Moderate voters have nowhere to go

More American voters consider themselves politically moderate than either conservative or liberal.

So, why is our political system so deeply polarized between conservatives and liberals?   

Why don’t politicians cater to the middle of the spectrum?

One answer may be that our entire political debate has slid to the right.  With the exception of the hot-button, social issues, today’s liberals are a shadow of what it once meant to be a liberal.

Traditional liberals would be fighting for more programs to aid the disadvantaged, less military spending, tougher controls on financial institutions, and stronger protection of civil liberties.

Now, the Democrats, often considered the more liberal party for its historic support of positions like these, is reduced to fighting a rear-guard action to defend programs going back 50 or 70 years, like food stamps or Social Security.

That shift applies as much to so-called liberals on the Supreme Court as it does to Congress.

In short, most of today’s liberals look like yesterday’s moderates.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have moved to the right.  The tea party movement has the support of about a fifth of the electorate, enough for its activists to take control of the party and push aside traditional, moderate GOP leaders.

These newly active Republicans control the party apparatus so well that they condemn moderates who were party leaders long before them as RINOs – Republicans in name only.

Neo-Republicans have polarized political choice to the point that many would-be moderate voters may not find leaders to support.  Without a moderate alternative, they have no choice but to line up with one side or the other.

A recent independent national survey found that, when considering GOP efforts to block Obamacare, moderates oppose Republican hard-core tactics by more than 2-1.

In the battle for the moderate vote, the Democrats count on this split, while the Republican right seeks to convince the GOP that, because about half of all voters don’t like Obamacare, any tactic to oppose it will pick up some moderate voters.

In the struggle over Obamacare and the national budget, the small band of House Republicans who oppose the health program but also reject a government shutdown could be the core of a moderate political force. 

They offer a sign of principle over pure politics. Whether it is a political turning point remains to be seen.

Perhaps the notion of conservative-moderate-liberal is only relative, despite the right side of the GOP promoting ideological purity.

Maine may provide a good illustration of how ideology mixes with pure politics.

In 2010 governor’s race, Republican Paul LePage was the obvious conservative, Democrat Libby Mitchell ran as a liberal traditionalist, and independent Eliot Cutler offered a pragmatic alternative to both, especially LePage.  Thanks to the split in his opposition, LePage won.

In 2014, LePage will seek re-election. The Democrats will offer Mike Michaud, the second district congressman and member of the party’s moderate “Blue Dog” group.

Cutler, running again, is unlikely to profit from a weak major party candidate in the field, as he did in 2010.  As a result, he might end up as a liberal, attempting show that Michaud, the moderate, is too conservative for Democrats.

Cutler would move from moderate to liberal.  His problem may be that Michaud has a mostly progressive record, yet conservative enough to please all but hard-core LePage voters.

In the Senate race, GOP incumbent Susan Collins can legitimately claim to be a rare congressional moderate.  Her voting record produces a moderate rating and could make her hard to beat. 
 

Democrats might believe that Collins is vulnerable because she is not liberal enough for today’s voters. Shenna Bellows, the former executive director of the Maine ACLU and newly announced
candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination, may be betting on it. That presumption could be a mistake in a state where unenrolled voters outnumber Democrats or Republicans and may
see Collins as their choice.

Conservative Republicans may dislike or even challenge Collins, but her problem could be more that she is a good Republican than because she is a moderate.  She shows remarkable loyalty to the GOP, even after its Senate leader killed her transportation bill, partly because it had bipartisan backing.

Trying to appear moderate by proposing a back-down by the Democrats on a couple of 

Obamacare provisions before her party agreed to end the government shutdown, she merely repackaged the position of House GOP hard-core conservatives.

Being a moderate may be ineffective in Washington, as shown by Collins’ need to support the GOP conservative position in the shutdown showdown.

There now seems to be little chance of a moderates gaining power in Washington.  That would take Collins and other Republicans being willing to buck their more conservative party mates.

“Blame game” hides fault for government shutdown

In Washington, it’s called “the blame game.”

Its purpose is to assign fault when things go wrong, so that voters will know who to support and who to oppose at election time.

It quickly gets down to simple name calling without much reference to facts.  But fault does exist, and voters should at least know who is responsible for what in Washington.

The crisis leading to the federal government shutdown lets us compare blame claims with real responsibility.  Here are some questions and answers.

Why did the government shut down?

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – passed the Congress, totally dependent on Democratic votes in both the House and Senate.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the new law is constitutional.

But the Republicans don’t like it and would like it to be repealed. With a Democratic president and Senate, they stand no chance of repealing this existing law.

Tea Party House Republicans decided the best strategy to undermine the law would be to tie Obamacare changes, designed in a somewhat disguised way to halt the law, to some piece of essential legislation.

