Choosing a New Way

Al Sikes

The President’s perilous moment

Dispassion does not come easily. Italy’s geological fault lines frame the latest earthquake tragedy, while in the U.S. political fault lines produce party-line votes and talk show fodder. Polarization follows.

President Obama was elected by doing especially well with independent voters as he sketched out a post-partisan presidency that would attempt to achieve bipartisan solutions. In foreign policy his choice of personnel and initial actions suggest potential success. The critics seem to be having trouble getting a good foothold.

On the domestic front, an entirely different picture is emerging. The President’s ambitions appear, at least at this point, to be captured by “whip count legislating.” The majority party decides the political line and the party Whips responsible for voting discipline make straying from the party line just short of treasonous for their members. Party interests and vote counting predominate. Predictably, such tactics push elected officials in the minority, with no opportunity to participate in actual governance, to cluster around party dogma and hard-edged rhetoric. And this, of course, provides wonderful fodder for the polarizing talk show hosts and talking heads.

When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay practiced “whip count legislating” in the last administration, he evoked a predictable reaction from the other side. When part of the minority, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel spoke against DeLay’s style to good partisan effect. Now Speaker Pelosi’s actions honor Tom DeLay’s techniques, while Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to the President, cannot seem to resist his earlier combative tactics as Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

People who call themselves clear-eyed realists will say, “so what.” They will contend that this is politics in its natural state. And they are mostly right. It is, however, seductive (at least to those with lingering idealism) to wish for the new way that was persuasively framed by the candidate who is now the 44th President of the United States.

At another time, in a nation dominated by emotion and on the edge of an explosion of violence, a new way was offered. A candidate promised reconciliation and compromise. The leader’s rhetoric and leadership proved to be in harmony.

In explaining this contrary moment, Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently said that the key to Nelson Mandela’s mind was biblical. Tutu, who headed South Africa’s Peace and Reconciliation Commission, said Mandela drew his strength from Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. History told us to expect vengeance; Mandela decided otherwise.

Earlier, Abraham Lincoln drew from the same deep well of faith and internal strength in his struggle to reconcile races, states, and a nation.

Today’s fault-lines are different than those faced by Mandela and Lincoln, but the opportunity is as momentous—finding reconciliation of viewpoints around some of the most important issues that have faced the government in a century. The divide we face over fiscal integrity in our national affairs is extraordinary. And only by attaining fiscal integrity can we stand down from our current attack on the financial well-being of our own children and grandchildren.

President Obama, if he yields to current partisan solutions, will ensure a partisan response. President Bush, in his final weeks in office, achieved a remarkable level of bipartisanship in his administration’s responses to the severe economic downturn. President Obama, however, won not even one Republican vote on his budget, which is the nation’s fiscal plan.

We live in a hard-edged moment. Much of the public wants jail, not hand slaps for discredited financial leaders. And the Congress has become the leading symbol of our inability to work together.

This is an especially perilous moment for President Obama. He is still in his honeymoon period and it is clear that his ambitions are enormous. Anything short of two terms will leave much of what he wants to accomplish unfulfilled—unless bill signings are more important to him than operationally sound programs. The issues our nation faces are easily used for partisan not national advantage. If President Obama’s agenda cannot escape ideological and partisan fault lines, he will fail.

While full consensus is not possible, a significant majority of those elected to Congress will work to reconcile views if the President uses his considerable skills and the power of his office toward that end—in other words, if he leads. And operationally sound legislation on both specific policy initiatives dealing with energy and health care, along with fiscal integrity, will require hard work by both true believers and skeptics.

President Obama’s election was historic. He now has a chance to have a historic presidency. A reliance on hard-edged partisanship will almost assuredly preclude such an outcome.  

Al Sikes is Chairman of The Trinity Forum and former Chairman of the FCC.

1 Responses (comments are closed) • Features, Public Square, Society, Mon 13 Apr 2009