Answer: Posturing, for 40 Years and Counting
Question, via Rick Green: Great GOP Divide: Pragmatism Or Posturing?
I’m critical of Rick’s columns sometimes, but I have to give him credit here for a great get:
State Republican Chairman Chris Healy told me that what the most popular Republican in the state supports is “a fairly awful piece of legislation. … We argue that this is not a stimulus and it is a spending spree.”
I asked him why national Republicans are opposed to this while Republicans-with-actual-jobs such as Rell and Gov. James Douglas of Vermont and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California are pleading for it.
“We do have differences,” Healy admitted. “She has to make the trains run.”
The Republican Chairman would prefer to, what, see the trains left to rot? Beaten into plowshares?
I obviously can’t speak for progressives categorically, but those that I know seem, to a person, to be involved in politics as a means to a variety of ends: getting cleaner air and water, allowing poor people to get decent medical care, letting old people retire with dignity, and, well, making the trains run. Healy casually admitting that he could give one damn about government working or not working is pretty amazing.
Oh, and just in case you were remembering those “moderate northeastern Republicans” more fondly in retrospect…
Which is why the Republicans in Washington look so feeble here. Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, very likely Chris Dodd’s opponent next year and an old hand in Congress, explained the dichotomy to me.
“The members of Congress have a different set of responsibilities. They may have greater concern for the long-term impact. Where you stand depends on where you sit,” Simmons said.
“If you sit in the governor’s chair, you have to solve this budget problem. If you sit in the House and Senate, you have to make sure that you don’t collapse the economy more than you already have.”
“I would have voted against it,” Simmons told me.
All of this is pretty revealing. Which do you think is more long-term — taking political potshots or reaching across the aisle and finding common ground?
If your only goal is getting Republicans elected, then you’d want to go the “potshots” route. Which is why Healy has been working himself into such a lather lately.