Barack Obama has vowed to be the last president to deal with healthcare reform. Fair enough. He has also vowed to work with Republicans, which is great, because everyone likes cooperation. Political compromise requires careful consideration of a number of factors: the urgency of the situation, the popularity of the governing party, the gap between partisan interests, and acknowledgment of both political and outside realities. Whether President Obama will fulfill his vow depends on his, and the Democratic Party's, ability to come to terms with these dynamics.

Compromise in Theory

If you ask a pundit or politician why Washington is so crippled by partisan gridlock, he or she will answer with some variation of the following: elected officials are choosing to be as partisan as possible—why, in the good old days, everyone had a 'can-do' attitude, and they just wanted to work together to find solutions. Nowadays, we hear, they're too busy trying to prevent opposition victories, instead of serving their country. And they're being rude about it, too.

This is basically nonsense. Disagreement is an essential part of multi-party politics; if we wanted total consensus, we would establish a one-party state. But even Massachusetts elects Republican governors.

Politicians are partisan because they are elected to stand for something—cynics may deride them as opportunists, sell-outs, and frauds, but they still probably believe in something. As a group, politicians disagree on issues, and therefore vote divergently on legislation. Every four years, Ralph Nader runs for president and dramatically declares that Republicans and Democrats are the same party. If he were right, America would already have a healthcare compromise. We are still waiting.

What Everyone Wants

There are three basic considerations in healthcare policy: cost, quality, and coverage. Those seeking consensus can look at these issues and find complete, meaningless agreement: every single politician wants lower healthcare costs, higher quality, and expanded coverage. As I wrote in a previous article, nobody is against everyone having healthcare coverage; people just disagree on the proper role of government in assuring it.

True believers within the Democratic Party want single-payer health insurance: government-run, government-administered, taxpayer-funded healthcare (theoretically) for all. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, the main bastion of liberal strength in Congress, supports it. The most liberal Senators, including Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-proclaimed socialist, support it. And President Obama, before he had to face political realities, told the AFL-CIO in 2003 that he 'happen[s] to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare plan.' If they could push it through, they would.

Republicans, of course, almost uniformly oppose single-payer healthcare, but unlike with Democrats, there is no single phrase (a la 'single-payer healthcare') to describe their ultimate goals. Roughly, they want healthcare policies that will allow personal freedom and competition, with a minimal amount of government interference. To paint with a wide brush, the issue is not that the government does not do enough. To Republicans, government does too much: by restricting choice and implementing faulty policies in various areas of healthcare, government involvement drives up costs for everyone, rich and poor.

One party's true believers want a government takeover, and the other's true believers want the government to back off. Compromise is difficult.

Single-Payer vs. Political Reality

One could write a book on the costs and benefits of single-payer healthcare, but Republicans and Democrats can agree that regardless of its merits, it will not pass in the immediate future. Not enough people support it. Politics is the art of the possible, as the phrase goes, so healthcare-minded Democrats look for a solution.

They thought they had found it in the 'public option,' a proposal to allow Americans to buy health insurance directly from the government. It seems a brilliant compromise: it does not nationalize healthcare, nor does it create an individual mandate to buy health insurance. As one of its leading proponents, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), says on his website, 'The public option must be included if we want to control costs, improve healthcare services, create competition and turn around our ailing healthcare system.' Of course, this is the same Anthony Weiner who is a co-sponsor of HR 676, the single-payer House bill. It is difficult to believe that he simultaneously wants to increase competition through the public option and eliminate competition through single-payer. He cannot have it both ways.

The 'public option' is the 2007 brainchild of Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale University. He recognized that single-payer was politically unfeasible and developed a compromise. Some accused him of creating a Trojan horse for single-payer. His response: 'Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's right there! We're gonna get there [to single-payer] over time.' Numerous Democrats are on record confirming that the public option is the road to single-payer, government-run healthcare.

Healthcare policy wonks understand why the public option will lead to single-payer. Simply put, it would offer above-market coverage at below-market value, subsidized by American tax dollars, leading to the gradual siphoning of people off of private insurance and onto a 'cheaper' government plan (which they are paying for anyway), and eventually to the necessary political environment for a near-total government takeover of American healthcare.

For Democratic party faithful, that is fine. For Republicans, that strategy is proof that Democrats are not really interested in compromise; rather, they are interested in a politically-safe version of politically-unfeasible single-payer.

Awareness of an 'incrementalist' strategy makes Republicans justifiably wary of anything presented as a compromise. Sen. Kent Conrad's (D-ND) proposal for healthcare cooperatives has potential: successful cooperatives, where people band together to pool risk, exist and work well, mostly throughout the Midwest. There is little doubt that Conrad is sincere in his desire to find a compromise, but the difference between proposed co-ops and current co-ops is that the proposed ones would be created by and initially funded by the government, whereas current ones are not. If actual co-ops (rather than political government entities) were so feasible, they would not need government intervention in order to come into mass existence.

