Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
—Richard Armour, American poet and novelist
IN THE 1994 MIDTERM CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS, FOR THE FIRST time in more than forty years, Newt Gingrich led the Republicans to a majority in the House of Representatives. On November 6, 1998, the legendary firebrand from Georgia resigned as Speaker of the House and relinquished his congressional seat. Gingrich had been Speaker for less than four years. He was pushed overboard by the very people he had led to power. In an effort to head off the mutiny, Gingrich placed a call to the House Republican leadership in which he said, “I am willing to lead, but I won’t allow cannibalism.” The cannibals prevailed.
Nine years earlier, on May 31, 1989, another House Speaker—this one a Democrat—was forced from office. In his farewell address to the House, Jim Wright of Fort Worth, Texas, urged his colleagues to “bring this period of mindless cannibalism to an end.” Wright resigned after failing to squelch a relentless ethics campaign concerning allegations that he had received laundered money from organized labor through the sale of a book he had written. In one of political history’s great ironies, the campaign to oust Wright was led by Newt Gingrich.
It said much about modern Washington that both Gingrich and Wright invoked “cannibalism” to describe the process that led to their ouster. Both men had become victims of a climate of political polarization, rooted in the 1960s, which by the late 1980s had decimated bipartisanship in national politics. Wright and Gingrich had contributed to the climate, and it ended up consuming their careers.
Forty-four days after Gingrich’s resignation, Republican Bob Livingston of Louisiana, chosen by his fellow Republicans to succeed Gingrich, suddenly announced his resignation from Congress. He, too, had become a victim of the “cannibals.” In Livingston’s case, an extramarital affair with a staff member—which had occurred several years before but was about to become public—placed him in the boiling pot. On that same day, December 19, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach the forty-third President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton.
One man who would be instrumental in the effort to oust Newt Gingrich from the Speaker’s office, and in the impeachment of President Clinton, was Congressman Tom DeLay of Sugarland, Texas. DeLay was the Republican majority leader (a position he reached after Gingrich was sacked), and a former pest exterminator who treated Democrats the way he used to treat roaches. DeLay was an admitted and unapologetic partisan. His relentless efforts to keep House Republicans in a disciplined and partisan mode earned DeLay the nickname “the velvet hammer.”
On September 28, 2005, DeLay was indicted by a Democratic Texas prosecutor for laundering campaign contributions. House ethics rules forced DeLay to resign as majority leader while under indictment. DeLay was also dogged by stories about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who had pled guilty to conspiracy to bribe members of Congress. After winning the Republican nomination for his contested House seat, DeLay resigned from Congress. His “safe” Republican district was won by a Democrat in the 2006 general election. The chief proponent of polarization had become another of its victims.
It could be argued that polarization notwithstanding, these politicians got what they deserved. Perhaps, but in each case polarization played a significant role. It was not at all clear that Jim Wright’s book sales were illegal, but the campaign against him was so intense that House Democrats began to feel the “spillover effect” from voters back home. Rather than risk their substantial majority, other Democrats eased Wright out. Similarly, Gingrich was ousted by a cabal of right-wing polarizers, including DeLay, who believed the controversial Gingrich was responsible for Republicans losing House seats in the 1998 election.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been pushing the limits of propriety for a very long time. Before the current climate of polarization, these activities, although not condoned, were often ignored. Most players in Washington, including the press, were aware of JFK’s sexual escapades, but purposely overlooked them. It is fair to say Bob Livingston’s sexual encounters did not reach the excesses of Jack Kennedy’s.
Bill Clinton’s behavior was certainly reprehensible. But few political observers believe that his sexual activities would have risen to the level of impeachment were it not for the polarizing climate gripping Congress in the late 1990s.
Tom DeLay was indicted for laundering federal campaign contributions to Texas state legislative races. It was a blatant attempt to add to the GOP’s already sizable majorities in the state legislature. DeLay needed more Republican legislators to redraw Texas congressional district lines to favor Republicans in the 2004 election. District lines were not scheduled to be redrawn until after the census in 2010. Would DeLay have tried such a dangerous political move were it not for polarization? Indeed, would Tom DeLay have been the House majority leader without raging polarization? Highly unlikely.
