INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS Bipartisan compromise Redistricting Partisan leaders Opponents' traits Big majorities Party differences Reduced partisanship ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Bipolarization · Us Versus Them

By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 30, 2007

Although he was high-minded in many ways, Thomas Jefferson showed little tolerance for his political opponents. When he was a Republican vice president serving under Federalist President John Adams, he wrote a letter to a fellow Virginian comparing that administration to a "reign of witches."

Yet after winning the presidency in 1800, a contest that was even more contentious than 2000's, Jefferson tried to cool the partisan tensions of the day in his Inaugural Address, famously declaring, "We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists."

It might take a moment like that in 2009 to breach the divide between the Republican and Democratic parties that has developed into a chasm since the 1990s. It would almost certainly require a new president who genuinely campaigns and governs as a uniter, not a divider.

To many observers, the extreme polarization in Washington is a natural, unsurprising reaction to Congress's close divisions in recent years and to George W. Bush's narrow victories in 2000 and 2004. When the balance of power can tip in either direction, every major issue can become hotly contested -- and often is. At the same time, redistricting has made a substantial number of House seats so safe that incumbents have little incentive to reach out to the other party's voters.

But even if conditions change -- Congress isn't closely divided, a presidential nominee wins in a landslide, and House districts become more competitive -- the two major parties are not naturally inclined to work together or to view it in their self-interest to do so. Both want political supremacy, and they regularly invoke Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition as their goal.

Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, contends that Bush's poor performance gives Democrats a "Hoover moment" -- a chance not only to capture the White House because of the failure of a Republican president but also to expand the party's numbers on Capitol Hill.

Republicans likewise hark back to the days of Herbert Hoover and FDR. Speaking at a Princeton University conference [PDF] on political polarization shortly after Bush was re-elected, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., noted that the New Deal "drives a lot of Republican political thinking." The GOP, he said, is "really interested in becoming a permanent majority, not a coalition-governing mishmash with Democrats."

Deals Could Be Struck
Could 2008 produce a decisive electoral outcome that would give one of the parties a strong governing hand? When the answers of National Journal's Congressional Insiders and Political Insiders are combined, a slight majority of the Democrats, 52 percent, say they think that the coming election will produce majorities on Capitol Hill large enough to pass legislation without having to make major compromises with the minority party.

Republican Insiders, who are anxious about their prospects next fall, overwhelmingly believe that neither party will win that kind of control of Congress in 2008. And in the absence of such a majority, Insiders of both parties profess that they would rather work together to pass bipartisan legislation than simply retreat to their partisan corners and get ready for the next election.

If that stated desire to work together is sincere, there is no shortage of deals that could be struck soon after the next president's inauguration. Cesar Conda, former domestic policy chief for Vice President Dick Cheney, speculates that the recent proposal by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to restrict the reach of the alternative minimum tax as part of a tax overhaul package could spur a bipartisan compromise in 2009 if the AMT hasn't been scaled back by then.

"I do think a [Ronald] Reagan 1986-style bipartisan tax reform is possible," said Conda, now a principal at the lobbying firm Navigators. "I could see a compromise where the Democrats got some AMT relief, the Republicans got some extension of the Bush [tax] cuts, and everyone got a corporate rate cut while simplifying the tax code somewhat."

Pat Griffin, who headed the White House legislative-affairs office during President Clinton's first term, agrees that major tax legislation is likely early in the next administration, but he cautions that it is "tough" for the parties to find common ground on most economic issues. Turning to foreign policy, Griffin adds, "There's going to be some pent-up desire to have a more rational position on Iraq." Achieving a bipartisan agreement on the war might be easier once Bush's personal stake in that policy is no longer a factor.

Although the leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have staked out positions on immigration and health care that appear to make compromise with the other party unlikely -- on immigration, for instance, Democrats favor a path to legalization while Republicans emphasize border security -- some observers believe that those issues are pressing enough to trigger deals.

"Each side is recognizing that what the other side is espousing has some veracity to it," said GOP strategist Bill Greener, a partner in Greener and Hook, a communications and political consulting firm. "There's a critical mass around the need to do something, even if it's grudging."

There are also political incentives for each side to back away from the extreme elements in its party. As Greener puts it, "Democrats can't be seen as not wanting to take care of the borders. And Republicans can't be seen as hostile to everyone in the world other than white males."

