Newcomers to the nation’s capital have often been astonished by the atmosphere of social harmony that exists offstage or after working hours between political adversaries.
Few here were surprised, for example, by the marriage of key Bill Clinton campaign adviser James Carville to key George Bush adviser Mary Matalin after the 1992 presidential campaign. Such bipartisan couplings are not that unusual in a political community where a conservative Republican like Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch might be found playing tennis with a liberal Democrat like Massachusett’s Sen. Edward Kennedy.
It’s called “comity,” the atmosphere of harmony that enables ideological adversaries to get along. Such scenes are becoming rare. Old-timers on Capitol Hill lament how, for example, Democrats are almost never seen chatting with Republicans in the Senate dining room anymore. The Washington Post quoted several old hands lamenting–and young hands delighting–in the new dullness in town. Workaholic Republicans hold fewer social events than their forebears did. The tax-cutting, budget-balancing ideologues have no interest in reaching out and depressed liberals don’t feel like they have much of anything these days to be festive about.
Such are the outer symptoms of the new polarization in Washington politics, a polarization that has hastened the departure of a record number of senators and representatives, most of them moderates of both parties who could be counted on to bridge gaps and produce legislation that gave the largest number of constituents something they could live with.
The announcement last week by Sen. William S. Cohen, a prominent and moderate Maine Republican, that he will not seek re-election this fall raised the number of senators who will not run again to 13, busting the old record of 11 set in 1896, according to the Senate Historical Office.
On the House side, 27 members had said by mid-December that they are not going to run again this fall. That’s high, although still short of the 44-year high of 65 members who decided not to run again in 1992, followed by the 48 who dropped out early in 1994.
Why the sudden departures? More than a few say it’s simply not fun anymore in an era of polarized politics. Cohen cited the budget stalemate as a “crystallizing” factor in his decision. His fellow Maine Republican, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, was more blunt when she told a reporter that Cohen has been “a consensus-builder, a problem-solver, and in this political climate, consensus-building is not being emphasized.”
Suddenly moderation is not a virtue. Even President Clinton is scoring record high approval ratings by standing firm in the budget fight after years of being saddled with the image of a waffler.
Obviously many find this shift to hard-boiled ideological combat to be a welcome relief. For true believers of the Left or Right, comity always has carried with it an air of phoniness, as if all lofty speeches really don’t mean a thing, once everyone goes behind closed doors.
Besides, it is often said by the winners of the 1994 mid-term Republican landslide that the message of that election showed voters to be fed up with business as usual, including the culture of comity among Washington Beltway elites.
That’s changed. This new group is full of committed ideologues who apparently would rather be right than re-elected. How much more radical could you get?
But the downside of polarized politics is gridlock like that which is tying up the federal budget in a battle between the Clinton White House and the Republican Congress over how the budget is to be balanced. In gridlock, uncertainty reigns. Innocent casualties are taken. Too many of the people who desperately need the services government provides are left guessing or unserved.
Worst of all, too little real thinking gets done by either side. Rigid adherence to the perceived wisdom of the party line is more a way to end conversation than to begin it. It becomes a big trump to take all the chips and crush all dissenting views even within partisan ranks.
Perhaps the current gridlock is a necessary phase. Grassroots America is going through a radical realignment. The decline of liberal power in Washington is a reflection of population and power that have been shifting rapidly away from cities, traditional centers of liberal politics, to the suburbs in post-World War II America.
The America that faces the 21st Century is a very different place from past Americas. It may require a new politics that have yet to take shape. At the very least, it requires a reassessment of government’s role in expressing shared values and solving common problems.
Once the current dust settles, comity can make a comeback. In the meantime, as the old movie line goes, fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.