James Q. Wilson, the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, is one of the more sober observers of American public policy. In a February 2006 essay for Commentary magazine, “How Divided Are We?” Wilson made some observations about the chronic polarization that has overtaken contemporary politics.
Wilson defines polarization as “an intense commitment to a candidate, a culture, or an ideology that sets people in one group definitively apart from people in another, rival group.” In other words, the goal of polarization is to knock off the other side before they knock you off. In the last twenty-five years, the political graveyard has been gaining residents at an alarming rate. Our man Wilson, academic tone aside, has got the political players right. To paraphrase Wilson: polarization occurs when the opposing camp regards a candidate as not simply wrong, but corrupt and wicked. The assumption is that one side is absolutely right, the other absolutely wrong, and the wrong side deserves to die absolutely.
Before settling on Wilson’s definition of polarization, we considered several others, but rejected them as too broad and extreme. In the latter category, one is worth mentioning. In “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (1965), Richard Hofstadter wrote, “Polarization in its extremity entails the belief that the other side is in thrall to a secret conspiracy that is using devious means to obtain control over society.”
In today’s vernacular: “Liberals control the media, the universities, and Hollywood. These commies use their control to force a radical, godless agenda on all God-loving patriotic Amarrricans, especially kids.” Or, “Conservatives, working through the religious right and Big Biddness, conspired with their hired neoconservative wing nuts to invade Iraq so the United States and Halliburton could get control of oil.”
Now, we know it is a narrow definition, but it raises a question: Could liberals or conservatives who are honestly concerned with the public interest see themselves holding such a belief about the other side? Sure they could, and there are a lot more of these polarizing, conspiracy-believing, boot-stomping members of both parties than you might think. And we’re not talking your Al Sharptons or David Dukes here, either. We’re talking about members of Congress, party operatives, alternative media bloviators, and think-tank nerds, to name just a few. Sure, only a small (but vocal) number of them publicly embrace the conspiracy theory, but many more secretly agree with them.
When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he gave a pretty obvious answer to a patently dumb question by saying, “Because that’s where the money is.” Using the same logic, this book focuses on Washington, D.C., because that’s where polarization first took root and where it has grown, like kudzu vines, into a mighty ugly but powerful species that has entwined itself into every corner of politics.
Washington is the base of operations for the purveyors of polarization who encourage and/or materially benefit from the confrontation it breeds. Although these activists are a small percentage of the population, their fierce partisanship does much more to define politics at the national level than their numbers suggest. Every effort to put these animals on the endangered-species list has failed miserably. They stick around like your mother-in-law after Thanksgiving, with no intention of leaving.
The polarizing community is not monolithic. It is made up of groups and individuals who contribute to polarization to maintain or enhance their particular interests. Their agendas may be different, but for a successful polarizing climate to be sustained, polarizers must practice their trade on a full-time basis. Polarizers generally fit into one of the following categories:
There are the ideologically driven polarizers, who are always agitating, but at least they are driven by firmly-held beliefs. Their issues are ones of conscience: abortion, gay rights, gun control, separation of church and state. These are the true believers, and you have to admire their profound commitment to ideology. These are ideologues who have no interest in, or belief in, finding a consensus position.
Then there are the polarizers, mostly lobbyists and trade associations, who are defending their self-interest by either defending the status quo, or tearing it down. They are corporations, business groups, and various moneyed special interests that polarize to protect, or enhance, profits for themselves or their membership. Few are driven by ideology. They contribute to both parties to cover themselves. They have no difficulty dancing with politicians like Tom DeLay one day and Nancy Pelosi the next. They follow the power.
There are polarizers who are wedded to one party or the other. Labor unions, trial attorneys, health care providers, and highly regulated industries such as energy fall into this group. These are the polarizers that put massive amounts of campaign money and resources behind one party, and rarely do they dance with the other. This crowd has the most to gain or lose in wave-type elections; they are committed to “base-enhancing” campaign strategies. They are also hyperpartisans willing to destroy the other side if necessary, which is why they are among the most dangerous and intimidating of polarizers.
