One-sided bipartisanism is the Republican Party's version of working together for America's people and the greater good. Beating up on Democrats and in particular President Barack Obama has been their new brand of in-your-face politics. It is the antics of a party out of touch with today's political reality and the absent-minded nostalgia of its fossilized white male-dominated club.
In an era of text messaging, Web 2.0 and integrated technology the Republican Party dusts off its play book from the Regan Era and finds it difficult to comprehend that this new generation just doesn't know who the heck the so-called "great communicator" is and does not care.
Nowadays the Republican chorus has been led by its aging radio and TV shock former jocks. They are going nowhere fast. Just months ago they were calling President Barack Obama a wimp dusting off and shoving Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney into the political game underscoring the fact that when the party has to use such an old polarizing figure then things must be very bad indeed.
So now we come to healthcare. Republicans went on the attack shouting "no" at every turn. They encouraged and embraced such right-wing fringe lunatics like the "Tea Party Movement" and the "Birthers Movement" further exposing the depths of its desperation in failing to dislodge President Obama.
In the still rancorous healthcare debate the Republicans demonstrated and showed no guts. When the history of healthcare reform is written these will be the shameless facts: not a single Republican had the courage to support the Democrats in this all-important and historic legislation. Not a single Republican was willing to do anything besides the now monotonous and constant "Just say no". Their answer to America's healthcare crisis was to obstruct at every turn.
But saying "no" will not help parents of sick children; or parents of young unemployed; or middle-class folks who can't find the good jobs that bring health insurance and can't afford the astronomical rates found in the individual market even for those without pre-existing conditions.
Conveniently, the Republicans fell back on poll numbers and packaging their negative politics by trying to put a positive spin on it claiming that the American people opposed Obamacare. Well, of course they will. After nearly seven months of sowing the seeds of confusion and using dangerous code words to whip up the party faithful, the end result was bound to be some measure of divisiveness. Add to that the fact that they kept saying that President Obama had no guts and did not know what he wanted.
Boy, did he show them! For me President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and all of the Democrats who stood up to the most intense pressures, faced a mountain of lobbying money, and the frenzy of fringe wing-nuts calling the plan "socialism," "socialized medicine" and "implementing death panels to kill old people," it was a test of guts and conviction. President Barack Obama earned more of my respect because he dared to take on one of the holy grails of American industry.
He earned more of my respect because he handled this tricky issue with great political skill, a limited amount of rhetoric, and remained focused even while making compromises. That's true leadership in my book. In short, the man stuck to his guns and the power of his convictions.
He did not blink. News Flash to Republicans: that's genuine leadership no matter what you say. The President has kept his campaign promise in the most difficult of times and for voters this November the choice will be clear – Democrats all the way.
Under intense and oftentimes brutal pressure, Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not flinch. Against a growing negative chorus, a national debate that was filled with falsehoods and innuendos, to outright disrespect, they remained focused while the Republicans remained childish and peevish. They did not back down; they piloted into law a very controversial, difficult, and emotional piece of legislation knowing that in many quarters it was unpopular but still had the guts to do it anyway. You could say that President Obama risked his presidency on this one issue alone.
So what are the Republicans going to say come this November? First, it is they – not the Democrats – who wimped out. They demonstrated a rare spinelessness even for opportunistic politicians. They hid behind procedural games, obstructing tactics, and negative attacks in the too-willing media. In the end they accomplished nothing – they refused to compromise on Obama's bill and boasted that they held the line and how it would be better to have Republican support. Such arrogance is unbelievable even for a clique of jaded pols long in need of being put out to pasture.
It is this kind of 20th century arrogance that believes that the American voter is stupid and will vote for a Republican (or a Democrat) simply because he or she mouths off on an issue. It is this "alpha and omega politics" that made Americans and people around the world hate former president George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Is the American voter so stupid to reward Republicans whose policy since Obama entered the White House is to "just say no?" I would not bet on that.
Finally, it is time to expose Republican revisionism of American history. Again, they believe that the American voter is uninformed and only gets his or her information from Fox 5, CNN or the New York Post. Let me set the record straight on a bit of American History.
When the original Medicare Bill came to the floor of the House of Representatives in 1965, not a single Republican supported it. It came out of the House Ways and Means and Rules committees on strict party-line votes. On the procedural vote that brought Medicare to a vote, 10 Republicans voted for the bill.
Only when it became clear that Democrats had the necessary votes to pass the bill without the Republicans did it become a limited "bipartisan" bill, passing with the support of 70 Republicans and 237 Democrats. In the Senate, 13 Republicans voted for Medicare; the rest of the votes came from Democrats.
What does this all mean? The Republican Party was dead wrong on Medicare that is today a major pillar of American politics. They were wrong in reading the American public; wrong on the political climate at the time; and wrong on everything else that concerned Medicare. History may just repeat itself here and for the Republican Party's misreading of the political tea leaves in 1965 it cost them 30 years in the political wilderness.
In the end, as I wrote during the first 100 days of the Barack Obama presidency, the Democrats now have the opportunity to make the Republican Party largely irrelevant to American politics.
It is my belief that Republicans will be proven wrong on this law.
It is my belief that they now face an energized, refreshed and formidable Democratic Party and a President now in permanent campaign mode.
He can out spin, out charm, and out talk just about any Republican out there and, when all is said and done, no one not even his strongest critics can deny the fact that they were dead wrong about him. He's got back his mojo and he's got ton loads of guts.
