Ha ha! A bit like
‘Infertility is hereditary. If your parents didn’t have any children, most likely you won’t either.’
She has been in the House since 1987 and did not assume a leadership role until 2002 when she became Minority Whip. You don’t get to a position of leadership in Congress by being a moderate who is open to working closely with the other party and that goes for both parties.
I would not support Pelosi for the sole reason that she is a zealot and drives a wedge between the Democrats and Republicans. Honestly, I don’t care that much if the overall political needle goes 5% to the left or right. However, because of hard heads on either side, the middle zone of what legislature cannot be passed has increased to beyond the range of reasonable compromise. If political dysfunction in congress it to end, people like Nancy Pelosi cannot be in office.
Certainly, she is not the only person who is responsible for this divide, but she is part of the problem. The effectiveness of a politician depends on the overall situation and the environment in which he/she will work. Effectiveness cannot fully be determined by the individual merits of that politician.
Remember that the whip’s role is to give in as little as possible (hence the title ‘whip’). The majority leader’s job is to get legislation accomplished that meets most of the party’s demands, and that requires compromising when you don’t have the votes. People’s temperments may suit them better for one job or the other, but it’s also true that the role defines what you ought to be doing as well.
In voting games, the problem is that when one party becomes give-me-everything-I-want-or-I-won’t-cooperate, the other party basically has to choose between getting nothing done and just abandoning everything it stands for. When one party acts this way, the other party pretty much has to do the same if it is going to remain relevant at all. As a result, paralysis. Paralysis becomes even more acute when you can’t just borrow more to try to soothe over differences and keep people happy.
It won’t come as a surprise to say that I think the Republicans were the first to play this game and the Democrats have had to play hard-line on the other side just to survive (and they don’t play hard-line nearly as well as the Republicans do; they have a tendency to cave in in the name of looking like they are cooperating, which is something that liberals tend to value and conservatives tend to feel is just being weak).
However, what may come as a surprise is that I don’t think that Republicans became extreme just because they are a bunch of autistic crybabies throwing tantrums (though I do think some of the more extreme ones are). I think it has to do with how media has changed since the advent of cable TV, the 24-hour news cycle, and the internet. What’s happened is that it is harder for anyone to make compromises without someone else instantly tracking them and getting back to the electorate that they have been “sold out,” even if that “sellout” was just tiny and necessary to get something else more important done, or to rack up favors that can be used later to support other more important issues.
The reason why the Republicans were first to play this game may have to do with the fact that they were the opposition party as the Internet and 24-hour news became parts of everyone’s lives. It was more necessary for them during the Clinton years to be united and hardline because they were the opposition. Newt’s “Contract with America” was really the first push on this (based on the Christian Right’s voter mobilization efforts, but expanded secularly), and Grover Norquist followed up with his “never ever increase taxes” pledge tracking. But the development of the technologies and new direct connections with the electorate then made it impossible to get deals done without immediate backlash.
The Democrats had to do this during the Bush years, but they aren’t as good at it as the Republicans, in part because liberals value listening to other opinions in the way that conservatives just think is weak and blasphemous (esp for the religous ones).
Nice post bchad. What kind of catalyst will it take to break this cycle?
I read something interesting the other day saying that part of the reason for the paralysis is because they wanted to make Obama look bad for reelection and if he wins on Tuesday (and not be there in 2016) we could see some easing of all this and thus something could get done for the fiscal cliff. Personally I found it was a little bit of a stretch but I would like to hear what you think.