Sharing, Caring

I like short bites of news -- this happened, that guy said this, those guys said that. Done. So when I read every word of an article that spans two full pages of the New York Times' Week in Review section, it must be compelling. And it was. The article in question: The Party Animal Either Plays Well or Fights Well.

The question, and the supporters: Is it better to be a staunch defender of the basic mores of your party (Clinton, Romney) or to search for opportunties to establish a consensus across the political aisle (Obama, McCain)? In other words, if your party stands for something, would you be better off waving that flag high, stating clearly that you will not give in on any attempts to diverge from that path, or using that flag as a starting point for a final agreement with the other side?

The article makes the point that the defenders of the hard line (Clinton, Romney) seem to be unaware that the mood of the country has changed. After six years of my-way or the highway hard line attitudes, they're tired; they want to see people in power being effective. (Which was one of the advantages of the all-Republican Congress. You may not have liked what they did, but by god, they got things done. But when you have to share power, it becomes more ... difficult.) The article goes on to say that its been a long time since anyone's been willing to speak well -- or at least, not ill - of the other side, both for the common good and for the sake of effective governance.

"American politics has been so polarized for so long now that it is hardly surprising that veteran politicians like Mr. Romney and Mrs. Clinton fall back on standard political tools (like casting doubt on their opponents’ partisan bona fides) to motivate the party base, particularly in what is, after all, still a party nominating fight, not a general election. Mr. Obama spoke last week of bad political “habits” of divisiveness and partisanship, which he said were not the fault of any one campaign. In their political careers these candidates have never really seen much else. What is perhaps more revealing is that for all their experience Mr. Romney and Mrs. Clinton are campaigning as if they had missed the extraordinary shift in national mood. "

But it goes on to say, several column-inches later:

"Indeed, you could look at Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Romney as the realists. They confront politics as it is, rather than engaging in flights of fancy about what it might be. They aren’t just pandering to the base because they need core party voters to win the nomination. They are fighting for principles that separate their side from the other."

Meaning that being a staunch supporter of certain positions isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you truly believe that a given position is absolutely the right thing to do -- and possibly the reason why people support you, to the point where sliding from that toward compromise could lose you that support -- then you're going to want to stay on the side of the angels, and wave that flag high.

My feeling is this: there are principles that you cannot give up and call yourself a Republican, or a Democrat. Put better: there are principles that you cannot abandon and still say that you support the core attitudes of your parties. But those principles are not nearly as immutable as dogmatic idealists would have you believe. You can support the core principle while supporting implementation in a way thats acceptable -- or at least not intolerable -- to the other side. If we've learned one thing from the Republican years, from the actions of people like DeLay, it should be that rigid orthodoxy plays well to the faithful, but in a power-sharing environment, it doesn't get things done.

And getting things done, and being seen to get them done, is the bottom line of politics.