Two men with white hair and colorful political résumés riveted Washington by filibustering at opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue on the same day last week. It was an engagingly retro moment. But the unintended duel between former President Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders also may have provided a sneak preview of the capital’s new battle lines.
Sanders, a Vermont independent and self-described Socialist, held forth for nearly nine hours on the Senate floor on Friday to protest a bipartisan tax deal that benefits the rich as well as the not-so-rich. "Whose brilliant idea was it that we drive up the national debt, ask our kids to pay higher taxes to pay off that debt, in order to give tax breaks to the rich?" Sanders said in a speech that took up 124 pages in the Congressional Record.
In the White House briefing room, oozing infectious joy at his return to the scene of so many of his triumphs and disasters, Clinton argued that the millionaires' tax breaks were a necessary price for broader benefits to society, and he defended President Obama for striking the compromise with congressional Republicans. "I personally believe this is a good deal and the best he could have gotten under the circumstances," Clinton said.
Throwbacks? In one sense, yes. When, after all, was the last time a senator actually took filibuster duties seriously enough to test physical stamina? And Clinton’s appearance before the White House press corps spawned a torrent of jokes about a time warp to the 1990s.
Yet subsequent events have hinted that the Bernie-Bubba show was all about the nation’s political future.
Forget the Democrats and Republicans. The real fights over the next two years look to be between the never-never-never-give-in-ers on the one hand, and the political pragmatists on the other.
For all the talk of ideological cleansing in both parties, the postelection arguments in Washington have been remarkably nonpartisan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hated the White House deficit commission plan as much as one of her Republican predecessors, Republican Newt Gingrich, did.
Similarly, this week’s key Senate vote on the tax deal broke within, not along, party lines. The 15 senators who voted against advancing the tax bill ran the ideological gamut from Sanders and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., on the left to Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., on the right. But the much larger coalition in favor of the tax package included conservative Republican senators such as John Cornyn of Texas and Jim Bunning of Kentucky and liberal Democrats such as Al Franken of Minnesota and Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Even congressional tea partiers are split, NJ’s Lindsey Boerma found, between those who prefer a deal that will get them something they want (complete extension of the tax breaks) and those who want to hold out for one that doesn’t raise the deficit to extend unemployment benefits.
Recent years haven’t been kind to the party of compromise. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, lost his Senate seat in 2006 after participating in the “Gang of 14” negotiations that avoided a constitutional blow up over judicial nominations. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, was drummed out of his party for agreeing with former President George W. Bush on some foreign-policy issues. This year, maverick John McCain of Arizona underwent a personality transplant to hang onto his Senate seat. And Democratic House Blue Dogs too numerous to mention went down to defeat.
Yet, weirdly, in the aftermath of an election that many called the most hyper-partisan in memory, the forces of compromise appear to be holding their own – maybe even winning. Is it a last gasp before the coming of a more fiercely ideological 112th Congress? Or has the pendulum swung as far as it can go? It may be that Bill Clinton’s return to the White House marks a comeback for more than just the irrepressible “Comeback Kid.”
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