A Pause That Refreshes

06/22/2006

Paul Munnis

Those who would further divide America by creating illusions of partisanship on key issues are frustrated as they witness both political parties split over how to handle many of the key issues of our times.

Examples are the Iraq War and Immigration policy. Both Democrats and Republicans have division within their parties on how to handle these issues.

That prevents party strategists creating the pretty binary posturing that they seek to paint. Unable to say: “The GOP is for this and the Democrats are for that,” they instead look at the fracturing within the opposite party and then concentrate on how the other party is split rather than the bigger picture that both parties are split.

The American people are no longer fooled though. They know that John Kerry has one view of the Iraq War and that Hillary Clinton holds a different view. They also know that John McCain holds one viewpoint and Bill Frist holds yet another viewpoint. There is no Party consensus on Iraq and the differences are not along party lines but rather seem a matter of individual conscience and are based upon individual moral viewpoints.

This denies the party strategist the opportunity to propagandize the issue and paint one party as for it and the other against it in order to garner votes.

Have we reached a point where the advantageous use of wedge issues is behind us? We don’t think so but the pause is refreshing.

As GOP political strategists seek to pull Mr. Bush’s job satisfaction rating out of the ditch they are increasingly confronted by realization that doing so requires more unification of the nation and less splitting of the American people. That is inconsistent with the Karl Rove strategy of these past years. If they keep America divided, the GOP numbers stay low. If they try to unify the nation, they step all over their prior negativity and show they had wrong policies. This goes to the heart of the GOP attempt to get re-elected after five years of negative performance.