There are party polarizers made up of party apparatchiks and political consultants whose mission is to dirty up the other side enough so their side can win elections. They have less interest in attracting votes to their candidates than in driving votes away from their opponents. This is the crowd most responsible for the death of civil political debate. Worse, these polarizers make a handsome living by destroying the other side, which encourages them to do whatever it takes to maintain their lifestyle.
Self-described intellectual policy polarizers, generally found in the hundreds of think tanks around Washington, are certain theirs is the right policy, and any counterpolicy is wrongheaded and stupid. This is the crowd that provides superpartisans with incendiary talking points and “factual” evidence to defend their usually extreme policy positions.
Finally, there are the “bottom feeders”—polarizers who make money by keeping politics inflamed in order to sell books, maintain readership, sustain ratings, fill speaking schedules, or sell tickets. (None of which are mutually exclusive.)
The membership of these various polarization categories consists of, but is not limited to, the following: individuals or organized groups; trade associations or single-issue groups; corporations and labor unions; grassroots organizations and members of the media; members of Congress and presidents; political operatives and political campaign committees. In fairness, many did not become polarizers for the sole purpose of fomenting polarization, but by their actions and rigidity of agendas, they became agents of polarization.
Who are the polarizers? The following qualify, as do hundreds of others in their respective categories: Among political operatives, Karl Rove on the right and James Carville on the left stand out. In broadcasting, Sean Hannity on the right and Al Franken on the left are leaders of the pack. In Congress, anti-immigrant congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado on the right and antitrade congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio on the left. Among organizations, the NRA on the right and Handgun Control on the left. Among the bottom feeders are Ann Coulter on the right and Michael Moore on the left. Grassroots groups include MoveOn.org on the left and, on the right, Focus on the Family; presidents that stand out are Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; pundits include Paul Begala on the left and Pat Buchanan on the right.
If the primary goal of these activists is to demonize one another, what’s the chance of finding unity that could actually be in the country’s interest? This raises a more important question: Do political extremists in either party have any interest in unity? Or would common ground alter the status quo that favors their interests (and not necessarily the interest of the country)? Would it hurt their profits, ruin their fund-raising, cut into their political influence, and diminish their sacred power? The answer is painfully obvious. Polarizers could care less about unity. Indeed, finding common ground and consensus is their worst nightmare, especially for the bottom feeders.
But the polarizers haven’t lost much sleep over the possibility that common ground could become a viable political option. As we moved into a new century, polarization maintained an iron grip on Washington politics. Friendships between members of opposing parties, which were once numerous and often led to solid legislative achievements, became increasingly rare (and politically dangerous). Invective on the floor of the House and Senate had replaced and debased political debate. Bipartisanship and consensus were increasingly unreachable as Democratic leaders in Congress pressured members to adhere to the party agenda, while Republican members feared retaliation if they opposed the White House.
Polarizers have become major players in the operation, fund-raising, and message management of the Democratic and Republican parties. Mainstream politicians of both parties learned that any effort to exclude polarized party activists is nearly impossible; controlling them is completely impossible; ignoring them is suicidal. After all, these activists are the largest bloc of voters in party primaries, and in recent years have not hesitated to challenge incumbents in their own party who have strayed too far from the activist agenda.
Witness the primary victory over Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2006 by an anti–Iraq war candidate supported by Democratic activists. After a thirty-year career as a Democrat, which included being the party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2000, Lieberman was denied his party’s nomination to the Senate on a single issue; he supported the Iraq war. Certainly tenure should not guarantee a party nomination, but Lieberman had become a target for national Democratic activists who descended on Connecticut with volunteers and money, forcing him to compete against political forces never before involved in Connecticut politics.
