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I have a thought to add on what I think is an important broader point to Darcy's post last night on the lack of opportunity for bipartisanship.
The point for me is what happens when you pursue this game anyway. In every election, Democratic Party institutional structures (principally the party committees and, if a Democrat is President, the White House) target vulnerable Republicans, many of whom are moderates. Think DeWine-Brown, Chafee-Whitehouse, Talent-McCaskill, Collins-Allen, Sununu-Shaheen, Smith-Merkley. If Specter had not switched, he would have a big bulls-eye on his back, too. They also target moderates and drive them into retirement with the threat of a strong challenger-see Warner, John. They also target open seats where voters may have elected moderate Republicans- there are places, for example, where moderate Republicans decide not to run because they are facing a high-profile, highly-recruited Democrat who will mop the floor with them.
Targeting resources in this way keeps moderates out of the House and Senate and decreases opportunities for bipartisanship. Yet the White House keeps insisting on bipartisanship, and we find ourselves in a no-win scenario. If this were 2002, the Republicans looking at our side across the negotiating table probably would have been Chafee, Snowe, Collins (at least initially), Specter, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and maybe DeWine or Voinovich. Instead, we're dealing with Grassley, Enzi, and Snowe. Why? Because we kicked out all the rest (and tried to beat Collins with Tom Allen). That is a major ideological shift. When you have this going on, and the White House keeps pursuing bipartisanship, it is self-defeating. Instead of compromising with a Lincoln Chafee, you find yourself compromising with a John McCain. If you beat McCain, you find yourself at the table with a Saxby Chambliss. And so forth.
The positive result of this is that you eventually find yourself with such a hard-right, "party of no" Senator, like Kyl or someone, that won't even come to the table, and Obama can do his "well, I reached out and tried" shtick and then muscle something through. I don't care as much about window dressing bipartisanship, like Obama doing that shtick or holding inauguration dinners for "my dear friend Sen. McCain", so whatever. But my concern is that Obama's philosophy does not line up with the "muscle something through" way of doing things, and that he will diddle around for months and try and move to the right, chasing whichever Senator he has to deal with further and further to the right to get to their position instead of telling them to fuck off. That's where you find the negative result. My point to add onto Darcy's post is that the blind pursuit of bipartisanship becomes a dangerous game where you both waste the nation's time at the negotiating table and/or you end up with a bill so devoid of progressive principles it's not worth doing anything on.
This whole set-up reminds me of the prophecy in the Harry Potter series- "neither can live while the other survives." You can't have (a) a strategy of targeting moderates (b) an insistence upon bipartisanship, and (c) a willingness to drag things on/not muscle legislation when you can't get bipartisanship, all at the same time. Something has to give. The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders have to pick and choose, and for our country's sake, I hope they give up this blind pursuit of bipartisanship.
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