But on an issue such as Social Security, which has historically bedeviled both parties and has already caused a minor flap in the 2008 presidential race with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's rivals questioning her candor on the issue, operatives in both parties are skeptical that Congress could achieve a quick bipartisan breakthrough. Even though many lawmakers in both parties agree that it's a good idea to take action sooner rather than later to ensure Social Security's solvency for decades to come, the long-term nature of the problem has removed any sense of urgency.

"If it's true that you do have more time, they're going to take more time," Griffin predicts.

Setting the Tone
Democratic and Republican Insiders alike profess a willingness to compromise and generally agree that cooperation would be good for the country and would perhaps even be in their political best interest. But the majority of both parties' members are pessimistic that the hyperpartisanship that characterizes Washington will diminish much in the next several years.

"The problem that we have today is that the leaders have the problem of having to cater to the extremes of their caucuses. And that prevents them from reaching compromises with the other party," says former House Democratic Whip Tony Coelho.

For the capital's movers and shakers, putting aside the rancorous partisan battles that have dominated Washington and turning to cooperation and compromise would not be easy. "Because of the extreme hostility over the past decade, that has made it hard for any party leader to even try to appear to be moving to the other side," Coelho notes. "The question is, how do you get the party leaders to let loose of the past and try to govern in some sort of compromising way to get the country moving in the way that people want?"

Most observers agree that the Oval Office would have to provide real leadership for the parties to overcome the deeply ingrained suspicion that fouls their relations. To a great extent, the prospects for bipartisanship could depend on the kind of campaign the next president wages in winning office. In 2004, Bush managed to narrowly win re-election primarily by mobilizing his conservative, largely Republican base. And his second term has lacked the kind of bipartisan success that produced the No Child Left Behind Act in his first term.

By contrast, if the next president captures the White House by attracting substantial numbers of swing voters and moderates, the breadth of the winning coalition could significantly influence the new administration's governing strategy.

"More than who's elected, it depends on how they get elected," Griffin said. "If they win with the middle, they'll find something to do business on. If they barely win it and it's about turning out your base -- left or right -- that limits what you can do."

A Democratic sweep in 2008 -- with the party winning the White House and getting close to the magic number of 60 Senate votes to overcome a Republican filibuster -- could make bipartisanship unlikely. Party loyalists would want the president to adopt a minimalist strategy of picking up the few Republican senators needed to push through a heavily Democratic agenda on near-party-line votes.

But Griffin, who points out that the Democrats had 57 senators in the first two years of the Clinton administration, says that pursuing a partisan strategy would be a tempting but dangerous course. "I think it would be a big mistake," he warns. "That's not to say on certain issues you shouldn't do it; but if that's the strategy, it will be as short-lived as every other super-majority we've had."

A Truce?
Whether the next president will have the power to curb the smash-mouth politics of Washington is unclear. A honeymoon for new presidents has grown out of political fashion. In 1953, the first year of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed an average job-approval rating of 56 percent among Democrats in the Gallup Poll. And in President Kennedy's first year in office, 58 percent of Republicans said they approved of the job he was doing.

Since then, presidents' first-year job-approval scores from members of the opposite party have fallen steadily. Soon after Bush took office in 2001, his job-approval rating from Democrats hovered just above 30 percent. After 9/11, Bush's popularity soared among Democrats and Republicans alike, but that rally-round-the-flag effect did not last. By the start of Bush's second term, fewer than 20 percent of Democrats approved of how he was handling the presidency.

Still, scholars view the outcome of the next presidential election as the most likely catalyst for declaring a truce in Washington's partisan wars. "It's going to depend very heavily on the [winning] nominee and how the vote comes up," said Fred Greenstein, a retired professor of politics at Princeton University, who is an authority on presidential leadership.

Greenstein is not without some hope in this regard. He pointed to the recent elections in France, a country that has seen its share of intense political bickering, where Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidency by campaigning on a platform of reform but appointed members of the opposition Socialist Party to his Cabinet. "It would take someone who was unusually selfless and politically savvy, and maybe some of the resemblance to the French election with a paradigm-breaking message that resonates in the polls and that makes it easy to break the [recent] patterns," Greenstein says.

Given the skepticism among Democratic and Republican elites that the friction between the parties is going to be reduced any time soon, working to achieve a truce on the home front will be a huge task for any new president.