A New York mayor and the David Broderization of America.

'Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology." So declared New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg upon renouncing his membership in the GOP last week. The problem, of course, is that people don't agree on what "real results" or "good ideas" are. Cutting taxes? Raising taxes? Funding stem-cell research? Banning stem-cell research? This is exactly why we have partisan battles in the first place.You would think that anybody who failed to grasp this would be urged to study a high school civics textbook. Instead, Bloomberg is being urged to run for president and lauded for his statesmanship. Bloomberg has thus become the most prominent example of what you could call partisanship scolds. These are people who believe that disagreement is the central problem in U.S. politics, that both parties are to blame in equal measure, and that rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue. While partisanship scolds believe that they stand in bold contrast to Washington, they are probably more heavily represented among the Beltway elite than any other demographic. The official lobby of the partisanship scolds is a group called "Unity '08"-- a collection of graying eminences from both parties who are calling for a bipartisan presidential ticket, perhaps led by Bloomberg. Their rhetoric appears to be targeted at people who enjoy kittens, rainbows, and David Broder columns. Specifically, Unity '08 says its ticket will run on "ideas and traditions which unite and empower us as individuals and as a people." Well, that's nice. Unfortunately, when the partisanship scolds get a little more specific, things tend to break down. The first problem is that they can't agree on whether partisanship is making Washington pay too much attention to public opinion or too little. Bloomberg says the former: "When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air--the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage." Unity '08, on the other hand, says the latter: Neither party, it claims, "reflects the aspirations, fears, or will of the majority of Americans." The second problem is that the partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizeable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance. Third, in the age of George W. Bush, the substance of the partisanship scold ideology is no longer, by any reasonable definition, centrist. They are moderate Democrats who don't want to admit it. Unity '08 proposes to address the following issues: "Global terrorism, our national debt, our dependence on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as strategic competitors and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate change, the corruption of Washington's lobbying system, the education of our young, the health care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream for so many of our people." Most Democrats wouldn't disagree with anything on this list. Most Republicans, on the other hand, are happy to raise the national debt in order to cut taxes, either don't believe in global climate change or don't want to do anything serious to stop it, oppose any plan that could provide health care for all Americans, and think the American Dream is thriving. Unity '08 further insists that gun control, abortion, and gay marriage should not "dominate or even crowd our national agenda." Which party has been putting those issues at the center of the agenda? Not the Democrats. Bloomberg's politics are even further to the left. He's an out-and-out social liberal, banning smoking in public places and going to war against the National Rifle Association. He emphasizes programs to help the poor, has worked closely with unions, and has denounced rising inequality as a threat to democracy. But for Bloomberg and his admirers to admit that their views do have a home in a major party would destroy the basis of their self-image. Thus they must maintain at all costs the pretense of transcending ideology. This pretense can be stretched to the point of absurdity, as evidenced by Time's glowing cover story on Bloomberg and his fellow moderate Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The premise of the article is that the two are "doing big things that Washington has failed to do." What things? The article cites "Washington's neglect of the working poor" and the fact that "Washington rejected the Kyoto Protocol." Schwarzenegger is quoted touting his initiative to fund stem-cell research as a slap at "the Federal Government." "Washington" and "the Federal Government" are, of course, euphemisms for the Republican Party. But openly saying so would be partisan. Partisanship scolds oppose the GOP agenda, but rather than acknowledge and confront those ideological differences, they assume them away. Indeed, the premise that ideological extremism has left no room in either party for moderates like Bloomberg is belied by Bloomberg himself. There are many things keeping Bloomberg from running on a conventional party ticket, but the alleged extremism of the two parties is not one of them. A longtime Democrat, he switched his affiliation for his initial mayoral run in 2001, but only because running as a Republican offered him a clearer path to the nomination. Bloomberg's ideology today places him firmly within the Democratic camp. If Bloomberg took the honest route and switched back to the Democrats to run for president, he'd be condemned as a transparent opportunist. Instead, he disingenuously renounces party altogether and is praised as a visionary.

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