The last reform that liberals might be willing to accept is the so-called 'public option trigger,' without the direct establishment of a public option. The trigger would give the insurance companies 'a final chance,' they say, to provide affordable, quality care to all Americans. And if they do not pass an arbitrary benchmark, the public option will automatically come into existence on a state-by-state basis. But, as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday, 'If you say to the government bureaucracy, 'As long as you find it has failed, you get to build a brand-new bureaucracy,' you have a guarantee the trigger's going to go into effect.' This is another backdoor to single-payer that will not pass.

Indeed, as long as single-payer is used as a starting point for 'compromise,' the nation, acting through its elected officials, will not accept it.

All Facts Considered

An actual compromise must be based on reality, because compromise remains impossible so long as each side comes to the table with different facts. As former Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said back in 1978, 'The problems of our economy have occurred not as an outgrowth of laissez-faire, unbridled competition.  They have occurred under the guidance of federal agencies, and under the umbrella of federal regulations.' Of course, he was talking about the trucking industry, but it applies to healthcare too.

America's healthcare system may be profit-motivated, but it is not a free market. Free market skeptics claim that insurance companies make record profits by price gouging, neglecting to concede that each state places a plethora of mandates on insurance companies regarding minimum coverage, and federal regulations prevent consumers from buying across state lines.

They criticize employer-based health insurance, neglecting to mention that such a faulty system exists because of Democrat-implemented tax laws that favor employer-provided insurance while taxing individually-bought insurance—a regressive tax on the poor and unemployed. They complain about high premiums while refusing to recognize that frivolous malpractice suits drive doctors' insurance rates up, forcing them to charge much more. To his credit, President Obama made some mention of this in his address to Congress, but it has yet to appear in proposed healthcare bills.

Of course the free market cannot solve these problems. The free market did not create these problems. Many Democrats seeking compromise cannot even acknowledge that government played a role in the many high costs and inefficiencies of American healthcare, and this prevents a resolution. The disparity between Republican and Democratic understanding occurs because the left wing of the Democratic Party wants a single-payer revolution, while most Americans just want healthcare to be cheaper and more accessible. For any Republicans to sign on to a Democratic proposal, it must recognize their concerns as more than a novelty.

Compromise as Necessity

The standard line goes that the Republicans are the 'Party of No'; that they are responsible for shooting down every Democratic proposal, no matter how generous to them. Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) admitted a few months ago that it's 'probably 50/50' regarding how much of the opposition to Obama's healthcare vision is just for political points. That statement was a gaffe, only in the sense that he spoke the truth: of course Republicans want to score political points running against a proposal that, according to Rasmussen, has 55% disapproval and 42% approval (9/15/09). And Democrats scored political points running against President Bush's social security reform, against President Bush's tax cuts, and against the Iraq War that the majority of them voted for.

If Republicans, like Democrats opposing Bush, think something is bad, and they think people do not like it, they really have no motivation to work with a president pushing an unpopular policy. As President Obama seeks Republican support for his proposals, he will not convince anyone by vowing not to 'waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it,' as he said in his address to Congress.

Nobody should forget the actual reason Obama needs Republican support: Democrats are abandoning him. The Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House, and therefore do not Republicans to pass anything. Obama is not 'reaching out' because he believes in bipartisanship; he is reaching out because his own party is not getting in line behind him.

Reality-Based Solutions

Republicans have proposed many individual market-based reforms that could achieve the goal of near-total coverage without increasing government control. They brought them to President Obama's address to Congress, and held them up when he said that his 'door is open' to any 'serious' proposals. Political reality dictates that such reforms will never pass under a Democratic Congress and President. That's fine. Elections have consequences. But for Democrats to craft a compromise that is acceptable to any Republicans, they cannot include anything that could be manipulated into a Trojan horse for government-run healthcare. There are plenty of alternatives on the table.

There are, as far as I can tell, two major and several minor contentions arising from the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Of the two major contentions, one is valid and expected, the other logically bankrupt and intentionally deceiving.

Issue I: Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judge who holds positions removed from the mainstream on issues like abortion, affirmative action and gun control.

This is a common criticism that I find pervading conservative news sources. The religious right, consistent with their past position and political activities, is raising a maelstrom of anxiety over Sotomayor's stance on abortion rights. Of course, she has pointedly failed to articulate a position on abortion rights (as all recent nominees to the court have similarly declined to do), but this hasn't stopped ideological opponents from assuming the worst of the nominee with regards to this issue. Likewise, there is much talk of her affirmative-action-loving rulings, in which she uses that "latina wisdom" of hers to discriminate against honest, hard-working Whites all over this country. As controversial as affirmative action is, her ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano is not (conservative criticism to the contrary) a facile one. We can debate the merits of her ruling (note that she was not the author of the court opinion, which was written by Chief Justice Rosemary Pooler), but the facts remain that: 1) both the discriminated-against firefighters and the other discriminated-against firefighters appealed to Title VII, the first group getting the city to overturn the test, the second getting the Supreme Court to overturn the city's decision to overturn the test; 2) lawyers, judges, civil rights experts, and the average citizens fail to agree on even elementary aspects of how affirmative action should function (libertarian scholar Richard Epstein believes we keep the tests but also promote some top Blacks [1], his libertarian colleagues think that "direct evidence of racist intent" should be the only deciding factor and would likely reject any proposal to promote top Blacks [2], Sotomayor obviously disagrees, liberal Supreme court justices agree with her, but the conservative majority in the Supreme court have the numbers of overrule).

