What Will Obama's Bipartisanship Look Like?

25.11.2008

Ed Kilgore makes some typically smart points about just what exactly Obama might do to fulfill his pledge of bipartisanship. Hint: it might not involve keeping Gates at the Pentagon or finding some out-of-the-way cabinet post for the likes of Jim Leach.

There is, however, one form of "bipartisanship" that Bush never took seriously, and that is very consistent with everything Barack Obama has said on the subject. Back in 2001, I described it as an "outside-in" coalition:
This variety, typically used by incoming Presidents during their "honeymoon" period, involves the aggressive, direct stimulation of public opinion to push members of the opposing party, especially those from states or districts where the President is popular, to come across the line.
This is essentially bipartisanship (or if you wish, post-partisanship) from the ground up, which reaches out to rank-and-file Republicans and independents to mobilize support for big national initiatives. I contrasted this with the "inside-out" coalition--often known later as High Broderism--which involves deal-cutting in Washington across party lines.
I raise this distinction partly because it's important in and of itself, and also because it provides the essential context for the decisions Obama makes on appointments. It's one thing to appoint Republicans to positions as a signal that the new administration is interested in a broader agenda of bipartisan deal-cutting in Washington. It's another thing altogether to appoint a diverse team of officials who are all pledged to implement a clear progressive agenda.

You have to imagine that the 10 million email addresses the Obama people now have in their system could help, uh, stimulate public opinion to bring reluctant Republicans to Obama's side. Then again, did Obama win many (or any) Congressional districts that are represented by a Republican other than Nebraska's 2nd?

Update: Reader MY emails to point out that this will be more of an issue in the Senate, where GOP votes are more necessary--and there you've got Sens Collins, Snowe, Burr, Specter, Voinovich, Martinez, Lugar, Grassley, and Ensign all representing states Obama won.

Later Update: And, per TalkBacker kyoung, Judd Gregg.

--Jason Zengerle

Posted: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 1:49 PM with 5 comment(s)

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kyoung said:

Gregg from New Hampshire too?

November 25, 2008 3:21 PM

Mack2 said:

In evaluating Obama's "bipartisanship," think we can easily get too caught up in the partisanship of it as opposed to the ideology-policy aspect of it. A president can govern with a coalition of Dems and Repubs on some issues if the policies he's seeking to authorize or administer are "centrist." He doesn't start with the partisan coalition; he starts with the policy goals and asks "can I get a bill" that will substantial achieve these goals? Yes? OK, let's go, or at least put it in line of priority. No? Can I alter the policy/legislation enough to get a bill? Yes? OK, let's "recenter" this legislation for now. No? Let's lobby the Congress, appeal to public opinion, mobilize our supporters, etc.

In other words, party alignments are perhaps less important that policy alignment.

To give a sense of where Obama stands on a host of issues, take a look at Nate Silver's very interesting article today on FiveThirtyEighyt.com: "Obama's Agenda & The Difference Between Tactics & Strategy".

November 25, 2008 5:36 PM

iambiguous said:

I'm no fan of Ralph Nader or Bob Barr but when they hear the word "bipartisanship", they're thinking tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

Now, when it comes to facilitating crony capitalism at home and realpolitik abroad the democrats and repulicans are rarely that far apart. For example, I'm thinking the only reason most democrats in Congress started to oppose the war in Iraq is because the Bush administration bungled the execution so badly. If it had not, I doubt that even the web of lies Bush propagated to facilitate the invasion would have been enough to turn many democrats against it. If Saddam Hussein had fallen and Ahmed Chalibi succeeded to installing a "friendly" regime in Baghdad...a pro-western government that allowed the US to establish permanent military bases in the most important geopolitical corner of the world...how many democrats would have joined the anti-war crowd?

Similarly, we can note how Pelosi and Reid and Frank and Schumer were more than willing to give Paulson the 700 billion dollar boondoggle for his buddies in high finance. That hasn't worked out so well though; so now the consensus is revolving around a demand side fiscal package. But don't suggest this shows how far apart democrats and repulicans are on the economy. This is a crisis of historic proportion. So the politicians have little choice but to embrace a new New Deal for all the rest of us.

On the other hand, there are very real partisan differences between democrats and republicans when it comes to the important social conflagrations of the day. Abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage, gun control, affirmative action, women's rights, church and state, stem cell research and on and on and on. Here the conflicting moral and political agendas are very, very much at odds.

george walton

November 25, 2008 7:08 PM

nbarry said:

George, when the talk is about bipartisanship, when it comes to the economy at least, it's about tweedledum and tweedledumber. Jim Leach, Wall Street's great deregulator, getting a reward from Obama? Give me a break.

November 26, 2008 9:49 AM

nbarry writes:

George:

Yes, that's true. In the example above tweedle dee and tweedle dum are both Republicrats.

I was thinking more along the lines of how a really big economic crisis shows us just how indistinguishable democrats and republicans can be.

As for tweedle dumber, I reserve that particular sobriquet for folks like Georgec W. Bush and Sarah Palin. And since I am hoplessly deadlocked, myself, I will leave it for others to determine which of them is the tweedle dumbest of all.

November 26, 2008 7:21 PM