Bi-partisanship at its best:
Stevens also said that Senator Daniel Inouye, the Democrat from Hawaii who Stevens refers to as his "brother," was in Alaska with his wife, to join Stevens while he campaigns across the state (Inouye didn't join Stevens at this rally). Inouye is scheduled to appear with Stevens in Anchorage at the Alaska Federation of Natives' Leadership Roundtable Partnership for Affordable Energy at the Hotel Captain Cook Tuesday morning and at the dedication of the Opinsky Mail Center at 4141 Postmark Drive Tuesday afternoon.
Stevens said he would fly to Fairbanks today to join President Bush and meet U.S. troops at Eielson Air Force Base, and return to Anchorage this evening.
As Republicans return money from Ted Stevens hand over fist, the only politicians will to still appear with Stevens appear to by Hawaii Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye and George W. Bush. Nothing like a sitting U.S. Senator working against creating more Senators from his own party.
In my experience, this is what bi-partisanship appears to most frequently mean in Congress: long-term, powerful, elite insiders protecting one another. While increased partisanship is not a sufficient threat to make our political system less responsive to powerful elites in and of itself, it is a partial threat that moves power away from individual masters of the universe like Ted Stevens and toward more collective party structures. This is actually one of the reasons why the punditry fosters a public hatred against a shadow partisan enemy that is responsible for... something.
There is an individualist streak in the American psyche that recoils against partisanship, but the truth is that the vast majority, like 99.9%, of Americans are not personally powerful enough to make even the smallest dent on the political process without joining up with a larger collective structure like a political party. Unless you are individually wealthy, have a large media platform from which to pontificate, or have accrued decades worth of favors and relationship from being in Congress, good luck getting anything done on your own. In this regard, Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye are in a very different position than most Americans, and thus have no use for partisanship.
It is always important to keep in mind who would benefit from whatever change is suggested in Washington. When it comes to reducing partisanship, elites would benefit far more than average Americans.
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