So, let's call this series of rulings what they are: a series of differences in legal interpretation of the role of government and the reasonableness of avoiding "disparate impact," and different interpretations of what Title VII does and does not cover. People disagree on such issues. In fact, most people seem to disagree with most other people when you move away from abstraction and into specific cases. This holds just as much for the legal experts who must interpret and apply the law as it does for the average citizen (as loath as some are to admit that perspective enters interpretation).

Sotomayor is a liberal. Therefore, conservatives will disagree with many of her rulings. She is not, however, an activist judge shaping the law to meet her desire for social engineering. She applies the law in a way consistent with both the Constitution and legal precedence. Of course, there are many ways to do this, and some of them will make liberals smug and self-assured while raising the hackles on dedicated conservatives. Republican senators have good cause to take issue with her views on affirmative action and gun control. Moreover, I'm glad that they are bothered by her views; a vocal opposition strengthens our democracy and prevents gross abuse of power. Let us distinguish between honest difference in interpretation of law and the role of government and qualities that make a person unfit for holding the highest Judgeship in the country.

Issue II: Sotomayor is a racist who thinks that her experiences as a Latina from working-class New York give her special insight into life in general and the law specifically.

All of you jumping up from your chair right now thinking "there is a valid and shockingly disturbing issue at stake here and you are doing nothing to further sincere conversation by making a caricature of our concern," take heart. No one has actually uttered the above point. In fact, I hope that no one actually agrees with the above point. What people do agree with, however, is the idea that Sotomayor "'willingly accepts' that prejudices, sympathies and experiences affect her judging" [3]. First, let's examine the entire sentence: "I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate" [4]. A bit of nuance (note the word "appropriate"), but I willingly admit that things don't look good. Isn't this simply self-referential tautology? Not at all, because Sotomayor believes that "judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law" [5]. Not that she is convinced that such transcendence "is possible in all or even in most cases" [6]. Examining the three quotations set above, we are left with this conclusion: Judges must try to overcome their personal sympathies based on the reason of law; complete overcoming of sympathies may not always be possible; and, therefore, we must accept our sympathies when they accord with the reason of law and reject them when they do not.

The above seems to me to be an excellent bit of sociology. We are, each and every one of us, products of our society. The values we hold, the importance we place on various activities, and the priorities we ascribe to public policy are all to some extent products of our rearing. Of course, the older one becomes the more one is able to reflect and amend these notions (this is called maturity). What Sotomayor has done in her statements is acknowledge that even judges are constrained by these sociological facts. Even judges are affected by their backgrounds. This isn't an argument for social determinism, but simply an understanding of the way in which we are all shaped by our experiences. Sotomayor hastens to add, however, that while these experiences may shape our perspectives, judges, as impartial arbiters, are required to bring the "reason of law" to bear on their perspectives. This means that however much one may sympathize with a defendant, understanding what the law demands and why it is crafted in that way must be the guiding instruments of arbitration.

Many people are deeply "troubled" (to quote Senator Sessions) at Sotomayor’s admission of perspectives, sympathies and (yes) prejudices. However, I am deeply troubled that our elected officials would respond with such hostility to honest and helpful self-reflection. Why should we as a people blind ourselves to the reality of social experience? Wouldn't such intentional ignorance (the repeating to oneself of "I'm a purely impartial judge with absolutely no preconceived notions on anything") weaken our system? Don't we want to encourage our public stewards to reflect on when and why they act in certain ways, so as to identify their thinking and test it for consistency with the values, laws, and nation they uphold? I would certainly like to have judges who have spent a great deal of time pondering why they approach certain problems as they do, and then critically analyzed how this approach fits or doesn't with the law. As Sotomayor said, we should accept our sympathies when they are appropriate, an impossible task if one denies that sympathies play a role in people’s thought processes. Hume, though no judge, would certainly shrink from such a thought.

