America Moving To The Middle - Road to the Middle Class

EVERYONE says that they are fed up with the partisanship of the past decade. In consequence many people are eager to uncover signs that the partisan years are over, and that America is moving to the middle.

So along come Gerald F. Seib and John Harwood to tell us that Americans want change.

When the Wall Street Journal and NBC News surveyed voters in December, as the campaign began, almost half agreed that America needed "major reforms and a brand new and different approach" to handling problems.

Earth to Seib and Harwood: Major reform is what Republicans have been trying to enact for the last 12 years since Newt Gingrich won a Republican majority in Congress.

But major reform, if it means anything, means major changes in the way we run government. If it would mean anything it would mean changing the numbers on government spending. Here are the numbers for 2008 from usgovernmentspending.com

Pensions: $911.6 billion
Health Care: $925.0 billion
Education: $848.2 billion
Defense: $730.8 billion
Welfare: $445.2 billion

Now, seriously, what kind of a hope do we have that any substantial change will happen in the delivery of these huge programs?

A big part of the current animus, Seib and Harwood claim, is that Congressmen no longer live yearround in Washington. When Friday rolls around everyone heads back home to the voters instead to sticking around and socializing.

But there is hope. There’s Mara Vanderslice, a Democratic operative who is trying to develop outreach to religious voters. She represents “a new wave of younger activists willing to reach across party lines for the causes they advocate.” That’s one way of putting it. But her website Common Good Strategies seems to be nothing more than a Democratic Party organ. Its mission is:

Working with the Democratic Party and non-profits on the local and national level to reach out and build authentic relationships with America’s diverse religious communities.

OK. Why not Peter Wehner, “a genial social conservative who worked for Mr. Rove in the Bush White House?” He sees, apparently, a movement among evangelicals away from abortion “toward social issues, social justice and aid to Africa.”

If you read what Peter Wehner actually writes—for instance this piece for the Commentary blog—you experience basic Republican partisan talking points.

This talk of moving to the center is just a slow-day navel piece. The level of partisanship is a measure of the political temperature: how much agitation is there for change and how much resistance is there to reform.

The partisanship of the last decade issued out of Republican desire for reform and Democratic determination to stop it. Right now, Republicans are exhausted and discouraged. So you can expect a period of quiet.

But something tells me: Not for long.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.