Democrats and GOP find common ground in retiring senators
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After dropping out of a reelection campaign, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) stepped up another campaign on Tuesday by pushing his objections to partisanship that he said has crippled the political process.
“There’s just too much brain-dead partisanship,” Bayh, 54, said during his morning appearances on television. “The extremes of both parties have to be willing to accept compromises.”
Complaints about partisanship are nothing new in Washington, though it has again become a popular excuse for why the Obama domestic program, and in particular, healthcare overhaul, have hit road blocks. President Obama has called for greater bipartisanship and has met with congressional leaders of both parties to try to ease the path.
Obama’s pitch to Republicans has had little effect so far, though some of his appointees have been freed from the grasp of the Senate. He is scheduled to meet in a healthcare summit next week that will be closely watched.
Most polls have shown an angry, anti-incumbent mood among voters, hit by a collapsing economy, dismay with Wall Street bonuses and Washington’s focus on healthcare that has yet to yield any result.
An Associated Press-GfK poll in mid-January, found just 32% approving of how Congress was handling its job and people were almost evenly split about how they felt about their own congressman. That is a bad sign for officeholders since people traditionally hate the institution but tend to like their own representative.
A CBS News/New York Times poll in early February was even more dire; 81% said it was time to elect new people to Congress. Only 8% said most members deserve reelection.
With those numbers nationwide, it is hardly a surprise that the number of senators choosing to retire has reached 11, the largest since the mid-1990s.
The move to the exits is a good example of bipartisanship, with six Republicans and five Democrats on the move.
--Michael Muskal
