Bipartisanship (Really!)

Marc Ambinder has some advance skepticism about efforts to build support for stronger action against global poverty and disease on a bipartisan basis:

The second is to create a transpartisan set of solutions. That's going to be hard. The politics of poverty is perceived as intractable. Liberal and conservative solutions rarely overlap, and when they do, there are distinct political downsides for at least one of the political parties. Remember, the mass of Americans who want bipartisan solutions aren't the same Americans who vote in primaries. That's why Fred Thompson talks about bipartisan solutions and espouses fairly conventional Republican policies.

Naturally, this came up a lot in a small meeting I and some other bloggers attended with Bill Frist, Tom Daschle, John Podesta, and Michael Gerson who are, I guess, the key symbols of bipartisanship. I came away fairly convinced. Frist, who turns out to be almost shockingly impressive on this subject, specifically said that in his view "the real turn was the faith-based community embracing an issue that heretofore they'd been uncomfortable with, largely because of condoms." What happened was less that people with strong religious opposition to condom promotion decided to embrace it anyway, said Frist, but that people reach the conclusion that "we don't have to be out in front on all aspects of the issue" and just focus on helping in the ways they can help in good conscience (distribution of medical supplies, campaigns on the importance of faithfullness in marriage) rather than fighting other people over different prevention methods.

Frist did, however, concede that thus far it's the Democratic candidates who "have taken a leadership role today on these issues." The main obstacle, as best I can see, to bipartisan action on this front is that (as one conservative blogger in the room noted), on the right this kind of thing is specifically identified with exactly the kind of Gerson-ian "compassionate conservative" strain of conservatism that's becoming deeply unfashionable at the moment.

Comments

I'm a little confused by Frist's "what happened was" narrative. Out here in Vietnam, which is one of the 15 PEPFAR countries, the "what happened was" narrative runs more along these lines: NGO people were wary of Bush's anti-AIDS initiative because of fears of conservative dominance, Washington micromanaging, and American unilateralism, but they figured they'd go along and try to ensure the money was used wisely. Then, the fears turned out to be justified, and NGOs that worked with PEPFAR found themselves tied up into knots trying to spend money on silly faithfulness/abstinence campaigns, trying to fit their programs into irrelevant budget categories, dealing with sudden peremptory cancellations, violations of contract, and program changes from Washington, and so on. Many NGOs turned down PEPFAR money. A fair amount of good was done by the more technically oriented aspects of PEPFAR (e.g. CDC). Most NGOs were afraid to speak out about the mismanagement, for fear of losing funding. Finally, over the past 7 months, the Democrats won the election; people began leaving PEPFAR en masse, sensing that a change was coming and it would not do to be part of the old guard when the Democratic broom came a-sweeping; and the NGO world has been rejoicing at the end of the faith-based community's outsized influence and, hopefully, a return to evidence-based programming.

Frist's narrative is a "what happened was" about how the faith-based anti-condom groups reconciled themselves to not trying to shut down everyone else. How nice of them. But I'm not aware of a single faith-based group that has accomplished anything significant in HIV-AIDS prevention, treatment and care in Vietnam, apart from Catholic Relief Services, which is actually secular. Maybe things are different in other countries, but out here, my impression is that the secular professionals will acquiesce to having the faith-based people do their little thing as long as it doesn't get in the way too much, and that's about it. This, again, is on HIV; on poverty alleviation the picture may be less divisive.

Posted by Matt Steinglass | June 11, 2007 1:16 PM

Are we supposed to take you seriously here, or is this satire? I have to assume that assertions that Bill Frist is "shockingly" informed about anything (besides heart surgery, I guess, and ripping off Medicare) are meant as satire.

Posted by beckya57 | June 11, 2007 1:56 PM

Good point, beckya: Frist may have logged time at Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford, and he may have lots of first-hand experience with AIDS in Africa from the numerous medical missions he's made there, but then he is a Republican with a southern accent, so he can't be informed about anything. Except maybe ripping off Medicare, as you point out, since Frist was of course a senior executive at HCA when it settled claims with the government.

Posted by Fred | June 11, 2007 3:44 PM

Usually a plea for bipartisanship is the mark of a retired politician who doesn't face reelection or an ignorant person who doesn't understand that people really disagree about things. Sometimes, both.

Posted by jalmari | June 11, 2007 5:20 PM

Frist is the classic example of what liars Republicans are and the tensions that arise.

He's a rich doctor who doesn't want to be sued or taxed.

To further those ends, he needs the support of people who think that because AIDS is God's punishment for sexual deviancy, condoms must be avoided lest we encourage the wanton violation of God's Word.

The ideal solution is for both kinds of Republicans to get sick of each other and run on the merits of what they actually believe.

Posted by jalmari | June 11, 2007 5:52 PM