Gridlock

George McGovern (former Democratic Congressman and presidential candidate) was on the Diane Rheim

show this morning (a repeat, but my first time hearing it).

She introduced him by saying “He knows how to lose, he lost 49 states to Richard Nixon, but he says it is better to lose an election than lose your soul.”  And she added that he thinks Obama’s recent compromises are to win in 2012, but risk his soul.   

He talked extensively about Congressional compromise and civility back in his days and the extreme lack of both of these now.  He said Bob Dole (former Republican Senator and Presidential candidate) was his best friend.  That could never happen any more.  He also noted that political consultants are creating ads and messages based on nuances of human psychology that evoke visceral reactions of fear and disgust (see my Human Factors blog posts) and pick on the opponent’s character rather than debate issues. He wondered if Washington could get anything done anymore.

I heard a similar interview with Alan Simpson on the Michael Smerconish show a few weeks ago.  He is a former Republican Senator and still very active (he led the Simpson Bowles task force on deficit reduction).  And he very eloquently threw up his hands in frustration at the lack of civility and compromise too.  He wondered if Washington could get anything done anymore.

Taking these two interviews together, it is very depressing.  We always say it’s worse now because we don’t remember history very well.  The arguments in Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson’s day got personal, were vindictive, and unproductive and that was 150-200 years ago.   But Simpson and McGovern are two very experienced politicians.  If they think there is a fundamental order of magnitude difference between now and the 60-70s, it is really worrisome. 

We need something to get done NOW to fix our three big problems (health care entitlements, government debt, international competitiveness/innovation).   When the government got stuck in 1830, we could just develop the territories in the west and grow anyway.  In the 1910s we could exploit Latin America and SE Asia (not that this is a good thing, but it worked.  What to do we do now?  Space and the deep blue sea are the only frontiers left.  We had the Arctic, but it seems Russia and Norway have already beaten us there.  And we are cutting horribly the budgets for NASA, NAOA, and NSF.  The kinds of innovation startups and venturists like Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos don’t have quite the budgets or long term views to do real exploration.  It is a little harder now than putting together a wagon train and “head west young man.”

Anyway, I'm worried.