If there’s one lesson the past few years of partisan politics has taught us, it’s this: Democrats think they’re right. Republicans think a lot of things, but they certainly think Democrats are wrong. And wishy-washy independents tend to not like it when one party advances its agenda too quickly.
Let’s take a look at the president’s first 18 months. Barack Obama didn’t ask Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for a meeting until several months into his presidency. Without working with Republicans on compromises, Democrats passed a $1 trillion health care reform bill and a $700 billion stimulus package. Those big scary numbers scared wishy-washy independents, so their support trended toward the Republicans.
I’m not a political strategist. I don’t get paid exorbitant amounts of cash to stare at polls all day. I was able to figure that out by reading Huffington Post, Drudge Report and the New York Times every day for a few years.
Yet for some reason, House Democrats don’t seem to understand what any pedestrian political junkie can realize. On Wednesday, they voted 150-43 to keep Nancy Pelosi as their leader.
The Democrats are still the majority party. Barack Obama will still set the agenda. Together, they must tackle one question: Will they take the initiative to find some common ground with Republicans?
The answer, after the Pelosi decision, is clear: No, they won’t.
The California soon-to-be-ex-speaker was made into a talking point for Republicans nationwide during the 2010 campaign, from the highest profile candidates all the way down to Chad Lee, the Mt. Horeb businessman who lost horribly to Rep. Tammy Baldwin. They used her name as a metonym for out-of-touch liberals in Washington.
Given the clobbering that Democrats were handed in the House, you would think they start moving in a different direction. You would think they would bring in some new blood willing to forge some kind of coalition with John Boehner of Ohio, the presumed speaker.
Instead, Democrats will continue to demand that they’re right. Pelosi will keep pushing liberal policies. Obama will continue to avoid Washington politicking. They will all sit around the room, talk about how righteous they are, talk about how evil the Republicans are, and the partisanship will continue.
Whether Democrats really are righteous and Republicans really are evil isn’t really relevant at the moment.
What’s important now is what’s best for America – and the answer is not to remain mired in deadlock. That’s what’s so troubling about the Democrats’ choice to keep Pelosi around: She is a toxic figure. I’d like to say that she can change, but if she really believed in extending an olive branch to Republicans, she probably would have chosen not to run for House leader, knowing that doing so would be in the interest of the country.
One thing is clear: every day that Pelosi and Obama go without changing their bullheaded ways, it becomes more and more likely that D.C. will have a new sheriff in town come January 2013.
Kevin Bargnes ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and history.
