All hail Bipartisanship

by digby

So, I just got a call from Rick Perlstein who is voting at the same precinct as Barack Obama in Chicago, where there is a ton of press, as you might imagine. He noticed signs like this all over the place and wondered what they meant:

It turns out that it’s a campaign for health care and social security reform sponsored by AARP, National Business Roundtable, SEIU and National Federation of Independent Business. The point of it, as you can guess from the logo, is to encourage bipartisanship in the congress.

Here’s an example of the kind of bold action they’re calling for:

In America today, it is a struggle for millions of people to afford the health care they need. The threat of rising health insurance premiums and the prospect of losing coverage altogether has become a constant concern for far too many American families.

We believe that:

* All Americans should have access to affordable health care, including prescription drugs, and these costs should not burden future generations.
* Wellness and prevention efforts, including changes in personal behavior such as diet and exercise, should be top national priorities.
* Americans should have choices when it comes to long-term care – allowing them to maintain their independence at home or in their communities with expanded and affordable financing options.

We need to improve the health care system by making it more affordable, boosting quality and eliminating waste. But instead of bringing solutions to this problem, politicians in Washington have been content to stall, to argue, to criticize and to blame each other. While they play politics, we are left with huge health care bills, health care premiums and deductibles that are climbing through the roof, eroding benefits and little hope of reasonable, common-sense, balanced solutions.

Note there’s no call for the “U” word. Apparently, it’s enough that we all agree that health care should be affordable and people should be more healthy. We’ll start the compromising from there.

Also note one other thing. They have asked members of congress to sign a pledge supporting those principles. It’s a very inspiring list until you realize that they couldn’t even get more than a handful of Republicans to sign on to a non-universal, lukewarm water statement of support for affordable health care and wellness.

This reminds me a lot of an earlier bipartisan group that was formed the last time the Democrats were on the verge of gaining the presidency. They were very earnest and well-meaning too. And they (along with a little man from Texas) succeeded in making bipartisan fiscal conservatism the central issue of the campaign, which resulted in Democrats going out on a limb to reduce the deficit while the Republicans immediately started screeching hysterically about taxes and set about taking the congress two years later.

For some reason nobody ever starts these groups or calls for bipartisanship when the Republicans are on the verge of winning. It’s always assumed that they are representing the “heartland” and “real Americans” who want their agenda passed. Democrats coming into power are always being exhorted to reach across the aisle and compromise to bring the country to the middle. I wonder why that is?

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