourse' with a perversion of the military concept of 'total war' -- to the detriment of all Americans.
Even themselves.
When winning is the only thing you care about, you have truly forgotten the reasons why we play.
Perfectly stated. It's not that you're old and cynical. I'm still relatively young, and i hope still optimistic. What you describe is the very reason I moved away from the party I identified with while growing up in a conservative area.
Political discourse is indeed deceased, supplanted by ratings-seeking demagogues intent on maintaining income by stirring up frenzied partisans. They've gone over the heads of the politicians, direct to the people, and the politicans have scrambled to prove that they will fall in line with the foaming-mouthed partisans' demands.
It's not confined to the right, but it started there, entrenched there, and was perfected there.
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