I see that Erik took his Evan Bayh lessons from Ross Douthat who offered that,
America needs politicians who stake out interesting, politically-courageous positions on important policy questions. What it doesn’t need is politicians who occupy the safest possible ground on the great issues of the day, shift slightly left or slightly right depending on the state of public opinion, and then get congratulated by the press for being so independent-minded.
To which Erik quipped,
Reading this, it struck me that there really are two kinds of so-called “moderates” out there. Or maybe even more. Maybe the term “moderate” or “centrist” is just a blanket term used to either applaud or tear down people with whom we agree or disagree.
I love Erik, I really do, but we seem to be on very different tracks right now. Pivoting on Ross’ post by slicing and dicing the various ways in which one may or may not be a moderate is not really the point here.
For my part, I chose, instead, to take my lessons from James Fallows, who for inexplicable reasons I have only just taken to reading religiously. Fallows exhorts Bayh to be bold with his last, election-free year in office,
Unlike everyone else up for election this year, you don’t have to worry how this or that bout of truth-telling will look on Election Day. Let ‘em bitch! You don’t need an interest group to endorse you or a civic club to applaud you any more. Do you think hyperpartisanship is destroying the Senate? Why not call out people — by name, by specific hypocritical move — when you see them doing what they should be ashamed of? I guarantee that the press would eat this up. Why not a ten-month public seminar, through the rest of this year, on who is doing what, and how it could be different? Do you object to personal “holds” on nominations? Make it an issue! You have an idea of some issue where Republicans and Democrats might agree? Be specific about it and see what you can do.
This, I think, is the ultimate take away from Evan Bayh’s exit from politics and it shows up both in Fallows’ and Douthat’s assessments of the situation. It strikes me as truly lamentable that Fallows’ suggestion for Bayh should be something that a politician might consider only upon the lead up to their departure from public life and not the entire point of entering office in the first place.
We’ve become so obsessed with finer and finer toothed political categorizations about who is really, really a conservative (paleo, neo, social, fiscal, movement, Reaganite, dissident…) and who is a RINO. Who is a liberal, who is a progressive, and who is a slack jawed centrist. Who is an independent, who is a libertarian and of those libertarians, which of them are really gliberatians, which of them might be liberaltarians and so forth.
I mean, I’m all for nuance — says the guy who not only refuses to identify with a particular party, but also refuses to identify ideologically — but it seems like lately we’re drowning in the stuff — intently rearranging the chairs on our own collective Titanic with great purpose and meaning.
The question that seems to have surfaced out of Bayh’s departure is less about whether being a moderate is, in itself, good or bad. It is rather: what kind of representative you’re going to be, regardless of what particular stripe you put on in the morning. The fact of the matter is that any particular perspective is going to be capable of bringing certain insights to the table and so each has its own certain value. But Fallows’ and Douthat’s points are, congruously, that representatives of these different perspectives seem less and less inclined to bring much — if anything — to the table because no one is willing to be bold.
Politics — and I don’t claim to have the knowledge enabling me to level a “these days” qualifier — is pablum, it seems mostly to be blasé and most political actors are pale caricatures of the supposed perspectives they represent.
I mean, Evan Bayh stormed off complaining about the hyper-partisanship of the Senate and its inability to get anything done. Fair ball, but I’m not sure what racket Bayh thought he was in. Politics, for all its moments of glory, is a fight — and a bloody good one at that. It matters how you engage in that fight, of course, but Evan Bayh, as so many have pointed out, seemed to be that guy who stood off to the side, sneering at the other participants and then went home because no one would listen to him. If you want to change the nature of the game, then your best bet is to get in there and play it like Michael Jordan did basketball, not shout about the deficiencies of the other players from the sidelines like an obnoxious soccer mom.
The problem is less that there are too many moderates/centrists or not enough real conservatives or too few died in the wool liberals and more that we have precious few Michael Jordans whose whole purpose is to play the game in a bold and definitive way — in a way that actually makes a difference on issues that matter to them and others. Insofar as that is underlying problem of politics, Fallows’ suggestion to Bahy is one that could be applied to any number of different politicians.
And like Fallows, we can always dream that even some of them would look up from the morass of their Very Important Politicizing to take it seriously.
wardsmith 
Tod Kelly 
Tom Van Dyke 
Murali 
James Hanley 
Jaybird 
Fish 
Will Truman 
Human Hireling 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
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It’s much, much smarter to just complain about how you can’t get anything done… then get a job making millions helping congressmen and senators understand that what is good for Eli Lilly is good for the country.
Can’t be pissing off your lobbyist overlords. Bayh will go quietly into that good corner office.
Bayh is a spineless opportunist, nothing more, nothing less.
I agree with Jaybird– the real reason people in Bayh’s position don’t kick out the jams a little is their concern that, if they get too honest, they’ll lose out on the big-bucks job in the private sector that they’re aiming for. In Bayh’s case, I’d love to be proved wrong–I remember, and respected, his father.
I feel like we’re on somewhat similar wavelengths here.
I posted earlier today contrasting Father of the Democrats, Andrew Jackson’s willingness to actually fight opponents and you know risk things with modern Democrats’ propensity for complaining about how hard it is to get things done, while not really trying very hard in the first place/really complaining that they have to compete after already winning an election.
