Musing on Discontinuity in the Political System

For the last couple of years I have worked with a presentation on how to have success in the legislative process which has four simple rules. Those rules are - The Otto von Bismark Rule - Politics is the art of the possible; The Lord Palmerston Rule - No permanent friends, no permanent enemies,only permanent interests;The Scarlett O'Hara Rule - Tomorrow is another day (with the Unruh Corollary - If I'd killed all my friends yesterday, I'd have no friends today); and the The Clint Eastwood Rule - Proximity matters. There is a fifth tentative rule also (The Ernest and Julio Rule - which states that no legislation comes before its time) but I have not yet added that to the full presentation.

If you want to see the whole presentation is is on my Personal Website

Senator Lamar Alexander got me to thinking today when he commented that he thought the current administration was a lot like the Nixon Administration - with evidence of an enemies list. There is a lot of evidence that the Obama people have a list of people they would not like to engage with - two come to mind (the insurance industry and Fox news). If one follows the Scarlett O'Hara rule (with the Unruh Corollary) then the Palmerston rule should almost be self enforcing. If you think of the legislative process as something continuing than as a series of contests you disregard enemies when starting on a new project. If you don't you are likely to have a continuing set of combatants - to be in the bubble that Pitts discussed in yesterday's post.

As I thought about that today I came to the realization that the Palmerston rule might be re-written a bit. Those interests might be redesigned to be called values or principles. Nixon was nothing if flexible in his beliefs. When he first ran for congress he ran a narrow and bitter campaign. In the 1972 campaign he got into trouble because he had a list of enemies that he wanted to quash. On the other side, Ronald Reagan had a set of established principles on which he was unwilling to bend. But he was also able to work with the likes of Tip O'Neill (who had many of the same qualities although the principles were different). Ultimately without those principles, the politician begins to solve for power and not interests. A good deal of the nonsense that has turned off Americans to the political system has been the preponderance of politicians who are too flexible in their principles. At this point it is unclear whether the Obama people understand that simple idea.