Lanny Davis suggests the next Democratic president hand over power to the Republicans


Is there something in the air that the Beltway types breathe that turns them into ...well...idiots?

Today's Day reproduces a column by Lanny Davis in which he proposes a fusion ticket for president:

Imagine the buzz if Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton committed to making the other vice president in the event that either won the election.

He proposes a convoluted method to circumvent tradition and the constitution to achieve this result. We are not told how this happy result would be expected to come about in the event, for instance, that McCain and Clinton ran against each other in the general campaign. But the fruits of this happy event are worth disregarding the obvious difficulties:

In forming his administration, the new president would continue to adhere to the ideal of bipartisanship, selecting a 50-50 Cabinet and choosing judicial nominees on the basis of merit rather than party.

And if wishes were horses...Guess what Lanny, right at this very moment we have a president who will tell you he chooses judicial nominees on the basis of merit. I guess it would all be different if someone actually pledged in advance to appoint them that way, except...hmmm... every candidate known to man already does that, don't they?

And yes, it certainly make sense to straightjacket yourself in advance by promising to give your political opponents half the positions in your cabinet. Who ever said that elections are about issues? In Davis' world, they're about achieving a state of bipartisan bliss. This is what comes of drinking the Lieberman Kool-Aid, as a result of which one knows in advance that the best policy is one situated exactly in the middle of a fictitious continuum between a non-existent extreme left and a very much existent extreme right (important exception: the Iraq War, where we must stick to principles and continue to prosecute a war distinctly unpopular across most of the political spectrum). But how can I argue with Davis, when he invokes the sainted Lincoln as precedent:

This is no fantasy. It's the decision Abraham Lincoln made when, running for re-election in 1864, he asked his Republican vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, to quit the ticket in favor of the highly partisan Democrat Andrew Johnson.

Lincoln's experiment in bipartisanship was tragically cut short when he was assassinated less than a month after his 1865 inauguration. But if ever there was a time to give it a second try, it's now.

No, Lanny, the experiment wasn't cut short. Part of the deal is that if the president dies, the vice-president takes over. So let's look at how the experiment actually turned out. Lincoln was dead 5 weeks after his inauguration. Johnson, a Unionist, but also a virulent racist, took over. He was totally out of sympathy with the so called Radical Republicans, who gave us the Fourteenth Amendment, without which we would not be the nation we are. They were committed to racial equality, but Johnson opposed them at every turn. We don't know what would have happened had Lincoln lived, nor do we know what would have happened had he been succeeded by someone who had the slightest amount of concern for the fate of the ex-slaves, but we know what did happen at least partly as the result of Lincoln's experiment. It took black people almost 100 years to achieve legally enforceable equality, and even today we struggle with racial issues made worse because they festered for a century. Lincoln was a great president, but his experiment was a terrible mistake, because he chose as vice president a man that neither he nor anyone else ever expected to be president and with whom he was in fundamental disagreement on the issues of the day. Yes Lanny, issues matter. Sometimes one side is right and the other is wrong. Sometimes there is no middle. And by the way, as it turned out, Lincoln would have been re-elected had he kept Hamlin.

Why should Hillary, Barack, John (Edwards, not McCain), or Chris repeat that mistake? Why should they expose the nation to a possible McCain presidency (substitute any of the other potential Republican candidates). Why should they mortgage their presidency to institutionalized executive gridlock? And why should I vote for someone who announces in advance that (s)he stands ready to hand the country over to someone who stands ready to hand it right back to the folks who have brought it to ruin over the past 6 years?

One of the odd things about this piece is Davis' insistence that a fusion ticket is needed in order to unite a deeply divided country. Yet his centerpiece ticket features McCain and Clinton. This country may be divided on a lot of things, but it is no longer divided on Iraq. Somehow, according to Davis, McCain is in a position to lead a divided nation when he is on the wrong side of an issue on which we unwashed millions largely agree and on which Clinton's position is suspect at best.

This is the sort of thinking that periodically grips the Washington punditocracy and appears to be peculiarly attractive to the editors over at the Day. Years ago these same folks were ready to throw in their lots with a Colin Powell presidency, though they had idea none about what he believed. We now know, what was obvious then to those who paid attention, that Powell is and was a Republican lackey lacking both spine and conviction. They have similarly swarmed around McCain, and are now oblivious to the fact that the people who get to vote are tumbling to the fact that Mr. Straight Talk has developed a severe case of forked tongue. But how delusional is Lieberlover Davis:

But I'm betting that such a third ticket won't be necessary, because either Democrats or Republicans — or both — will nominate a bipartisan ticket in 2008 or commit to a bipartisan presidency after the election. And I'll wager that if only one of the parties does it, that party will win.

Any takers?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I'll tell you what Lanny. I'll bet my 401K against yours that neither party will do as you suggest. Are we on?
Posted: Sunday - January 21, 2007 at 04:28 PM          

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