PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have written about this subject before, mostly in connection with a major political issue these days – whether President Joe Biden is serious about developing bi-partisan solutions to public policy challenges.

Biden advocates say he is serious.  He says he is open to serious counter-proposals.

de asays

Leading Republicans say he isn’t.  They say he is talking about bi-partisanship, not acting on it.

It appears never the twain shall meet.

In a piece in the Washington Post this week, contributing columnist Matt Bai wrote that Republican moderates need a negotiating lesson.

His lead comments:

“It’s been a rough couple of years for Republican moderates. They lost most of their seats.  A reactionary president took over their party. Brooks Brothers went out of business.

“But sometimes, in our darkest moments, what we need is some tough love and brutal honesty.  So here it is.

“It’s time to stop whining like a bunch of cranky toddlers and get into the game.

“I’m talking about a rather extraordinary set of interviews highlighted in Politico’s Playbook last week, in which the so-called G-10 — a group of moderate Republican senators — erupted over what they feel is unfair treatment at the hands of the White House and media.”

Apparently, Bai continued, these senators and their aides thought they were going to be pivotal dealmakers with a president who claimed to want bi-partisanship, especially when they were invited to the White House in the early days of the Administration to talk through their ideas for a covid-19 relief bill.

“What’s amazing to me is that a group of people who take such pride in their understanding of business could so completely fail to grasp the basic principles of negotiation.

“Here’s an exercise.  Let’s say you want to sell your car, and you set an asking price of $10,000, figuring you’ll take a little less.

“A guy comes along and offers you $3,000 instead.  Are you supposed to meet him in the middle?  Or, are you going to tell him to come back when he’s serious about buying the car?

“That’s pretty much the situation in which Biden found himself. After Biden proposed a $1.9 trillion relief bill, on which he was probably expecting a reasonable counteroffer, the 10 Republican senators answered with a proposal for … $600 billion. That wasn’t even in the zip code of reasonable.

“Even then, they couldn’t guarantee the vote of every Republican in the room for their smaller package, much less anyone else in the caucus.”

The car example is a good one that, to me, illustrates these notions: 

• It takes two sides to negotiate.
• Both sides have to be genuine and truthful in reacting to the other.
• One side has to lead – in this case, the president who was elected to make proposals – and other side has to respond in the sense that its task is to dispose, which doesn’t mean toss presidential ideas in the dustbin. 

On occasion, the best response, in fact, could be “no,” but that is the case when the issue in play truly is one where principals and truth demand a “no,” not just a political “no.”  It is not when such issues as pandemic controls and infrastructure are in play.  Those are issues for the entire country.

Bai continued:

“All this might have made sense if it were really just the kind of strategic feint Republican leaders used during the Obama years: Offer something obviously untenable and then gleefully blame the president for refusing to compromise.  But this group actually seemed to think they were going to drive away in the car.

“I happen to believe the country is better served by having serious-minded Republicans at the negotiating table.  I think it would be better for Biden and for all of us if he were forced to make some hard choices about what to prioritize and how to pay for it, rather than tossing in every imaginable new program and slamming it home with a party-line vote.

“That won’t happen, though, until Republican moderates stop their sobbing about the injustice of it all and start offering some realistic alternatives.  They have another opportunity with the infrastructure bill, where there seems to be some hope of finding a reasonable compromise.”

To Bai’s contentions, I say he is right on.  It’s time to negotiate real solutions to real public policy challenges for the benefit of all Americans, not time to engage in politics as usual.

So far, Republicans appear to be guilty of Bai’s notion that they offer untenable responses, then “gleefully blame the president for refusing to negotiate.”

Put another way, there are costs to presidential elections.  In the case of Trump, he had the bully pulpit of the Oval Office to fulminate.

In the case of Biden, he has the same bully pulpit, but, though not perfect, he tends to “act like a president.”  So, it’s time for Republicans to engage in real negotiations.