Not party time

Few congressional Republicans are likely to vote for the Democrats’ $825 billion economic stimulus bill, despite President Obama’s visit to Congress on Tuesday to meet with and cajole them.

Winning votes was not, however, Obama’s only aim — nor perhaps even his main one.

What the president wants, as much as anything, is to prevent partisanship boiling over and tarnishing the legislation and the early days of his administration.

His Inaugural address dismissed much of Washington’s partisanship as “childish”; the keynote of this preliminary stage of the new presidency is that the country needs to rally together and take difficult steps in a spirit of unity. So Obama does not want voters to see a Washington riven between party blocs as incapable as ever of bridging differences even when the nation is in dire economic straits.

Partisanship and bipartisanship are frequently misunderstood — the former often being seen as axiomatically bad, and the latter as self-evidently good. But strong differences of opinion are not always the result of party affiliation. Rather the reverse; people join the party of their choice because they have strong views and utterly disagree with the other side about what is either right or workable. At its best, partisanship involves hard-fought battles for good government, while bipartisanship can be about nothing more elevated than splitting differences.

The two parties are debating exactly what bipartisanship means, as The Hill’s Jared Allen reports in today’s paper. Does it mean only that the majority party must listen politely to the minority? Does it mean, alternatively, that bills must include some minority ideas? Could it mean only that the minority may offer amendments to bills, but that these amendments must take their (very slim) chances in floor votes? Perhaps bipartisanship is achieved by the president taking an early opportunity to “defend and discuss” his plans with his political opponents, which is how the White House described the purpose of Obama’s trek along Pennsylvania Avenue.

Obama has swiftly undone some of President Bush’s policies. And just as most presidents do, the new chief executive is also seeking to fill a void detected in the previous administration. Bush was accused of arrogating power to the executive and of failing to consult legislators in general and Democrats in particular.

The new president is going to Capitol Hill to reduce the temperature of debate. We will know in coming days how good a job he has done at that, and whether the effort is disingenuous or real. Seeking agreement where possible and civil debate where it is not is a worthy goal. Good intentions are likely to wither in the heat of electoral politics, but Tuesday’s visit to Capitol Hill was a good beginning.