A final note on Sotomayor's "racism." It has been noted that she has expressed "hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that life." I have two points here. First, hope is not a statement of belief about the external world. Sotomayor does not believe that Latina women are better suited to make legal decisions that White men, nor does she imply that the opinion of a Latina woman would be more valuable than that of a White man. What she does say is that she hopes that a wise Latina woman, notably herself, would make a better decision. Second point, if this statement is taken as biographical, I must say I understand the sentiment. I, simply as a person, hope that I make better decisions than other people. This is not because I think others are dumb, ill-informed, or irrational; I simply want to be the kind of person who takes the time to carefully and thoroughly think things through. I want to be more meticulous than others and come to a better conclusion, simply because I strive to be the best. I hope to be more wise and thoughtful than others, but this in no way precludes me from listening to and honestly considering the opinions of other people. Quite the contrary, in fact. Superiority requires that I take into account what others have done so as to understand their reasoning, avoid their flaws, and adopt their strengths.

Much talk has been made of "judicial philosophy" and whether Sotomayor has "a good one." It's laughable that talk of "philosophy" would so quickly turn to hysteria in the face of questioned assumptions. Philosophy is concerned with the questioning of assumptions, "facts," and reasoning. That Sotomayor has actively questioned her own preconceptions and sought to understand how and why they play out is not only a fabulous "judicial philosophy," it is plain-old-devoid-of-quotations philosophy.

The purpose of this essay is not to convince the reader that Sonia Sotomayor is a good candidate for the Supreme Court. Rather, I want to point out what an absurd spectacle the nomination process has become. Of the two criticisms lobbed time and again at the nominee, one is concisely captured under the banner of "we don't agree with you or your rulings" and the other is "you are questioning our assumptions and expressing hope for an arguably detrimental situation." Both criticisms have their place, but let's cut through the smoke and see them for what they are. Instead of having Sotomayor linguistically dance around sensitive issues so as not to offend people who don't agree with her and never will, let's call these criticisms a learning experience and have it out right now. Otherwise we will once again be forced to watch the slow degradation of politics, a reaffirmation of assumptions that I would really rather avoid.

Citations: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Article Response - A Demand for Bipartisanship by Evan Chiacchiaro and Jan McCreary (Issue 3)

In the last issue of the Roundtable, Evan Chiacchiaro and Jan McCreary argued that President Obama can't afford not to reach across the aisle and cooperate with Republicans. While not a particularly lofty claim, I appreciate their effort to hold Obama accountable for his campaign promises. However, while reading the article, I couldn't get past its title: "Demand for Bipartisanship." This begs the question: since when is bipartisanship an acceptable substitute term for cooperation? It's not that I deny the reality of the two-party system; I simply find the language inappropriate.

The Founding Fathers are most likely rolling over in their graves at this turn of phrase. President Washington warned against a party system in his farewell address, saying: "It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection." Today, every time we use the term "bipartisanship" when we really want to say "cooperation," we legitimize a system contested by our forbears and suggest that the epitome of working together is compromise across the lines of the two main parties.

How we discuss phenomena in our political system matters. When we talk about bipartisanship, we leave out Americans unaffiliated with either party and ignore positions on issues that aren't encompassed by Democratic or Republican platforms. We discuss collaboration in the narrowest terms possible. Perhaps more importantly, the word "bipartisanship" reinforces the notion that the two parties have different positions on all the issues and that they need to compromise and work hard to come to an agreement. Calling cooperation "bipartisanship" gives politicians an excuse for just not getting along. It is clear that mainstream Democrats and Republicans, most of those who get elected, are moderate and not at two opposite ends of the political spectrum. The term "bipartisanship" presumes that the two parties are dramatically different, and this simply is not the case.

The two parties aren't divided by meaningful ideological positions, but rather by political power bases. During the presidential debate, there was a lot of rhetoric surrounding the divide in economic policy between Democrats and Republicans. Apparently, Democrats are more concerned with Main Street than Wall Street, while Republicans want to help out the emerging businessman, Joe the Plumber. But when it comes down to it both parties are for sale and, tellingly, both support the bailout, despite outcry from the general public. Major elements of both parties also support the War on Drugs, which has proven clearly ineffective. Even on social issues, which are generally divisive, the parties just aren't that far apart. For example, the presidential campaigns expressed identical positions on gay marriage and civil unions.

By perpetuating the myth that a huge ideological gap exists between Democrats and Republicans, the term "bipartisanship" actually contributes to the lack of cooperation. By using the term, we accept that the parties are engaged in some sort of ideological struggle and that only by finding the middle ground between the two ideals can we govern peacefully. Language matters. If we really want change in Washington and increased cooperation between all actors in the political system, we should just say it.

The Grand Old Party never stood a chance in 2008. George Bush barely squeaked into the White House for the second time four years prior. One knew that a Democrat would be the next President of the United States. Bush's approval rating consistently hovered around 30 percent; there was no miracle he could perform to redeem himself. The feeling was surely explicit on college campuses, but it existed prominently elsewhere in the world as well. One was hard-pressed to find a person who did not despise the American Republicans. In the eyes of everyone who could speak freely without fear of disdain from peers, the party for which Bush stood represented everything that is wrong with humanity, with culture, and with America. Bush may have been the party figurehead who constantly fumbled his words, but it was the political party that was evil at heart. It would have made no difference in the past election if Joe Blow had run for the Democrats and God Himself had run for the Republicans: the liberals were taking back the White House, and they currently show no sign of returning it for many years.

