"I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs."
So spoke Barack Obama after the inauguration, explaining the non-role of Republicans in his "post partisan" vision. Since then, the media has been full of advice for the GOP, most of it along the lines of Republicans should be more like Arlen Specter and Colin Powell, less like Dick Cheney.
The Economist magazine recently offered its own ideal formula for GOP rehabilitation: Republicans should adopt the model of the Democratic Leadership Council, which pulled the Democratic Party back from the left in the late 1980s and paved Bill Clinton's road to the White House.
Never mind that Republicans didn't alienate their own voters by being "too conservative" but the opposite. Lost in this criticism of the GOP is that Mr. Obama and his party haven't exactly shifted politics to the center. Rather, the DLC has been marginalized. The group has provided no staffers and no policy ideas to the Obama administration. DLC Chief Harold Ford Jr. (a former Tennessee congressman and once a rising star in the party) has less in common with Mr. Obama than with red state Democrats who've been elected in recent years and who now wonder how they can go home and defend a distinctly left-wing administration.
Replacing the DLC as the party's brain trust are true-believer liberals who see in the financial crisis and Democratic control of Washington a sudden opportunity to implement sweeping old-liberal ideas. Fueling their confidence, Democrats won states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia not on the back of moderate policy proposals, but by pulling in new voters at a time when GOP voters were soured and staying home. Voter registration and turnout trumped moderation -- helped by Mr. Obama's knack for giving speeches that take the sharp edges off his policies. This was particularly acute in Florida, where Democrats in 2008 increased their numbers more than Republicans in every age bracket except for voters over 60.
But the flaw in this strategy is becoming apparent. True believers already are disillusioned at even minor steps toward moderation. The far left growls at Mr. Obama over his refusal to release interrogation photos and his failure to prosecute Bush administration officials for torture. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch complained in a joint statement: "On torture, change we can believe in feels like more of the same."
Mr. Obama has also lost fans over his failure to nationalize the banks, his retreat on "card check" for Big Labor, uncertainty over whether he will insist on a "Medicare-for-all" option in health care, and business-friendly changes to his climate-change proposal. So far, his supporters unreservedly applaud only his auto policies, which consist of piling up regulatory burdens on the U.S. auto makers and then making taxpayers responsible for keeping Detroit and the UAW afloat.
A big test will be his Supreme Court pick. Mr. Obama is already being warned of a Harriet-Miers style rebellion. Attacks have started on Elena Kagan, Mr. Obama's solicitor general, because her positions on terrorist combatants won praise from Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey Graham during her confirmation hearings earlier this year. Mr. Obama must please ultraliberals with his court pick or else "he'll have a hard time finishing his very big agenda," warns Laura Murphy, a former head of the ACLU's Washington office.
Amid all this, demands for "post partisan" behavior from Republicans ring oddly, sounding like pleas that the GOP bail out Obama initiatives that are close to collapsing of their own weight. Republicans may not be covering themselves in glory in presenting an alternative, but they stand nonetheless to inherit the mess once the Obama honeymoon gives way to realism on Obamanomics.
-- Brendan Miniter
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