The strange but true source of extreme partisanship

NBC's Tim Russert interviewed Ronald Brownstein and Michael J. Gerson on his weekly show, which was shown this morning on one of NBC's cable networks. The former Los Angeles Times political reporter and the former adviser and speechwriter to President Bush have each written a new book expressing frustration with the state of politics in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Brownstein's book is titled "The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America."

Mr. Gerson's book is called "Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't)."

For an hour, these three intelligent, knowledgeable men discussed the increasingly nasty partisan split in American politics, and how it prevents the federal government from addressing "issues Americans care about," as Mr. Brownstein put it, like health care and energy and immigration. Mr. Gerson lamented that partisanship keeps the government from taking bold action on great moral issues like disease in Africa. Mr. Russert expressed a yearning for the unified spirit of America during World War II.

All three men agreed that the bipartisanship which prevailed in Washington during the 1950s and 1960s is gone, and that the country is worse off for it. They blamed talk radio, the Internet, and Tom DeLay.

America Wants To Know holds a B.A. in history and was asked more than once, "A degree in history? What can you do with that?!"

You can't do much with it. But you can explain to Tim Russert, Ron Brownstein, and Mike Gerson that the extreme partisanship in Washington is a direct, unintended consequence of campaign finance reform.

It is no coincidence that the halcyon era of good feelings these men remember came to an end in the 1970s. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and the post-Watergate amendments to that act in 1974 put strict limits on campaign contributions. A "loophole" that allowed unlimited donations to political party organizations was closed in 2002 with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as McCain-Feingold. As a result of the reforms, candidates who once could raise large amounts of money from a few donors were forced to raise small amounts from many donors.

Anyone who works on Madison Avenue could tell you that fear is an effective tool for separating people from their money.

If you have to motivate a lot of people to write small checks to your campaign, you have to conjure up images of scary enemies and dire consequences. A calm appeal to the spirit of compromise is not going to do it.

When was the last time you opened a direct-mail fundraising letter with the words "Reasonable people can differ" printed on the envelope?

Let's face it: paranoid, hostile, frightened groups are easy to find and even easier to shake down.

But then they're in the hallways with signs after you get elected.

Nothing's free.

Ayn Rand wrote, "A wrong premise does not merely fail, it achieves its own opposite." The premise of campaign finance reform is that disproportionate influence is achieved through large contributions but not through small ones.

If you watch the Democrats court MoveOn.org and the Republicans court pro-life religious conservatives, you may see that Ayn Rand was right.

It's time to re-think campaign finance reform. Unlimited contributions with prompt and full public disclosure might be the answer. Then again, the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." We could always try that.


Copyright 2007

Source notes:

The history of campaign finance reform is available online in many different places; this link will take you to Wikipedia for an overview and bibliography, this link will take you to the Hoover Institution's Public Policy Inquiry on Campaign Finance History.

The Ayn Rand quotation is from the essay,"Altruism as Appeasement," reprinted in The Voice of Reason, available at Amazon.com, the Ayn Rand Institute's bookstore, and many other booksellers.

.