In order to return to the graces of the majority of the country, the party should undergo much transformation that will make them seem a whole new party to many. Many of the dogmas that people recognize as "Republican" or "conservative" are superficial, like being religious or hawkish. The most important tenet that underlies almost all beliefs considered conservative is the notion that people can be genuinely malevolent at their cores for whatever reason. This idea is one to which many people are surely able to subscribe; genuine Democrats will not be converted, but the people who flipped allegiance due to taking the lesser of two evils or were won over by the Obamamania can revert in time. In reshaping the Republican Party, one needs to retain the assertion that people are bad by nature, otherwise one is fundamentally constructing a new party.

If Republicans are ever again to become popular in the near future, they will need to inherit some of the party's ideals from the 1970's and
'80's, prior to the "new neo-conservatism" of George W. Bush, before they acquired the ugly reputation it has today. Some ideals, though, will need to come from even further back in history. Although it had not formerly been viable, as throughout the Cold War, it is now appropriate for America to revert to isolationism with regards to the military. The country should obviously continue with its economic business, but most of our armies can be removed from the various areas they occupy. An argument can be made that an army should remain in Afghanistan until al Qaeda heads are found, but it is not critical. It would be a horrific oversight to simply remove all forces from warring hotspots, which is why the United Nations should take the reins. It can still be the American soldiers who are shipped, as is the obligation of the strongest military in the world, but de jure they should be under UN control. Such a move to globalism could repair the damage in relations between America and European countries caused by circumventing the United Nations' majority opinion in international issues.

The Republican Party needs to ditch its religious ties. Studies do show that America is becoming increasingly atheistic, and so Republicans should follow suit. It is not necessary that the party's next presidential candidate is an atheist, but the candidate should not be a Bush or a Palin or a Jindal. There does not exist a Republican position that cannot be defended without religious reasons. And as long as the views do not change, the votes of the religious right should not be lost in the transition to candidates with non-theistic reasoning for their beliefs.

The Northeast is often thought to be a lost cause. However, the top-right corner of the electoral map has only been consistently blue since Bill Clinton ran. It seems, then, that those states do have the ability to be Republican again. Statistically, the Northeast is the wealthiest region of the nation. Conservatives need to continue to appeal to this part of the country with tax cuts, but they can push harder by appealing to the related Northeast intellectual. There lives a strong intellectual in Barack Obama, the former professor of law; the next Republican candidate should have a similar qualification. In fighting for the Northeast, the party could lose its dominance in the much more populous southern states. The GOP can reasonably suppose, though, that they have a strong enough handle on the South not to take too much damage in targeting a forgotten area of the country.

Republicans need to bury the Bush era and never even hint at a return to it. While he was not the devil that many people made him out to be, the truth matters little in politics. The important thing, keeping up appearances, for the GOP means distancing itself from Bush as much as possible and starting fresh. "McSame" was not the right nominee, regardless of the name being warranted or not. Rudy Giuliani fit the bill, but no frontrunner has emerged since the last election who seems like a viable candidate for the next.

The Republican Party is hurting right now, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that. After a tumultuous Republican Presidency and two subsequent national election defeats, strategists and party leaders are searching for a new way forward even as regular "Joe the Plumber" types are wondering whether or not the GOP can truly represent them in Washington.  As Congressional Republicans settle into their new role as the opposition party they need to plan ahead and lay the foundation for a comeback in the 2010 elections and beyond.

An April 6 CBS/NYT poll shows a low 31 percent approval rating for Republicans in Congress, most likely due in part to the vilification of Republicans as obstructionist for refusing to go along with the Obama-Pelosi spending spree. The Democrat Party's idea of bipartisanship is inviting the GOP to reject their conservative values of limited government and fiscal responsibility, and then lambasting the GOP as the "party of no" when they refuse. Despite these jabs and low poll numbers right now, this re-found tune of lower spending, lower taxes, and smaller government is allowing the GOP to reshape itself as the party of fiscal responsibility and is the ticket to Congressional pick-ups in 2010.

The economy was the defining issue in the 2008 election and will likely remain at the top in 2010. The GOP already has much for which to criticize the Democratic leadership: irresponsible spending, excessive haste, massive deficit growth, earmarks, and pork projects. These and more are showing the American public that we are not witnessing the promised new era of responsibility and government accountability. House GOP leadership and especially Minority Whip and rising star Eric Cantor of Virginia are doing all they can to keep Republicans together in opposition to the Democrats’ economic recovery spending and will use this solidarity to present themselves as constructive dissenters and a viable check on Obama’s powers in 2010.

