The political center is as unfamiliar to President Bush as it is to many Democrats. If both will take steps toward it, however, real solutions to some of the nation’s biggest challenges could follow.
The center spoke loudly in Tuesday’s mid-term elections. Swing voters, those who rarely vote a straight party line, handed control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats after a dozen years of Republican control. Depending on the outcome of a close race in Virginia, Democrats could win the Senate, too.
This repudiation of the status quo presents Bush and Democrats with an opportunity. Bush, whose headstrong and often wrong-headed exercise of power had gone virtually unchecked by a Republican Congress, can mend his legacy in his final two years in office by working with Democrats to make progress on some of the nation’s most vexing problems.
Democrats, in turn, must resist the desire for payback and meet the president halfway. They must lead without the arrogance that characterized House Republicans, who aggressively discouraged bipartisanship.
Deals are possible. In the House, Democrats and moderate Republicans should join in passing comprehensive immigration reform, an issue where they largely agree with Bush. Such reform would not only provide better border enforcement, but would establish the sensible guest worker program that Bush has long advocated.
A deal on immigration could serve as the foundation for progress on issues, like energy independence and refinements to the Medicare prescription-drug program, or even a meaningful start on addressing looming shortfalls in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
It will take mature leadership on both sides. Grudges will have to be set aside. Pride will have to be swallowed.
How both sides address the war in Iraq, of course, will be critical. A bipartisan study group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton will soon offer recommendations that should be taken seriously. In the meantime, Democrats should avoid launching grand investigations of the build-up to war. There will be plenty of time for that later; picking that fight now would likely doom bipartisan cooperation.
Bush, for his part, must finally show a willingness to consider a new direction in Iraq. His decision to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld looks like a start.
Bush has his legacy to consider, but Democrats have their own political future at stake. If they fail to lead responsibly, those centrist voters who put them in power this week may be just as willing to throw them out in 2008.
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