Nothing is more essential than funding federal government operations or ensuring that the government pays interest on the federal debt and takes on debt needed to fund already approved activities.

These House Republicans convinced most other GOP members of the House to support a strategy tying passage of these essential measures to changes in the health care law that would more or less gut it.

This strategy has probably never been used before in American history.  The Democrats were committed to preventing it this time, but the House majority refused to back down. The government shut down.

Who’s to blame?

You can decide for yourself who is to blame for what.

But you should be aware that this bill would only keep the government operating until mid-November at its already reduced spending levels.  There are no new spending programs in it.

You should also know that, despite claims by some opponents that the Affordable Care Act represents an unconstitutional invasion of personal rights, because everybody must participate or pay a penalty (just like the income tax), the only body authorized to say whether a law is constitutional has said that it is.

Nothing in this discussion says there’s anything wrong with preferring a private insurance system with the uninsured using emergency rooms, the way it was before Obamacare. But the normal way to go back to that is by passing a new law, perhaps after new elections.

Recent polling finds a strong majority of people do not approve of the House GOP strategy.  That does not mean they all like the health care law, where the poll now shows about an equal split.

Do the Democrats bear any responsibility? 

Sure, but not for the back-and-forth battle between the Senate Democratic majority and the House Republican majority.

Congressional Democrats are upholding the normal way of doing business, an approach that follows the law and keeps the government functioning.  

But President Obama has helped the GOP come to the conclusion that the American people dislike the health care law enough to support closing down the government to stop it.

Until recently, the president had not been aggressively promoting his signature legislation, which may encourage some people to believe misinformation about it is correct.

Once the law was passed, he should have led a massive public campaign to explain it.  It is possible that much opposition to it simply results from a lack of information or misinformation from its opponents.

And his administration failed to get organized and has had to defer some parts of the program, increasing its vulnerability to partisan attack.

What about the media’s role?

Its version of being objective is to give equal time to both sides without covering the facts.  Reporters may worry that the facts favor the Democrats, leaving them open to charges of bias if they say that.  But the media’s balancing act, leading some to assign equal responsibility to each side, is a poor substitute for good reporting.

What did the Maine congressional delegation do?

Both Democratic House members and independent Sen. Angus King opposed making Obamacare concessions to avoid a shutdown. 

Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who dislikes both the House approach and Obamacare, voted loyally with all Senate Republicans against a “clean bill”, in effect supporting the House GOP strategy.  In contrast, a few courageous House Republicans voted against the Tea Party strategy.

Next year in Maine and across the country, will voters decide who’s to blame?

Setting “red lines” is a mistake

Drawing a “red line” is turning out to be a mistake.

President Obama drew a red line, warning the Syrian government not to cross it by using chemical weapons against rebels in its civil war.

U.S. House Republicans drew a red line, saying that if the Democrats did not agree to defund the Affordable Care Act, they would block almost all federal government spending, causing a shutdown. 

Ironically, like Social Security and Medicare, the health act – Obamacare – cannot be stopped in a shutdown.

The House GOP also threatens to prevent a debt ceiling increase, making possible a default on the federal debt for the first time in history.

Syria crossed Obama’s red line, but the United States had no plan of action.

And the Affordable Care Act will not be halted because neither Obama nor the Senate would agree to that. 

Posturing seems to be taking the place of policy.  Leaders either want to govern by making threats or by seeking short-term political gains.

The problem with drawing red lines is that not all issues can be resolved in terms of black-and-white alternatives.  Leaders need to explain why drawing a line is not the best choice.

In fact, making policy choices seem like a simple option between right and wrong in a world where matters are often complicated can produce dangerous situations.

In Syria, Obama was unsure about how to take out the regime’s chemical weapons without harming civilians or possibly helping terrorists, who are part of the opposition forces.  He looked exposed when he found little support from either traditional allies or members of Congress.

If anything, the budget situation in Washington is even worse.  Some 40 strongly conservative Republican House members, who hold the swing votes between the rest of the GOP and the Democratic minority, forced their party to the brink of shutting down the government.

This hard-core group seems to believe that it can get voters to see the Democrats as being responsible for closing down the federal government because they are unwilling to cancel or suspend Obamacare.

Voters may not be fooled about how a government shutdown originated, which could bring a GOP electoral setback. The Republicans paid at the polls for the 1995 shutdown they engineered. 

By now, what emerges from these current crises is that major issues cannot be settled by imposing red lines.  Automatic decisions resulting from lines being crossed are not a substitute for political leadership.

Instead of each side attacking the other, it would be helpful if the president and members of Congress tried to explain exactly what was at stake and why. 

What has been reduced in the news to a partisan tussle needs to be better understood.   

Both sides in Congress, no matter what position they take on Obamacare, ought to make clear that the hard-core solution is bad for the country.