Exit poll data from the 2004 election confirm that an uncomfortably large number of voters cast ballots for the “lesser of two evils” for Congress and president. In effect, these voters cast ballots against the opposition candidates rather than for the nominees of their party. Millions of votes were cast for George W. Bush, not because he was the first choice of voters, but because he wasn’t John F. Kerry, and vice versa.
Rather than play the extremist game, many centrist voters choose not to vote. Although 127 million voters cast ballots in the 2004 presidential campaign, after the most heavily financed voter turnout effort in history, 80 million eligible voters still chose not to cast ballots. That is more than voted for either George Bush or John Kerry. These included eligible voters who had never voted, but it also included millions of registered voters who had voted in the past, but had left the voting population and turned their backs on politics. James Q. Wilson concludes his Commentary essay with this:
Many Americans believe that unbridgeable political differences have prevented leaders from addressing the problems they were elected to address. As a result, distrust of government mounts, leading to an alienation from politics altogether…ordinary voters agree among themselves more than political elites agree with each other—and the elites are far more numerous than they once were.
What Wilson and many other political observers have found is that both political parties have focused less and less on appealing to centrist “swing” voters, and more and more on turning out their activist base to win elections. The base strategy requires that the candidates of the opposing party be transformed into servants of Satan. Karl Rove, the political grand dragon for George W. Bush, took the base-expanding game to new levels in the 2002 midterm election and in the reelection of the president in 2004.
Rove brought the same game plan to the 2006 midterm elections and, in the words of his boss, “took a thumping.” In the process, 2006 produced the lowest recorded turnout in party primaries with only 15.7 percent of registered voters participating, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. In the general election, 40 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, up 1.5 percent from the previous midterm election in 2002. Although most of the disenchanted voters described by Wilson stayed home, some did return to the polls. These “new/old” voters had not suddenly gotten a case of civic-mindedness; instead they had become so frustrated they returned to the polls, not to help Democrats, but to punish incumbents.
We believe there is another way to bring these voters back to the polls, and with them the election of more moderates in both parties. The 2006 election returns clearly identified polarization as the second most potent force behind voter anger (Iraq was first) that propelled the “wave election.” In a wave election, the party in control of Congress and/or the White House is rejected after a long period in power. In 2006, the Republicans were ousted after twelve years in the majority. Like the Democrats, who lost congressional majorities in 1994 after forty-two years in control, the Republicans were perceived to be holding on to power for power’s sake, while ignoring the nation’s needs.
WHEN WE BEGAN WRITING OUR “COMMON GROUND” COLUMN FOR USA Today, in May 2005, the response from the political class, especially the activists, was underwhelming. But the response from readers was overwhelming. “Common Ground” was a direct assault on polarization, and readers responded. By 2006 politicians finally realized that the voters were growing impatient with polarization. As a result, the term common ground began appearing in political speeches, in congressional debates, and in the political press. For the first time in decades, politicians began to view polarization as a political liability.
The press, especially, had begun to focus on the “cannibalism” of politics and the dangers of a polarized political culture. Members of Congress, presidents, lobbyists, and even partisan think tanks joined in the criticism of polarization. What had once been viewed as overblown and mostly academic argument about the perils of polarization was now being taken seriously.
Surveys conducted over several years have found that Americans believe even the most partisan issues—from abortion to the Iraq war—can be resolved with an honest commitment by elected leaders in Washington to finding consensus. More important, voters are prepared to punish candidates whose extremist positions make that impossible.
The purveyors of polarization have witnessed periods of voter discontent before, but after the uproar subsides, nothing changes. They believe it’s naive to think this deep well of public discontent can be organized into a political movement. The activists know that the only way to organize centrist (and often nonparticipating) voters is for candidates—most likely for the presidency—to carry the message. They’re convinced that a message condemning polarization and emphasizing consensus is too difficult to sell.
Given the substantial influence polarizers exert in the nominating process, they are smugly confident that any candidate appealing to common ground would be crushed before he or she got out of the starting gate. They don’t think the press will go beyond their current sanctimonious tirades against polarization because it makes good copy, and for media executives polarization makes for good profits. In essence, the polarizers’ message is “Sounds good, won’t happen.”
