Where does the current PotUS rank on bipartisanship compared to previous? What are the big items that were passed in the last 6+ years that entailed significant Republican support to get the items passed? I'm just throwing this out there to see if there are informed posters on this board who might offer an objective point of view on the comparing and contrasting of the PotUS' throughout history or even recent history. Notable exceptions were the ACA that had zero Republican support IIRC. W Bush had the semi bi-partisan no child left behind act with Ted Kennedy, as well as the post 9-11 war authorization continuation from Clinton's time. Clinton had the welfare reform and NAFTA bi-partisan efforts with the previously mentioned war authorization in '98. The current PotUS has nearly 2 years to correct or add to his record. The early indicators of the new R controlled Congress interactions does not bode well for bipartisanship in my less than studied observations so far. What say you? Does it matter?
Dead last. He occasionally gives lip service to bipartisanship, such as he did at the SOTU this year, but then he flew out the next day to an immigration rally and blasted the Shiite out of the opposition. Most Presidents in their second term, that had the other party in control of Congress, have attempted to work with them to some extent. This guy just climbs into the bully pulpit and uses the media to blast them into submission. Sadly with this Congress, they don't seem to have the cojones to stand up to him.
"Bipartisanship" implies a willing partner. Do you think that exists? My own thought is that partnership is possible with the moderate right but the Tea Partiers are directly inhibiting that partnership.
I would have to agree with last place or pretty close to last. He didn't get a single Republican vote on his centerpiece legislation of Obamacare. Of course, he would not get the far right wingers, but he could not even persuade left leaning Republicans like Olympia Snowe to vote for it. That really shows how poor Obama is at building coalitions and more importantly his lack of wisdom as Obamacare has faced relentless obstacles due to the fact it was a one-sided piece of legislation.
His actions to ram down through legislation that very closely mirrored legislation introduced/endorsed by Newt Gingrich in 1996 was abhorrent. Of course, you know I could bring up the Mitch McConnel quote about ensuring Obama is a 1-term president, right? Again, bipartisan denotes two parties. You'll get now argument from me there. He's been very poor at building coalitions to support any of his legislation. The Tea Party crowd has been extremely effective in pulling the moderate Republicans to the right for fear that they'll get voted out of office for BEING a moderate.
I think a good topic would be to question whether or not bipartisanship is even possible in the competitive media age. It seemed to be getting better in the 80s with Reagan, but only because everyone was spending their brains out and getting everything they wanted from big government. Then it got more divisive with Bush 41, and then worse with Clinton winning 1992 on a plurality and Newt's 1994 midterm huzzah, and then even worse with the 2000 election. So maybe we just need to go back to having massive spending increases and everyone will be happy again. If Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Rick Perry wins the GOP nomination, I don't exactly see them reaching across the aisle for good advice either. I see Christie and Pataki doing so, but they'd never win the nomination under threats of anti-bipartisanship, if that's even a thing. You can't get out of the primaries unless you're far enough to the right to satisfy the fringe. As for the OP, I believe Obama will stick to his non-bridge-building ways for the year, and then let the election cycle take him out of the news in 2016. He can't make any rash decisions (and by "rash" I mean bipartisan work to go against his own party) that would cost people political points in the primaries and the like. There's no way he's going to approve anything Keystone-related, so Congress should just focus on stuff they CAN get to his desk if they truly "want" bipartisanship. It's working in their favor for Obama to be Obama at the moment. Then, they can get on the pulpit and take about how divisive he is because he didn't sign anything that a GOP majority so graciously handed to him.
Silly topic. This is a partisan administration, but this is a very partisan era in politics in general. Obama didn't make it so, and there wasn't much, if anything, he could have done to fix it. Horns11 makes some interesting points, but I disagree. I don't think things were better in the '80s because they spent a lot. (After all, we spend a hell of a lot now and have for years.) The big difference in the '80s was that the parties were different. The largest bloc of Democrats was liberal, and the largest bloc of Republicans was conservative. However, neither group controlled either house of Congress. There was a large bloc of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans (and even a few true liberal Republicans). Regardless of which side ultimately prevailed on an issue, bipartisanship was a must. If Rick Perry wins the nomination, he sure as hell won't reach across the aisle. He'll act like the corrupt, partisan ******* the he was as governor. Rubio would do a little better, but I think Bush would reach across the aisle to a point. Christie and Petaki definitely would because they don't know any other way of doing business. However, like you said, neither of them have a chance at winning the nomination.
The Tea Party did not rise until 2009 or was it 2010, Obama had over two years with a Democratic Congress what prevented him from reaching out to Republicans conservative or moderate?
The named "Tea Party" movement rose after Obama came into power but it had been on a steady build for awhile. Remember McConnel's infamous comment about ensuring Obama was a 1-term POTUS immediately after his swearing in? Again, I think Obama has NOT been Bipartisan but I'd also agree with the above poster that said the political environment is inhibiting this. The rise of the Tea Party simply pulled the curtain back and displayed for everyone to see that a certain segment of the voting populace don't want compromise.
With respect to the points made above about the ACA/Obamacare, this is an interesting take: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-partisan-health-care-bill-what-nonsense.html I suppose the point of disagreement would be whether an exchange based system, with mandates, could ever be a topic for negotiation. R's would argue that the D's were intransigent in insisting that these two items were not negotiable. D's argue that these two items are the very essence of any realistic reform. I'm not sure that you could ever define your way into a bipartisan bill based upon these two premises. The bill is fundamentally partisan. The question is which side is right.
Michael Tomasky is a partisan hack and a raging ********. However, there's a lot of truth in the article. The GOP wasn't going to go along with any significant restructuring of the healthcare system that involved a mandate and an exchange system.
