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Anonymous
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Why Didn't Obama Change Washington?
In addition to campaigning on specific policy issues, such as ending the war in Iraq (done) and passing a more-or-less universal health-care bill (done), in 2008, Barack Obama promised to end the partisan bickering in Washington. At that he failed. Both sides agree on that but their explanations are completely different Democrats say that on Jan. 20, 2009 at noon (or maybe before that), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made his now-famous decision that his top legislative priority was to make sure Obama would be a one-term President. As a consequence, Senate Republicans did everything they could to block Obama at every turn.
Republicans have a different explanation. They say Obama just went ahead and tried to carry out his program without taking their wishes into consideration and this caused the emnity. However, it is hard to see how this is true. The health-care plan, for example, is a virtual copy of the plan the very conservative Heritage Foundation put forward starting in 1989 and which the Republicans have been pushing for over 20 years. This is the plan Mitt Romney passed in Massachusetts. Many in Obama's party were angry with him for adopting the Republican plan instead of a system more like the Canadian single-payer system. The truth is, it is unlikely anything Obama could have done would have reduced the amount of partisanship in Washington.
The core problem is modern technology. Through polling, microtargeting, and other campaign techniques, the Democrats try to position themselves just far enough to the right that they can get 50.1% of the vote and the Republicans position themselves just far enough to the left to get 50.1%. It doesn't always work, but campaign gurus like Democrat David Axelrod and Republican Karl Rove aim for this, despite what some of their party members may be yelling. The net result is that the country is pretty evenly divided, each party thnking that God is on its side, and politics has become war. It wasn't always this way. During the Eisenhower administration the parties got along just fine but that era is long gone.
If Mitt Romney is elected President, he will certainly make a plea that we need to overcome partisanship and all work together. But with memories of Republican obstruction so fresh in the minds of the Democrats, it remains to be seen whether they would cooperate if the situation arises.
Interesting- especially if you have followed/studied the Health Care Issue and see like the author says that a major part of Obamacare has been the core plan of the Repub Healthcare plan going back til at least 1976 when Nixon came out with an employer "mandate" plan...In fact when GW campaigned with Health Care reform as his #1 issue, I expected this would be the plan he would put forward- and one of the main reasons I supported him... Instead he decided invading nations was more important- and did nothing on healthcare insurance..
And like the writer says- the Repub party has changed drastically...
The parties new radicalism and refusal to work bipartisanly for what is best for the country definitely moved me further away from their tent....