Richard Lugar's goodbye: an attack on partisanship.

[Patroklos]

Watching US politics has become like watching a very very slow train that's already on a runaway course. This is why the tea party scares me. It's not bringing guns to rallies or their political stances: it's the uncompromising approach to politics. The all-or nothing. The Grover Norquest tax pledge... that's ruinous.

So adieu, Senator Lugar. I might not agree with you on much, but I can respect that you were at least willing to work with Democrats. I'm sorry you lost your job over that.

US politics is not really as partisan as some would have you believe. The way they get those ridiculous partisan voiting record numbers is by looking only at the votes for things. If you look at who votes against things, it is almost always a bipartisan affair.

That being said, we could use some more bipartisan votes for things, but not just for the sake of it, there has to be legislation worth that effort.

 

[emzie]

It's highly partisan where it matters: issues that are important to both parties (not their individual "special interests"). The inability to come to a compromise on debt reduction, threatening to kick in drastic defence cuts and drastic social security cuts comes to mind. They found working together to be worse than hurting themselves.

 

[Patroklos]

What are these drastic social security cuts you speak of? There is no such threat, those cuts are part what is being caught in the gridlock.

 

[emzie]

What are these drastic social security cuts you speak of? There is no such threat, those cuts are part what is being caught in the gridlock.

Social Security was exempt from the cuts. My mistake. It's 50/50 defence and domestic spending, exempting SS / medicaide / low-income social spending.

Point still stands. Both parties would rather hurt their own interests than work with the other's.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Republican congressmen voting as a block on most major issues under the threat of being no longer supported by their party, while substantially increasing the amount of cloture in the Senate in recent history isn't "partisan" at all.

Congress has clearly become more and more polarized ever since the Clinton administration. Childish loyalty oaths have no place in politics in a free and open democratic society.

 

[cegman]

From what I've read about Murdock he is a lot like Ron Johnson out of Wisconsin. He definitely has a shot. He is not like the Tea party candidate who ran in Nevada.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't know why "partisan" is such a scare-word in the United States. Your problem isn't partisanship, it's that you've only got two parties and they're both awful.


My suspicion is that its just part of how American political discourse is structured these days, namely, as constant struggle to present yourself as lacking in actual politics or theory of any kind, but merely channelling a poorly-understood pagan deity known to its followers as "Common Sense". It's the notion of "post-ideology" given teeth, because any disagreement becomes just as much an insult to the contending parties as taking the wrong line on the People's Republic of Howayatoday among the most fractious Trotskyite sectlet. After all, you're just Stating The Facts, and they're getting their slimy opinions all over the place!

If you learned to be a bit more overtly ideological, you'd probably get a lot more done.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't know why "partisan" is such a scare-word there. Your problem isn't partisanship, it's that you've only got two parties and they're both awful.

My suspicion is that its just part of how American political discourse is structured these days, namely, as constant struggle to present yourself as lacking in any actual politics or theory of any kind, but merely channelling a poorly-understood pagan deity known to its followers as "Common Sense". It's the notion of "post-ideology" given fangs, because any disagreement becomes just as much an insult to the contending parties as taking the wrong line on the People's Republic of Howayatoday among the most fractious Trotskyite sectlet. After all, you're just Stating The Facts, and they're getting their slimy opinions all over the place. If you learned to be a bit more overtly ideological, you'd probably get a lot more done.

That's not really it. Granted most of the time the 2 parties really weren't all that different. But most of the time people went to Congress and they spent years there and they got to know people. People of both parties. Congress worked not on the basis of parties, but on the basis of personal relationships. Party hardly mattered at all much of the time.

What changed is the money now needed to be competitive in Congressional elections. Members of Congress spend as much of their time raising money as they do at their job. And because of that the time that they used to spend forging the personal relationships that made Congress worked are gone. It's easy to attack someone you never speak to face to face, like many Congresspeople do now. It's much harder to attack someone you golf with, drink with, smoke with, play poker with, have lunch and dinner with, which is what members spent much of their time doing in the past.

 

[downtown]

They mostly think of it in the same terms as moderate Republicans. That is they mainly care about jobs numbers (whatever the environmental costs) and don't care about how much the jobs pay or if they offer good working conditions. To them, a job is a job.

I personally know Donnelly very well. I was a campaign staffer for him in 2010, and we have written a few times since then. I will likely spend a weekend this summer driving to Gary and making phone calls for him.

It would be a mistake to say he is indifferent to the calls of the poor. Joe's base of support primarily came from some of the poorest areas north of Indy, and he was one of the only voices for Indiana's organized labor and working class.

I know Lugar and Murdock as well. Murdock is actually crazypants. He will likely win, but Joe is the best choice the Dems have, especially since Donnelly's district got redrawn to make it impossible for a Dem to win this year.

