Forget Bipartisanship

Once we get past the televised health care summit later this month at the White House, could President Obama and both parties please take a break from their relentless poll-driven rhetoric about "bipartisanship"? It's not priority one for Republicans, it shouldn't be for Democrats, it's not realistic in many cases, and so far it's been about as productive as going on a unicorn hunt.

I'm not saying bipartisanship is a bad thing. If anyone has the urge to be bipartisan, go right ahead. GOP senators could stick a toe into bipartisan territory by supporting a modest jobs bill. Democrats could add a dash of malpractice reform to their health bills.

But after 13 months of talk without much action, let's not kid ourselves about how far this is going to go. Republicans up to now have been unwilling to work with this White House even in areas where both parties agree -- most recently on a commission to find ways to reduce federal spending and the deficit. And that approach is likely to continue as long as it works.

See Jill Lawrence, Melinda Henneberger, Patricia Murphy, Lynn Sweet and Bonnie Erbe discuss the current congressional gridlock in this week's Woman UP video. And read Patricia's analysis of the Democrats' problems and what their effect may be on President Obama's agenda.

Uniting in opposition to all of Obama's major agenda items and blocking dozens of his nominees is proving a boon for Republicans. A new wave of polls shows the public split between Obama and a generic Republican presidential candidate in 2012 and evenly divided on this fall's House elections, and the parties nearly even on favorability ratings. That's quite a shift toward the out-party after two dispiriting election cycles.

Sure, there are signs in a few polls that the public is starting to blame Republicans more than Obama for gridlock on Capitol Hill. Yet in a new Quinnipiac poll, two-thirds blame it on both parties and come down harder on Democrats. Asked to choose the statement closer to their view, 37 percent said the GOP was misusing the filibuster to tie up the Senate and 46 percent said Democrats were pushing bills without considering Republican viewpoints.

Obama and the Democrats were already trying to cope with 9.7 percent unemployment and GOP recalcitrance when Scott Brown won a special Senate election in Massachusetts. Republicans now have an "unstoppable 41-vote super-minority," Stephen Colbert said, neatly capturing and parodying the Democrats' trauma over Brown's victory. Democrats also seem to be spooked by polls that show the public decrying partisanship and bickering -- and yet, what else is new? In the meantime they are failing to use what considerable power they have from holding both the presidency and Congress.

Memo to Democrats: Brown got 1.2 million votes, Obama got 69 million. In fact, Obama won 9 million more votes than Republican John McCain. That's quite a mandate, especially after George W. Bush's ascent to the presidency after losing the popular vote to Al Gore by half a million votes. Bush not only acted as if he had a mandate to enact his campaign agenda, Democrats helped him do it! There were Democratic votes for tax cuts, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Iraq invasion, and an unfunded Medicare expansion. Were those Democrats chumps? Maybe. They helped Bush look like a strong leader. That's a "mistake" Republicans aren't making with Obama.

So what are the options for Democrats? They could wait and see if Republicans decide they need some accomplishments going into the fall. Or Obama could move away from the whole conflict-avoidance, bipartisan, consensus-building schtick. Hardball worked pretty well when he threatened Senate Republican leaders with recess appointments -- which don't need confirmation -- unless they stopped blocking votes on more than five dozen nominees to jobs in his administration. Within two days there were votes on 29 people and 28 were confirmed.

The other big area where Democrats hold the power is health reform. It's hard to overstate the pointlessness of giving up after both chambers have passed historic bills and negotiators are working out ways to merge them. Almost all the Democrats in Congress supported a health bill and are going to have to defend their votes, whether a health bill becomes law or not. Would they rather defend a sweeping new law that has many popular and forward-looking elements, or be forced to fight at least three separate GOP charges – that they backed a bad plan, that they were too incompetent to even get it done, and that the Republicans saved the country from a socialist government takeover? There are strong arguments against the first and third points, but what's the rebuttal to the second one?

Obviously it would be a lot easier to sell an accomplishment. And while many Democrats have accepted the grim conventional wisdom on health care, there are lots of ways to read the polls. For instance, 58 percent in a recent Gallup poll said Obama has spent either the right amount of time or too little time on health care. People trust Obama and Democrats more than congressional Republicans to handle health care. Nearly two-thirds in a Washington Post-ABC News poll said Congress should keep working on a comprehensive bill and only 26 percent in a Pew poll said Congress should give up on reform. Specific elements of the House and Senate bills, meanwhile, continue to win majority support while objections tend to be general -- such as they are too complicated.

People would probably feel more positive about the bills if they had some GOP support. On the other hand, how important is the process in the end? I doubt seniors who get prescription drug benefits through Medicare remember that Republicans jammed the program through by lowballing its cost, failing to fund it, and keeping a House vote open for an unprecedented three hours of arm-twisting. People were wary of the benefit -- too confusing, they said -- but it's now popular and more evidence that results trump process, even an ugly process.

Here's another piece of evidence for Democrats to consider. In 2007, Gallup found that only 18 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job. So they asked a simple open-ended question to those who disapproved: Why? Two-thirds of them, amounting to nearly half of all Americans, pointed to inaction of some form, either generally or on specific issues such as ending the Iraq war. As it happens, congressional approval declined six points in the past month and is now at the same abysmal 18 percent.

Passage of health reform, imperfect as any bill inevitably will be, would constitute action on a historic scale. It would also be a useful reminder to everyone that elections have consequences. Or at least they're supposed to.