However, fiscal responsibility is not necessarily the silver bullet for the 2010 or 2012 elections. Obama won the General Election primarily on the economy, and it is probable that he can do it again. If the economy improves, voters will need other reasons to block him and his party. If the economy doesn't improve - well, he could probably still find a way to blame everything on Bush and the Republicans.

In order to win more seats in 2010, the GOP needs to bring together a strong platform of fiscal conservatism combined with a pro-life policy. The "hot-button" issue of abortion rights and restrictions needs to regain the prominent role in national politics it had in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Some abortion rights advocates have declared the four defeated sanctity-of-life ballot measures in 2008 to be evidence of a dying cause, but it is more probable that the defeats are due to an inadequate and confusing GOP presidential campaign that failed to capitalize effectively on abortion.

Senator McCain tried to stay true to his "maverick" independent streak in order to win moderates and was thus slightly uncomfortable with the pro-life movement. He said the right things to appease a social conservative crowd, such as defining life from the "moment of conception" at Rick Warren's forum, but didn't make it a central campaign issue the way Bush did. When Sarah Palin came on board--the most exciting thing  for the pro-life cause since the appointment of Chief Justice Roberts - she inevitably inspired a greater discussion on abortion. Because McCain had not properly laid the foundation for this issue as important to his campaign, the resulting message was confusing and reactionary rather than cohesive and deliberate.

So while the 2010 GOP needs to sweep Congress with resistance to Obama’s taxes and spending, it also needs to make sure to run some high-profile abortion races through pro-life candidates and issues. Obama has not yet made good on his promise to work together with Republicans to reduce the number of abortions. On his second day in office he reversed the "Mexico City Policy" so that now federal aid may go to international groups that perform abortions or make them more accessible. According to a Gallup poll 58% of Americans opposed this decision at the time it was made. Approval ratings for other upcoming Democrat measures such as passing the Freedom of Choice Act or removing legal protections for health care providers who personally object to abortion will likely not be very high either. Even if the economy is the dominant issue in the 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party needs to criticize the Democrats on their pro-abortion agenda in order to turn out incensed voters and reinstate abortion’s relevancy to the GOP platform in preparation for 2012.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference and Republican co-chairwoman of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues is a proponent of abortion restrictions and may be the ideal candidate to represent a renewed GOP opposition to abortion in the House. In 2007 Rodgers gave birth to her son Cole, who, like Palin's young Trig, has been diagnosed with Down syndrome.

The next Republican Presidential nominee will therefore need to be strong on both the economy and abortion, as fiscally conservative and pro-life.  Sarah Palin has the abortion credentials, but needs to learn to speak about it from a larger framework of health, women's issues, social responsibility, and individual liberties. However, Palin has not made the strongest case for herself as a fiscally responsible Governor, and although there is much excitement about her potential candidacy it is difficult to see her winning on the national stage so soon after a severely embarrassing election. Sarah Palin's ultimate place in the GOP might be as a reelected Governor and future Senator of Alaska.

The two governors who have the best chance of running on a platform dominated by the economy and abortion are Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.  Both have protested the 2009 stimulus Federal funding as irresponsible government spending. Although Sanford is applying for the funds after first threatening to reject them, it is with hopes that he can use the stimulus money to ease South Carolina's debt rather than spend more. Both are also reliably pro-life and would be able to champion that cause without appearing insincere or opportunistic.

Focusing on fiscal responsibility and reducing abortions will not automatically propel the Republicans back into power. There is certainly organizational and ideological restructuring that should take place in order to reach out to a wider constituency. However, these two issues will win the GOP Congressional seats in 2010, and depending on the results of that election and the candidate running, may boost the party to an upset Presidential Election victory in 2012.

When the New York Yankees' star player Alex Rodriguez admitted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs, known to the public as "steroids," the media worked itself into hysterics over his supposed perversion of the American pastime. They were, however, behind the United States Congress, who last year dedicated eight days to interrogating players they deemed to be cheaters bent on poisoning young minds. All they had at the end of the hearings, though, was a lot of footage of Roger Clemens chewing on his lower lip and a sense of moral superiority.

Baseball hasn't been ruined any more than the Olympics have. At last summer's Games, records were broken in seemingly every race. It wasn't due to drugs, as far as we know, but nor was it because of that crop of athletes' so-called natural ability. Michael Phelps is probably not the greatest "natural" swimmer of all time, no matter how many records he shattered. He owes his incredible times, at least in part, to a deeper pool that creates less wave resistance, not to mention a myriad of other technological advancements in training and competing. But no one has claimed, as they have with Rodriguez, that Phelps' numbers are "in question."

Athletes use what technology is available to them to help them train, to help them run faster and lift more and throw harder and hit baseballs further. And in competition technology helps them break records. So the question remains: are performance-enhancing drugs, which baseball players use to help them work out more and thus bulk up faster, cheating?

