EDITORIAL Banner of bipartisanship begins to fray
Weeks before George W. Bush is sworn
in as the countrys 43rd president, the fabric of the bipartisanship
banner is beginning to fray.
It looks as if Bush wont get much of a honeymoon as the edgy
elements of the Republican family, who agreed to be on their best behavior
during the campaign, come home for their rewards.
First, theres Arizonas maverick Sen. John McCain, who
endorsed Bush in May and again at the August convention in Philadelphia. He
remained fairly quiet throughout the rest of the campaign, but now that
hes back at his desk in the Senate, he has made it known that he is in
full pursuit once again of campaign finance reform.
If Bush places any stock in his pledge to work across party lines
for the good of the country, this is likely to be his first big test. McCain,
during his brief run for the presidential nomination, tapped a deep vein of
revulsion among the populace at the degree to which our politics have been
purchased by corporations and special interests.
In the most recent presidential campaign, fundraising hit a record
amount, with the two major parties garnering nearly half a billion dollars in
soft money.
McCain and Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., co-authors of the
campaign finance reform bill that bears their names, think they are close to
the 60 Senate votes that would enable them to quash a filibuster, which killed
the bill the last time it was able to attract a slim majority in the
Senate.
Recent congressional election results give additional hope to
reformers. Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington, for example, a strong
advocate of reform, defeated Republican Sen. Slade Gorton. Gorton, who opposed
McCain-Feingold, was one of five Republicans opposed to reform who are not
returning to the Senate.
Perhaps that kind of hard political reality will inspire Bush to
take on Republican Senate leaders such as Don Nickles of Oklahoma and Trent
Lott of Mississippi, who want nothing to do with the issue. Bush could attract
enormous goodwill and make a very convincing case for his intent to work in a
bipartisan way if he were to put his administrations support strongly
behind McCains campaign reform efforts.
Bush will have to contend with the right wing of the Republican
Party, which was remarkably silent during the convention and throughout much of
the campaign. One far-right analysis holds the view that conservatives can hope
for little out of a Bush administration. Wrote Richard Lessner of the Family
Research Council, a conservative advocacy group in Washington, Many
social and religious conservatives signed on early with Bush because he seemed
to offer the best chance to beat Gore, surrogate for the unbeaten and
apparently unbeatable Clinton, not because many of them believed Bush would
deliver on their issues. Beating Clinton-qua-Gore was enough for them.
Well it appears the religious conservatives have their
reward. And thats as much as theyre likely to get.
Perhaps Lessner is correct, but it would appear that with certain
cabinet nominations, notably former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., for attorney
general, Bush has begun to reward the conservatives good behavior.
But he also has, in the nomination of Ashcroft and that of Gale A.
Norton for secretary of the interior, ripped the guise of bipartisanship from
the image of his administration before it even starts. Norton is the former
attorney general of Colorado and an alumnus of the Reagan Interior Department
headed by James Watts, notorious mostly for his drive to upend the very
environmental regulations that his department was charged to enforce.
Ashcroft, one of those public officials who trade on being a
little pro-life to great advantage, has already energized considerable
opposition among Democrats. Ashcroft is opposed to abortion but strongly
advocates capital punishment, opposes any hint of gun control and has raised
many questions about whether he will be able to enforce civil rights laws that
protect minorities and statutes protecting equal rights for women.
All of that will early visit an administration that owes its
office largely to a Supreme Court decision, and one that will also find itself
trying to explain away the stories that inevitably will begin filtering out of
Florida detailing the degree of disenfranchisement that occurred at the hands
of faulty voting machines, political shenanigans and the courts. At the same
time, any analysis will note that Al Gores lead in the popular vote has
increased since the original counts and now numbers more than half a
million.
Some may have sighed with relief when the tedious count in Florida
was ended by the Supreme Court. At least, for the moment, there was some
finality. But the real consequences of this strangest of elections have just
begun to unravel.
National Catholic Reporter, January 12,
2001
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