“I seek bipartisanship” code for “my party is better than yours”

Eighteen months ago breathless TV news talking heads and newspaper pundits reported the blow-by-blow budget negotiations between President Obama and Congress. The huffing and puffing from Republicans and Democrats alike dominated the news. Dire predictions were made. In the end, both agreed to a cooling-off period by pushing pressing budget decisions down the road. The one thing they agreed upon was that the automatic spending cuts were so harmful reasonable people would have to act before the new deadline.

Sadly, the very folks passing the law turned out to be unreasonable after all.

How did America find itself in such a sorry political state? Conventional wisdom: Republican and Democrat leaders are putting partisanship ahead of problem solving.

But Sue Dvorsky, the recently retired chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, has a different take. The greater problem is politicians maneuvering to position themselves for the changing political landscape in 2014, she said.

Her logic is easy to follow. For example, Sen. Tom Harkin’s retirement announcement led U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat, to announce he will run for the open seat. That means other politicians will run for Braley’s seat and then others will run for those seats and so on.

Self-motivated political posturing is dominating decision making, not partisan power mongering.

Dvorsky points to the standoff over Medicaid funding between Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and State Sen. Jack Hatch, a Democrat, as an example. The governor has rejected increased federal dollars for Medicaid and is instead seeking an expansion of the state-run program, IowaCare. Hatch, who heads the Senate Health and Human Services Budget Subcommittee and worked with national leaders on healthcare reform, sees the expansion of IowaCare as inadequate. He is pushing legislative action to force the acceptance of federal funding.

According to Dvorsky, Hatch plans to challenge Branstad in his bid for re-election in 2014 and neither wants to be seen as backing down to the other, even if doing so could mean more Iowa families would have health care coverage.

Party politics plays a role, too.

During one of U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s recent town hall meetings an attendee asked the Republican to comment on the state of politics in America and what he was doing to improve an increasingly caustic environment. Grassley’s response was revealing – mostly because of what he didn’t say.

In the audience was former Congressman Neal Smith. Grassley told how Smith, a Democrat, had welcomed him to Congress when he was first elected despite the fact they were from different parties. Smith helped Grassley get his feet on the ground and Grassley has never forgotten Smith’s kindness.

Grassley talked about his history of bipartisan work with colleagues like Max Baucus and how things get done in the Senate despite partisan differences. He blamed the press for making so much noise about disagreements but staying silent when things work smoothly “because that doesn’t sell papers,” he said.

He went on to say he is a guy who gets things done by working with both parties. Grassley used the word bipartisan so many times I lost count.

Always the consummate politician, Grassley made a case for his principled stand against Democratic policies that will harm the country. He said he was willing to work on a – wait for it, here comes that word again – bipartisan solution, but he and his fellow Republicans were not being met halfway.

I found it odd Grassley couldn’t see the tragic irony of his own statements. He was patting himself on the back for being the peacemaker with one hand, while shaking an indignant finger of blame across the aisle with the other. If he is right about the media wanting to focus on squabbles and not progress, Grassley’s comments and actions (or lack thereof) on this day did nothing to help.

I don’t mean to pick on Senator Grassley. Few people in government work harder than does he and even fewer have a record of accomplishment to match his. Yet, he reminded me why modern politics are broken. Until those in office decide to act more and blame the other side less, nothing will change.

Every elected official needs to think less about bipartisanship and winning the next bigger election and more about non-partisanship and collective progress. Too often those who tout bipartisanship as the solution appear to represent party first, their constituents second. Those who stall progress to protect a selfish political interest need to be sent packing.

Blaming the other guy and the other party may sound good to those working at a political party HQ. Having watched companies deemed too big to fail actually fail only to be bailed out by the government, and now seeing a budget cut so drastic no reasonable person would ever let it happen actually happen, Americans are beginning to wonder if we allow these out of touch elected officials to continue to fail, who will be left to bail out the country.