Right now, the argument is not so much about health and safety as it is about our conceptions of "fairness," and rather than honestly discuss health risks, we resort to fist-pounding moral outrage. The current debate is about the American tenet that "all men are created equal," and in this case, all people are born with the same natural abilities. Performance enhancing drugs create advantages that are not "natural." But nature itself is in no way fair. The basis of evolutionary biology, natural selection, rests on that very idea. So where did this obsession with fairness come from?

The answer has less to do with baseball than it does with America. We hold dear the idea that all people have the same natural abilities, the idea that anyone can hit 500 home runs if he works hard enough. The fact is that he can't. All the drugs in the world will not change such a simple fact of nature. But if steroids, like any other technology, help Rodriguez train harder, if he uses them prudently and he is honest about his usage, he is not cheating any more than Olympic swimmers are in their high-tech pools.

There are counterarguments, and it is true that drug testing has begun to purge certain steroids from baseball. But tests are only reactions. They will not be able to keep up with science's limitless creativity, and eventually doping will be immune to detection. Already tests struggle to find HGH, the human growth hormone. So-called "gene doping," generally defined as using any transfer or insertion of genetic material to improve athletic performance, is completely invisible, and therefore it is likely inevitable. The fear of a game in which players feel forced to use some form of doping is real but, sadly, it appears unavoidable. Far better to put the drugs out in the open where they can be researched and regulated. Moreover, if players can be educated about the dangers of overuse and addiction, the risks are lowered further.

For a culture that pushes drugs for enhancing every other type of performance, from studying to sex, the steroid debate is depressingly moralistic. So let us debate it out in the open, on the basis of health and safety, and not harangue Clemens or Rodriguez on moral grounds. Steroids do not make cheaters any more than any other technology does. Yes, drugs may become commonplace. But the longer they are hushed up in a sport where they are already widespread, unsafe, and stigmatized, the longer we buy into salacious media scandals and forget about the game itself. By doing that, we pervert the national pastime on our own.

In the vile wake of AIG's bonuses debacle, with American citizens desensitized by huge government spending, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's recently proposed bank recovery plan warrants a bit of skepticism. Many of the most optimistic experts are quick to emphasize their uncertainty. Predictably, attacks have been mounted from the political right, but noted self-professed liberals like Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman have also voiced dissent. So in general terms, what is behind this plan?

The Geithner plan will take $1 trillion over time to buy up "toxic assets" from the banks using a combination of private and public funds. What is a toxic asset? Suppose I have a poor credit rating, and I'm looking to buy a house. A bank lends me money to buy the house even though I haven't demonstrated that I can be expected to pay it back (a "subprime" mortgage). The bank holds my house as collateral: if I can't pay back the loan, the bank gets my house. Normally banks can sell my mortgage, such that a third party (like another bank) pays my bank, and my mortgage payments go to the third party. That way my bank gets quick money, and the buyer can make a profit from interest on the mortgage.

When the housing market falls, my house becomes less valuable than what I owe the bank. So if I can't pay the loan, the bank loses money. At this point, the bank cannot sell the mortgage; no bank would want to buy a mortgage that I don't have the means to pay, and for which the collateral is less valuable than the loan. The mortgage becomes "toxic," an undervalued financial asset with no market in which to sell.

There are other types of toxic assets, such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. These weigh down the balance sheets of banks, meaning they have less money to lend. This impacts not only mortgages, but also other types of lending such as student loans and business startup loans. Businesses cannot expand and hire at the rate that they should be. The idea behind the bailout, then, is to buy those assets that cannot otherwise be sold such that the banks are free to make more loans, loosening credit flow.

Geithner's plan aims to accomplish this through a public-private investment partnership, or PPIP. The federal government will contribute billions in TARP bailout funds, FDIC debt, and Treasury equity, and share the risk with private investors. Because these assets are likely undervalued, the government and investors stand to profit once the market stabilizes. The government is hiring hedge fund and pension fund managers to control the assets on the condition that they pay a $30 billion stake. This way the private investors are handling in part their own money, discouraging excessive risk.

The plan will reduce the supply of assets, driving up asset prices, reviving liquidity, and allowing businesses to finance expansion and thus increase employment. But not everyone agrees that the plan will work. Economist Paul Krugman, for example, wrote, "To keep the banks operating, you need to provide a real backstop - you need to guarantee their debts, and seize ownership of those banks that don't have enough assets to cover their debts."

So will it work? Expert economists disagree. But one thing is certain: this plan is politically difficult. The Obama administration is showing its resolve to meet these challenges and move forward. Those who are principally opposed to market intervention ought to accept it as a paradigmatic reality of both the current administration and the political will. The only remaining question is how that intervention will best manifest in policy. But whatever plan we use may be our last shot at solving - or at least mitigating - the financial crisis. It is plausible that the administration's political capital on this issue may be expended after a failed, multi-billion dollar attempt. Let us hope that, whichever plan we use, it works the first time.