While it has become common to blame both parties for excessive partisanship, the problem may really be a lack of leadership.

House Speaker John Boehner should accept budget legislation, even if more Democrats than his Republican members vote for it.  By insisting that he must have a GOP-dominated result, he preserves his job as Speaker, but reveals his unwillingness to take a political risk for the good of the country.

Why don’t more in Congress oppose the Tea Party?  Because nobody knows for sure if voters will favor its deeply conservative tactics or a more moderate approach in the November 2014 elections.

Whether that’s good politics remains to be seen, but it certainly isn’t good for the country. 

Red lines are not a substitute for leadership.  When drop-dead ultimatums cannot be backed up, they produce undesirable results.

Economic recovery will certainly suffer as businesses and homebuyers hunker down to see how budget matters get sorted out.  And there are no winners if the government defaults on its debt.

So we are left with many in Washington playing dangerous games with the credit and economic health of the United States.

People making empty threats are revealed as powerless.  After a while, few will take seriously those imposing red lines. 

After the Syria warning, the United States has lost some influence in the world, because other countries saw it had no plan when the red line was crossed.

In the federal budget crisis, right-wing GOP House members, making grand gestures to please their supporters, won’t control the government or kill Obamacare.

Meanwhile, the situation, whether at home or abroad, can get worse. Red lines can create problems, not solve them.

“The Club” Runs Washington for Fun and Profit, Says New Book

“This Town,” a new book about Washington by Mark Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, is a surprise best seller.

But it’s no surprise that the book recounts anew the story of money’s dominant role in our political system.  The book reveals the seamy story about the ways that money affects what gets done in Washington.

As is widely known, political contributions by lobbyists and their clients give them access and influence far beyond that of the average citizen.  Their gifts fuel the high-cost campaigns often needed to ensure the re-election of members of Congress.

Are positions taken by people in Congress influenced by campaign contributions?  Of course, they are.

But the book reveals that the situation is even worse than that.  Lobbyists promise senators and House members lucrative jobs after they leave Congress, knowing that the mere suggestion of a job gets office holders to line up enthusiastically in support of their clients’ interests.

And the lobbyists come through with jobs. About half of those leaving Congress stay in 

Washington and work on legislative matters for big-spending clients.

Supposedly, they are not allowed to lobby for a year after their term ends, but they easily get around the law by claiming to be consultants while directing the work of front-line lobbyists for that year.

It would be difficult to believe that the retired officials don’t occasionally chat with their former colleagues about something more than how the Washington Redskins are doing.

And the bitter partisanship that plagues Congress these days melts away in those golden days that come after what is still called “public service.”  Some of the top lobbying forms are led by people from both parties, making it possible for them to talk with members on both sides of the aisle.

In other words, political philosophy is not allowed to stand in the way of profits.  Some lobbyists are multi-millionaires.

But Washington doesn’t seem to be getting anything done, so why, you might reasonably ask, do corporations need lobbyists?

The answer is amazingly simple, according to the book.  Many corporations want nothing to happen. So the bipartisan lobby firms work well in trying to ensure that bipartisan cooperation doesn’t break out in Congress and thwart their clients’ desire for inaction.

The Washington political community – Congress, lobbyists and the media – are all part of what Leibovich calls “the Club.”  However partisan the nation’s capital appears to the rest of us, the leading players are friends all engaged in the same game.

Success for most of them is making a lot of money and getting invited to the right parties.

A Washington insider told me about yet another way money matters.  It has to do with who gets to lead the two parties in Congress, including being chairpersons of committees.

It is often unrelated to merit or expertise. It depends on loyalty to the current party leaders and the ability to contribute or raise campaign funds.

That’s why so many members of the House and Senate raise money to contribute to other candidates to those chambers.  When they raise large sums to go into party or campaign coffers, they take a step up on the leadership ladder.

Maine Democrat George Mitchell was chair of his party’s Senate campaign committee. His great success in raising money and electing Democrats helped him to be chosen as Senate Majority Leader.

Nothing described by the book or in this column is illegal.  People with money can use it to ensure that laws limiting political funds don’t pass, so the system continually renews itself.   

In fact, the power of well-financed lobbyists has sharply increased in recent years.

The underlying cause is the Supreme Court ruling that spending money for political purposes is the same as speech.  And free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.

The power of money and the need for those in Congress to cater to their leaders so they gain political clout threatens to make senators and House members less concerned about their constituents.

Of course, they serve the core interests of their states and districts, but on other issues, possibly less important and certainly less visible, many can serve their own career interests.

The clear message of “This Town” is that Washington belongs to the members of the “Club” and their backers and not to the people who elected Congress.

 
Does the book’s success mean that people are now concerned about this situation or only that many Washingtonians want to see if their names are in it as members of the Club?