(It’d be so much easier to govern if Republicans/conservatives just didn’t exist or all moved to elsewhere…)
When you write,
That’s the sentiment at the core of my desire for nonpartisan elections. Insofar as the only reasons the ideological labels matter is to determine who deserves the partisan labels. As much as Senator
PalpatineJoe Lieberman is rather universally disliked, I actually liked the political discussion surrounding his decisions w/r/t health care. Instead of talking about the politics of D versus R, it was really the only time, journalists were discussing whether his positions had to do with Connecticut’s interests, his personal interests, his personality. I think the discussion – if not the actions – was an improvement.I think you’re spot on, here, Scott. There’s a spot for good politics somewhere between blasé and dueling demagoguery. Apparently, there’s also a spot for both, we appear to have successfully avoid the former to remain stuck at the latter. Whoops.
Getting away from the ideological labels would be great, but then how would the press cover the horse-race? The jockeys all wear brightly colored jerseys for a reason. We are supposed to be able to tell everyone apart in an instant.
Sadly, can you remember a truly bold candidate for anything? Not in my lifetime. The bold get lacerated before they’ve formed their exploratory committees, as we are told what we really want is someone we can relate to and have a beer with. All candidates have to pass the normalcy test or they’re toast. Obama is exotic because he was born in Hawaii, for chrissakes!
I think the often mischaracterized “have a beer with” feeling has more to do with relatability than normalcy. Bold political leadership and relatability aren’t mutually exclusive, I think that’s how liberals felt about President Obama on the primary campaign trail. I don’t think the boldness of Jack Kennedy made him seem less relatable, and certainly if you go back that was the hallmark characteristic of say Andrew Jackson, whom people felt was a bold advocate – indeed he was – of their politics and a man of the people.
I think Garrett’s point is probably the more accurate one, except for a handful of polemical politicians, power and influence comes from joining the establishment, not taking it on. So it’s a bet, that they’ll get more out of office and life by being risk averse and “boldly” taking on threats to the establishment/political patrons.
That said, I think the press coverage comment (sarcasm?) is a good point. Beltway journalism focuses on parties and image because they’re easy targets, not because they’re particularly useful and because they drive the conversation they make the not-useful suddenly important and relevant. Without parties, politicians would still be liable to labels, but different ones, ones that matter.
People don’t particularly care whether it’s the D’s or R’s that are up or down. However, if Senator so and so is pushing for auto subsidies and Senator such and such is pushing for rail subsidies, then we can talk about whether auto or rail subsidies is better policy, not which is an electoral winner.
” However, if Senator so and so is pushing for auto subsidies and Senator such and such is pushing for rail subsidies, then we can talk about whether auto or rail subsidies is better policy, not which is an electoral winner.”
I’m not so sure. Either way, you’re still subject to the political processes. We’d just be talking about which was an electoral winner for that particular Senator, rather than for their party bloc.
In any case, it bears repeating that parties formed organically. You abolish parties, and de-facto parties would form anyway, just like they did in the 1790s despite the founders expressly hating the idea.
Yes, but I think it connects the political processes to the reality of what they represent (interests) rather than floating in a sea of vague understanding which is what we have now.
So, yes, some journalist somewhere would write a story about how they were pursuing these policies for electoral interests but the why would be less obscure. Instead of leaving it at “because he’s a republican/democrat/whig” the article would have to include the specific interest he’s representing. It’s in his electoral interests because he supports auto subsidies that would benefit his auto producing state. Which then begets a policy discussion on autos rather than another round of how terrible D’s/R’s/W’s are….
IOW, the parties are supposed to act as short hand for a platform of interests but in reality they’ve obscured political interests (in the same way holding companies can obscure actual ownership) and deflect attention onto themselves and away from the actual issues that divide parties and politicians which, as luck would have it, divide constituencies as well.
It’s less about fundamentally changing things than it is about greater clarity in the process.
Also, I should point out that here I’m talking about the problems of partisan identification, but in my proposed solution it wasn’t to ban the parties, it was to make elections explicitly nonpartisan and revoke the special status that political parties get (ala elections and primaries) so over time they’re legally reinforced status as organized public interest groups would be less cartel like.
So the point is less “ooh the parties are bad,” than it is “ooh the way we use parties and protect their status in the political process is detrimental to the process…let’s try to fix that.”
now that I write this, that’s a surprisingly good analogy the political parties as holding companies for actual interests.
So not only do they (and can they) hide the actual array of interests supporting them but they obscure and limit the liability of those interests w/r/t their participation in the political process.
Okay, that I can agree with. Especially since it would also do away with the ridiculous primary-election system, which halfway-disenfranchises people who don’t register with a party, except in the handful of open-primary states.
Unfortunately, non-partisan elections would remove only one label of many. Though I suppose the labels could end up being more useful (pro-more highways candidate vs. pro-light rail candidate), I wouldn’t be too hopeful. As always, candidates would hold various positions on various issues, so the need for a shorthand description (not just for the Beltway “journalists”, but also for pollsters, bloggers, barstool pundits, et al) would still arise. Then we’re right back to poorly applied, broad labels – they just wouldn’t be donkeys and elephants.
I don’t know what the hell James Fallows is smoking here. Something form the seventies. The Birch-Evan contrast has been made and made again. Evan has made his view of the point of public service fairly clear, and has rounded things out with a flamboyant roundhouse kick to the gut of he cause of movement on major issues, precisely the stated reason for his departure. His intent couldn’t be any plainer — and it’s precisely to the opposite pole of doing anything close to bold with his final year. I like James Fallows, but this is just wishful nonsense.
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