Reading that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will be endorsing Sen. John McCain for President, we got to musing about bipartisanship.
Lieberman is truly bipartisan -- he caucuses with Democrats, giving them their majority in the U.S. Senate (as an independent, he could caucus with Republicans, giving them the majority, if he chose) and yet he frequently votes with Republicans, especially on national security issues. And he is endorsing a Republican for President.
Which of course got us to thinking about our own bipartisan Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, wondering about which of our competitive statewide races he will choose for his expression of bipartisanship. You know -- which of his fellow Republicans will he endorse and campaign for?
To make it meaningful, it has to be competitive.
We know that Rehberg is going to win in a walk (even if the Dems can actually find a candidate to be their sacrificial lamb,) so that one won't count. And while we would love to see Republican John Bohlinger endorse Republican Roy Brown for governor, we realize that there would be a certain conflict of self-interest for Bohlinger.
How about State Auditor? It should be a competitive race between Republican Duane Grimes and Democrat Monica Lindeen. Both have good name recognition from previous statewide races. Bohlinger could endorse Grimes and while he is on the stump campaigning for the gov/lt. gov ticket around the state, he could urge his supporters to vote Republican in the Auditor race.
He could also send out mailers in some of the swing districts that lean Democrat right here in Yellowstone County, endorsing the Republicans in those legislative races.
If Lt. Gov. Bohlinger were to play a role in tipping a close statewide race to the Republicans, or help the GOP pick up a couple of legislative seats in Yellowstone County, Montana Headlines would lead the charge in urging the GOP to forgive and forget, certifying his Republican credentials.
It would be a start, wouldn't it?
Addendum: We note that David Crisp over at Billings Blog kindly linked to our last Bohlinger post, but felt that we missed the point that Bohlinger is popular (we'll take Crisp's word for it that Bohlinger is indeed popular) precisely because people are sick of partisanship and mistrust it.
True enough, as far as it goes. And we would be the first also to acknowledge that the Montana GOP could, from the beginning, have dealt with the Bohlinger defection in a more creative and constructive way. In other words, not all of the estrangement is Bohlinger's fault.
The problem is that Lt. Gov. Bohlinger wants some of the benefits of a partisan label, while accepting none of the responsibilities, so far as we can tell.
Far from opting out of partisanship, Bohlinger explicitly wants to embrace the name "Republican," and expects that some people will vote for his ticket precisely because of the fact that there is a Republican on it.
Now one can reject the traditional conservative argument (first articulated by ur-conservative Edmund Burke) that "responsible party" is necessary to the orderly operation of government. And one can certainly accept that some may feel that one or the other (or both) of the major American parties are no longer "responsible" in any meaningful sense of the word.
But regardless, it seems that the two broad choices that face a politician are either to reject partisan labels and become independent (as with Joe Lieberman) or to remain within a party and work with it -- which means accepting at least some of the responsibilities of party membership.
When we revisit this issue (as we will doubtless continue to do,) it is not in a spirit of hating John Bohlinger -- it is in the spirit of inviting him to take up some of those responsibilities, and offering suggestions on how he could do so in a meaningful way.