The Republican Party has an image problem. The party that was once given the moniker the Grand Old Party, emphasis on Grand, is increasingly becoming seen as the Grand Old Party, emphasis on Old.  It is viewed as the party of big corporations, rather than the champion of small business and the middle class.  To some, it is the party of the rich, not of the average American worker; to others, it is the party of the rural South, of NASCAR and Christian fundamentalists and intelligent design, far removed from the intellectualism espoused and celebrated in the Northeast and on college campuses.  And neither the appointment of African-American Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican Party nor the choice of Indian-American Bobby Jindal to deliver the party's rebuttal to Obama's State of the Nation address moved the Republican Party any closer to shaking its diversity problem.  Its image remains that of the party of white men, a far cry from the multicultural reality of American today.  And as a result, the party‚Äôs voters have been overwhelmingly those that resemble this image; either white males from the South or members of the upper class.

The current GOP's response to the problems it faces has been, unsurprisingly, wholly uninspired. Rather than adopting new strategies and looking to expand its supporters, party strategists have largely turned inwards.  Party officials spoke in 2008 of the need to "fire up the base," crafting campaign narratives and platforms aimed at increasing turnout among those who would never cast a ballot for a Democratic nominee, but needed added inspiration to go to the polls on Election Day.  In effect, the Republicans decided that they stood no chance at victory through winning over new voters, and instead focused on igniting its core to support the nominee. Never was this more evident than in the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be the vice presidential nominee. Since the beginning of the campaign, hard-right conservatives had been less than thrilled with presidential nominee Senator John McCain; his stances on social issues were viewed as too moderate, and religious conservatives did not trust him on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.  The pick of Palin was meant to solidify their support.  A religious conservative through and through, Palin is firmly pro-life, supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and had called for creationism to be taught as an alternative theory alongside evolution in public schools in Alaska.  She was exactly what Republican strategists were declaring was needed to rally the right and defeat Barack Obama.

Palin certainly succeeded in drawing support from the conservative base of the Republican party, often drawing larger crowds at speaking engagements than Senator McCain.  She roundly failed, however, at helping McCain win the election. Palin managed to alienate more voters than she attracted, narrowing McCain's possible voter pool by a great deal. Despite her insistence that her appointment had created a team of "mavericks" that would take on Washington, a claim designed largely to appeal to moderates and undecided voters, independents turned sharply away from the McCain-Palin ticket. A New York Times poll showed that in the seven weeks after McCain announced Palin's nomination, the number of independent voters that expressed an unfavorable view of the senator rose from 24 percent to 44 percent; a staggering loss for the man whose successes among moderates and in traditionally independent-heavy states such as New Hampshire had helped him greatly on the national stage.  While much of the distaste for Palin resulted from perceptions of her as incompetent and unqualified to serve, her stances on social issues turned off many potential voters as well.  The McCain-Palin ticket failed to expand the Republican Party's voting base, and as a result they were soundly defeated on November 4, 2008.

For the Republican Party to succeed in 2010, 2012, and beyond, it needs to abandon its insistence on kowtowing to the far-right and look to broaden its appeal among Americans.  Gone are the days when a candidate could shout himself hoarse about abortion and the death of traditional marriage and secure an election victory.  The Republicans' reliance on religious conservatives, a relationship truly cemented in the 1980s, is no longer sustainable. A poll by the Pew Forum in 2008 recorded that more than half of Americans under the age of 30 support legalized abortion in the United States, and a poll by the same group in 2006 showed that only a quarter of Americans under 30 are strongly opposed to gay marriage, and 72 percent support allowing gays to serve openly in the United States military. Instead of harping on social issues, the Republican Party needs to accept a moderate stance on these matters, and turn to the elements of conservatism that have a greater appeal to more Americans.

The recent populist outrage over President Obama's bank bailouts, stimulus package, and vastly inflated budget have given Republicans the opportunity they need to abandon social conservatism in favor of fiscal and governmental conservatism.  Traditional conservative values of decreased government spending and balanced budgets, which were largely abandoned during the Bush administration, have the chance to resonate with voters across America in a way that the religious right's values never could.  Replacing religious arguments against abortion with well-constructed arguments for a smaller budget gives the party a chance to appeal to both Northeast intellectuals and Southern Evangelicals. Advocating lower taxes for all Americans can attract the votes of a lower-class family in Detroit just as easily as an upper-class family in Georgia or Virginia. And as the Republican Party moves away from its polarizing stances of the past and increases its base of supporters, it will begin to attract voters of all races and all religions, and become a party as diverse as the nation it is trying to represent. This is the future Republican Party. It is a party that embraces social politics of inclusion rather than alienation. It is a party that looks outward across traditional boundaries and draws support for its policies from farmers and investment bankers, Christians and Jews, whites and blacks and Hispanics and Asians. It is a party that creates leaders that "fire up" more than just a small base of voters. And it is a party that, if all goes well, can unite Americans and win back Congress and the White House.