Cynically Seeking Defeat

Thursday’s editorial calls on the Democratic leadership to heed U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s call for bipartisan progress, rather than pursuing a purely political election strategy.

In an increasingly partisan era, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has been for several years building a reputation as one of the men in Washington who remains most deeply committed to an almost old-fashioned notion of cooperating across party lines in search of solutions to difficult problems, starting from scratch with the other party across the table. In the din of the last year’s raucous health care debate, for example, Graham was one of a dozen senators to sign on to a truly bipartisan plan to both offer private coverage universally and dismantle the current government-run Medicaid system - a compromise so grounded in fairness and common sense that the leadership of neither party wanted much to do with it.

More recently, and more promisingly, Graham had been working with Sens. Joe Lieberman (an independent) and John Kerry (a Democratic) to create an energy bill that - again, in the spirit of compromise - would trade new limits on carbon pollution for the encouragement of new sources of energy, such as new drilling and nuclear power plants. The trio were set to unveil their proposal in detail Monday, until Graham abruptly withdrew his support upon learning that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to shove energy aside in favor of immigration reform.

 “Moving forward on immigration in this hurried, panicked manner is nothing more than a cynical political ploy,” an angry Graham said over the weekend. “I deeply regret that election-year politics will impede, if not derail, our efforts to make our nation energy independent.”

The remarkable thing about Graham’s indictment of the Democratic leadership is that no one really disputes it. Reid is trailing either of two possible Republican challengers for his Senate seat by about 10 points in the polls, and a partisan battle over immigration reform could boost his support in Nevada from mobilized Hispanics on Election Day - as it could for other vulnerable Democrats elsewhere.

That’s the “political” aspect of Reid’s ploy. What makes it so “cynical” is that immigration reform is less likely than energy to pass, but those same Democrats will still cry to Hispanic voters that they tried while demonizing Republicans for opposing it - even though they knew the effort was doomed from the outset.

Graham’s credibility on the immigration issue is enormous. He was a key player in the Bush Administration’s effort to find a centrist solution on the issue that unfortunately failed in 2007, and anti-immigration groups have only increased the hateful pitch of their attacks against Graham since then. Yet our senator, to his credit, keeps his eye on the long view on both policy and politics: immigration demands a solution that involves some acknowledgement of immigrants who have lived and worked in the United States for years, and the Republican Party will be better off for abandoning what appears as anti-Hispanic posturing against reform.

There’s also a flip side to Reid’s calculation: Democrats fear that passing energy legislation, even built by a “tripartisan” Kerry-Graham-Lieberman coalition, puts them even more on the defensive with riled right-wing voters than they already were after the divisive health-care vote. In other words, Reid would prefer now to fail at a reform effort that might help preserve his seat and his party’s majority than succeed on an equally important and difficult issue that could be politically costly. It’s the same craven electoral math that allowed Republican lawmakers to indulge in falsehoods like the discredited “death panel” claims to oppose health-care proposals strikingly similar to those they themselves once authored and supported even just a few years before.

When our country’s leaders willingly choose loss over victory, inaction over any progress, the entire country loses.

Unlike when the health care debate began, the Republicans now hold 41 seats in the Senate, enough to filibuster any bill they feel shut out of. If Graham is opposed to the energy and immigration bills, who will be the Republican votes in favor of them? The Democrats have done no coalition-building on immigration to speak of, so to throw away Graham’s efforts to that end on energy would be cynical indeed.

 

More recently, and more promisingly, Graham had been working with Sens. Joe Lieberman (an independent) and John Kerry (a Democratic) to create an energy bill that - again, in the spirit of compromise - would trade new limits on carbon pollution for the encouragement of new sources of energy, such as new drilling and nuclear power plants. The trio were set to unveil their proposal in detail Monday, until Graham abruptly withdrew his support upon learning that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to shove energy aside in favor of immigration reform.

 “Moving forward on immigration in this hurried, panicked manner is nothing more than a cynical political ploy,” an angry Graham said over the weekend. “I deeply regret that election-year politics will impede, if not derail, our efforts to make our nation energy independent.”

The remarkable thing about Graham’s indictment of the Democratic leadership is that no one really disputes it. Reid is trailing either of two possible Republican challengers for his Senate seat by about 10 points in the polls, and a partisan battle over immigration reform could boost his support in Nevada from mobilized Hispanics on Election Day - as it could for other vulnerable Democrats elsewhere.

That’s the “political” aspect of Reid’s ploy. What makes it so “cynical” is that immigration reform is less likely than energy to pass, but those same Democrats will still cry to Hispanic voters that they tried while demonizing Republicans for opposing it - even though they knew the effort was doomed from the outset.

Graham’s credibility on the immigration issue is enormous. He was a key player in the Bush Administration’s effort to find a centrist solution on the issue that unfortunately failed in 2007, and anti-immigration groups have only increased the hateful pitch of their attacks against Graham since then. Yet our senator, to his credit, keeps his eye on the long view on both policy and politics: immigration demands a solution that involves some acknowledgement of immigrants who have lived and worked in the United States for years, and the Republican Party will be better off for abandoning what appears as anti-Hispanic posturing against reform.

There’s also a flip side to Reid’s calculation: Democrats fear that passing energy legislation, even built by a “tripartisan” Kerry-Graham-Lieberman coalition, puts them even more on the defensive with riled right-wing voters than they already were after the divisive health-care vote. In other words, Reid would prefer now to fail at a reform effort that might help preserve his seat and his party’s majority than succeed on an equally important and difficult issue that could be politically costly. It’s the same craven electoral math that allowed Republican lawmakers to indulge in falsehoods like the discredited “death panel” claims to oppose health-care proposals strikingly similar to those they themselves once authored and supported even just a few years before.

When our country’s leaders willingly choose loss over victory, inaction over any progress, the entire country loses.

Unlike when the health care debate began, the Republicans now hold 41 seats in the Senate, enough to filibuster any bill they feel shut out of. If Graham is opposed to the energy and immigration bills, who will be the Republican votes in favor of them? The Democrats have done no coalition-building on immigration to speak of, so to throw away Graham’s efforts to that end on energy would be cynical indeed.