Yes it can. That’s not wishful thinking. We’re two guys who spent a lot of years in the polarizing business, but on opposing sides. We helped write the game plan, and we have participated in everything from getting money out of true believers to appearing on television to help spread the contentious messages. In many cases, we wrote the message. We know the gig, and it’s just about up.
We believe polarization’s domination over politics is coming to an end. To help that process along, we intend to expose the individuals and groups who stoke the fires of polarization. We want to shine a light on the parasites who have a vested interest in the partisan war because it keeps them relevant and rich. We believe that the glory days of the braying radio hosts and mudslinging political consultants are numbered. So, too, the propagandists, who hide out in “think tanks” underwritten by wealthy extremists who get a tax deduction for demeaning the political process.
We recognize that polarizers will always be around politics, but like most bullies, polarizers aren’t nearly as tough as their reputation would have you believe. Polarization will remain a factor in national politics, but no longer the dominant factor it has been for the last twenty years. We believe polarization, within the next two election cycles, will be eclipsed by a return to bipartisanship and consensus. Common ground politics will emerge as the preferred territory where smart politics is played, and polarization relegated to the fringe of national politics, where it belongs.
Elections have a way of focusing politicians and the chattering political elites. The roots of the 2006 voter revolt have taken hold and will grow in importance in 2008. The evidence in the early months of 2007 points to a serious (and hopefully lasting) realization among politicians that the public is sick of polarization and polarizers. In 2008, one or two of the presidential candidates will run against the politics of polarization, and a return to bipartisanship. Senator Barack Obama has already embraced the call for common ground (and an end to polarization) in his campaign for president, and others, are attempting to incorporate similar themes in their messages.
The fact that candidates see the need to confront polarization at all is recognition of the voters’ negative view of polarization. Ironically, that was part of the Karl Rove strategy in 2000 when George W. Bush decried partisanship and called for “a new tone in Washington.” Rove’s strategy was not new. Because the public likes compromise over confrontation, most candidates call for a tone change in Washington. But after an election, the public withdraws, and a president is faced with a city full of polarizers. So a change in tone becomes a standard slogan on the campaign trail, but it is not recognized as an issue that attracts a dedicated pool of voters. As a result, it is not seen as a message that carries with it a mandate for change after the election. Until the 2006 election, that was a reasonable analysis.
But what was little more than a slogan in 2000 may well become a necessity in 2008. The politicians who understand the voters’ current state of mind will campaign on the simple notion that consensus and common ground will get government moving again; they will campaign on big new ideas to address our nation’s neglected needs. Many of these ideas already exist; ideas that will be explored in this book. They have been developed by people whose only agenda is seeking solutions to the daunting challenges facing America. We thank them all for allowing us to present their ideas in Common Ground.
This book also looks back at times in America’s past when bipartisanship made for good politics. We’ll look at some former polarizing politicians who, despite some short-term success, failed in the face of a fed-up electorate, and a few profiles in courage who called their bluff. We’ll revisit a time when civility and cross-aisle friendships succeeded in producing consensus. This occurred not through contentious floor debate but sometimes over dinner.
Some of the most immediate and intimate examples of successful consensus politics have come from the dinner tables and drawing rooms presided over by a group of Washington socialites. Their parties provided the settings at which politicians could make deals, settle feuds, and find common ground on issues that had divided them. We will bring you recollections from several of them.
Most important, this book offers a campaign plan, built around a set of creative ideas, to get the nation moving again. It is a plan that makes polarization the issue and common ground the solution. We believe the time is right to challenge polarization and for common ground to become the next dominant strategic force in national politics.
We believe that common ground as a central campaign message can attract some of the millions of voters who have stopped voting. We intend to put polarization on trial. We will introduce an abundance of evidence detailing the damage polarization has inflicted on politics, and why this insidious culture continues to operate to the benefit of the few and to the detriment of the many.
John F. Kennedy set a higher tone, which might be heard again if enough people demand it: “Let us not seek the Republican answer, or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”