When longtime Grand Rapids Congressman Gerald Ford learned he was about to became President, he called his golfing buddy, Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, to invite him to his swearing-in. They were political opposites. O’Neill was a staunch liberal Democrat from Boston. Ford was West Michigan conservative to the core. Yet they were good friends.
The gruff old Irishman said he’d like to say that Congress would be happy to cooperate, but the new President would have to work with Congress too. Ford told him that would be entirely appropriate.
The Speaker paused, and said, “Christ, Jerry, isn’t this a wonderful country? Here we can talk like this and you and I can be friends, and eighteen months from now, I’ll be going around the country kicking your ass in.” And the men both laughed.
Politics used to be more like that. You could differ on the issues but find a way to get along. That system sometimes led to corruption. There have been times when legislative bodies resembled gangs of thieves. Republicans would steal from the north side, Democrats the south, and everybody winked and split the booty in between
We don’t want to return to that. But in these ideologically polarized times, every old timer who has ever covered politics knows that a certain amount of collegiality has been lost. Democrats and Republicans too often stare at each other across red and blue barricades. They are unwilling to compromise, to do anything that might violate their ideological purity or -- even worse -- make the other guys look good. That might be a good attitude for a sports team. But it is not a sensible way to run a rambunctious, highly diverse state. Thirty-eight percent of us voted for left-wing headbanger Geoffrey Fieger when he ran for governor. Four years later, a different thirty-eight percent voted for conservative Republican Rocky Raczkowski for U.S. Senator.
The other one-quarter of us are politically in between. Most of the time, the political arts call for effective and sensible compromises. That’s what’s going on now in Michigan, as Republicans and Democrats in Lansing try to wheel, deal and compromise on issues ranging from the governor’s scholarship program to minimum wage rules.
We haven’t had much of this horsetrading in recent years, and that’s a shame. That’s partly why the state is in the shape it is in.
Hopefully, the House Speaker Craig DeRoche, Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, and the governor’s people can come to n agreement on these various issues.
They’ll need to do it soon, before all rationality is erased by the general election campaign. Once that gets going, all Democrats will be labeled incompetent America-hating liberals, and all Republicans warmongering greedheads. Yet a new crop with some of each flavor will have to run the state for the next four years.
Let’s hope they agree to get together and reform the broken way the state budget works. Who knows – for once, common sense might just be worth a try.
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