 

[downtown]

BTW, Rasmussen has this race tied at 42% right now.

 

[cegman]

I have been reading an interesting explanation to why the conservatives are against compromise. They feel that the democrats want bigger government and they want no growth to government. When there is a compromise it never is less government. It is compromising for a smaller win for the Democrats who can come back later to try to get more.

This is partially why for many of the conservatives like the tea party group the Bush era is such a difficult pill to swallow because it was no longer compromising but all out growth of government. It was a lot of ground lost for small government people (Not NO GOVERNMENT, SMALL GOVERNMENT).

 

[kramerfan86]

I have been reading an interesting explanation to why the conservatives are against compromise. They feel that the democrats want bigger government and they want no growth to government. When there is a compromise it never is less government. It is compromising for a smaller win for the Democrats who can come back later to try to get more.

This is partially why for many of the conservatives like the tea party group the Bush era is such a difficult pill to swallow because it was no longer compromising but all out growth of government. It was a lot of ground lost for small government people (Not NO GOVERNMENT, SMALL GOVERNMENT).

Except the republicans DONT want smaller government, this is a grand lie they roll out there to the huddled masses. They want bigger government just in the security and military sectors instead of the social sectors. You already have republicans trying to roll back the defense cuts that were part of the debt ceiling deal.

 

[Leoreth]

And also, the argument boils down to "see, the Republicans don't want to compromise because that would mean compromises!".

 

[Cutlass]

Except the republicans DONT want smaller government, this is a grand lie they roll out there to the huddled masses. They want bigger government just in the security and military sectors instead of the social sectors. You already have republicans trying to roll back the defense cuts that were part of the debt ceiling deal.

The thing to always keep in mind is that the Republican voter does not vote for small government politicians. In fact, has routinely voted for the biggest government of big government political leaders, like Nixon, Reagan, and GW Bush, all of whom they not only elected, but once those presidents proved their big government cred, they reelected.

Even the Tea Partiers are not legitimately small government. Few of them have made real efforts to cut the size and scope of government. Only taxes, and then leave the hard work to others.

 

[cegman]

And all democrats want are abortions.

I don't know if it is just my point of view skewing but I keep hearing about politicians and conservative media that would like to cut government. Not taxes but government. I don't hear people like John Stossel saying that we need to cut taxes. I hear him saying we need to cut the red tape.

Now for the politicians well there is that Ron Paul fellow who *GASP* wants to cut the government. He has a fairly large and growing following. He may have some ideas that are bad but guess what... he wants small government.

 

[Leoreth]

"Cut government" is not a political goal, it's a talking point. What do they want to cut specifically?

 

[Farm Boy]

They don't have any good choices in that race. It's either a far-right nutjob or a blue dog Democrat that could care less about protecting the environment or helping the poor.

This actually made me a little sad. In a thread lamenting the ability of politicians to compromise you lumped the moderate Democrats in with the Tea Party.

 

[downtown]

Ron Paul was also a highly ineffective legislative leader. Not many of things Paul actually espoused got done.

Gridlock is exactly what a lot of the GOP leadership wants...but it isn't something that benefits the voters of Indiana.

 

[Cutlass]

And all democrats want are abortions.

I don't know if it is just my point of view skewing but I keep hearing about politicians and conservative media that would like to cut government. Not taxes but government. I don't hear people like John Stossel saying that we need to cut taxes. I hear him saying we need to cut the red tape.

Now for the politicians well there is that Ron Paul fellow who *GASP* wants to cut the government. He has a fairly large and growing following. He may have some ideas that are bad but guess what... he wants small government.

But what, specifically, do they want to cut? What, specifically, do they want to do they act to cut? What, specifically, do they actually work at cutting? The answer is "taxes", not spending. "Cutting government" is rhetoric. "Cutting red tape" is rhetoric. "Across the board cuts" is rhetoric. "Freeze or rollback spending" are rhetoric. When it comes to doing the actual hard work of ending or reforming programs, where are they? Not doing the hard work, that's for certain.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Dec...-sold-out-House-freshmen-aren-t-who-they-seem

It's easy to make blanket pronouncements. It's hard to actually govern. And it's even harder to get reelected when you actually tell your constituents that they have to settle for less because of what you worked for after they sent you to Congress.

 

[Murky]

This actually made me a little sad. In a thread lamenting the ability of politicians to compromise you lumped the moderate Democrats in with the Tea Party.

My apologies. I guess at the time I was frustrated and didn't realize it was lumping them together. The biggest obvious difference between moderate Democrats and Tea Party Republicans is that the Democrats are much better at compromise. If the compromise still leads us down a dangerous path then both of them do us are stilling doing us a disservice. For instance, our current lack of action on climate change is a very dangerous course. So far, I've yet to see a moderate Democrat that sees it as an high priority issue. Some even are in the denialist camp.