For the purposes of this conversation, I am going to posit that triangulation is a pejorative. It is a political act that is contrary to the interests of principled people on either the right or the left. Its use puts the immediate needs of the president over the needs of his party. It weakens his party and harms the issues for which his party stands. It’s possible to argue otherwise. Some might see triangulation as a savvy strategy that is appropriate in certain circumstances (e.g., a Democratic president faced with a Gingrich Congress). But, I believe we are correct to condemn triangulation, provided we are careful to be sure we know what we mean by the term. And we are not careful.
Triangulation was first self-consciously practiced on the advice of Dick Morris as a way for Clinton to recover from the disastrous 1994 midterms and win reelection in 1996. It succeeded in its primary goal, although alternative strategies may have worked just as well, or better. Clinton embraced deregulation and balanced budgets and most notoriously declared that the ‘era of big government is over’ in his 1996 State of the Union speech. He also passed a Welfare Reform Bill that was so draconian to legal aliens that it caused several resignations from his administration. But we should be careful to make some distinctions. Bill Clinton came out of the Democratic Leadership Council, and his campaign for president embraced several ‘moderate’ positions, including free trade and welfare reform. The campaign on Ross Perot in 1992 had been so focused on balanced budgets that it forced Clinton to pay at least lip service to the issue. In many ways, Clinton’s campaign had been an effort to recast the Democratic Party as a new less liberally orthodox more business-friendly party. So, it’s easy to fall into the trap of considering Clinton’s entire philosophy a form of triangulation. But, aside from the passage of NAFTA, Clinton didn’t govern that way during his first two years in office. He pursued a employer-mandated form of universal health care reform and he attempted to keep his promise to the gay community that they could serve in the military. He passed sweeping gun control laws and the Family Leave Act. He hiked taxes to help balance the budget and pay for an expanded safety net. And he, and his party, got drubbed in the midterms. It was only then that Clinton really embraced a self-conscious strategy of triangulation.
He no longer had much of an agenda for himself, but instead decided to focus on passing items on the Republicans agenda. But he wanted to do it in a way that he could take all the credit for it. This was in part a nod to political reality. Gingrich’s Congress wasn’t going to pass anything on his agenda anyway, and he needed to show that he was still effective. But the cost was very high for liberal causes because Clinton was embracing one Republican idea after another and calling it his own. He even embraced the idea that Big Government is bad and declared it over. This from a man who had just tried to enact universal health care!
So, I think we can see what triangulation is, but we’re not yet clear on what it is not. At all times, in any era, a president must deal with the Congress he has and not the Congress he might wish to have. Except in very rare cases (FDR and LBJ) no president has the kind of majorities needed to just impose their will. It is therefore the norm that a president must compromise with the opposing party. This is not triangulation, but simple legislating. For most of the last century, there was considerable ideological overlap between the two parties, meaning that presidents could cobble together majorities on a regional or ideological basis rather than a strictly partisan one. Moreover, the filibuster was rarely used. Neither of those things are true today. It is now both harder to attract votes from across the aisle and tougher to pass legislation because of the new 60 vote requirement for nearly all proposals. As a result, even with 59 members in the Senate Democratic Caucus, Obama cannot pass anything without getting some Republican support. But that does not mean he has to triangulate. He can still pursue his agenda, which includes climate/energy reform, immigration reform, financial services reform, and an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind. If he were to embrace triangulation, he would be adopting a Republican agenda and trying to call it his own.
Making compromises to get his agenda passed is what all presidents have to do (with the limited exception of FDR and LBJ), and should not be considered in a pejorative light. Nor should rhetoric that spins those compromises in the best light be considered pejoratively. A politician, like a lawyer, should be expected to put the best light on a set of facts.
This can be taken too far, as in the case of declaring the era of big government over, but on less fundamental issues it is harmless.
So, in conclusion, making compromises with the opposing party should not be considered ‘triangulation’ in any kind of pejorative sense. Adopting your opponents’ agenda and dropping your own, while praising things which, until yesterday, your party opposed? That’s triangulation. And it will predictably do real damage to the party of any president who pursues it.
Ah, like offshore drilling you mean.
Ah. Let me note I didn’t read the post below this until after I wrote the above comment. So I guess you don’t mean like off shore drilling.
But I do. I’ve removed myself from his email and text lists but I pity the next Obama person that calls me. Sorry buddy you’re going to catch it.
Precisely.
If Obama was pursuing a stand-alone bill to expand drilling, he’d be adopting Palin’s policy as his own and calling it a great thing.
That’s triangulation.
But making a deal to try to pass his bill on climate change is just ordinary horse-trading. That he puts the best spin on it is also not triangulation, but simple spin.
So I suspect you agree with Sully’s analysis on this issue?
What can I say? My understanding is simply opposite yours.
I should be careful to note that just because something isn’t triangulation doesn’t mean it is good. There are good and bad compromises. And I’m not sold on off-shore drilling. I just don’t think it is a form of triangulation.
I don’t think you can look at it as anything other than adopting your opponent’s agenda. Drill, baby, drill is still burned into the pundit consciousness and that’s how it’s going to reported and perceived: Obama adopts GOP line on off-shore drilling. It’s like he’s trying to demotivate supporters all over again.
The hippie-punching is merely a side bonus.
it’s okay if you don’t accept my argument, but what I am arguing is that Obama is pursuing his own agenda (a bill to address climate change) which is something most Republicans seem to deny is even occurring. It’s clearly his own agenda.
Drilling is merely a somewhat counterintuitive means towards that end. Repealing Glass-Steagall and taking credit for it? That’s triangulation. See the difference?
And paying lip service (which is what an executive order like the one on abortion or this one on oil exploration is) to a very popular notion (the public favors more drilling 2-1) isn’t triangulation, it’s trying to take the wind out of your opponents’ sails.
Well once again, we’ll just have to see how it ends up.
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The objective is to win major policy changes, not to fruitlessly attempt to win some points from nitwit pundits.
FDR and LBJ had to compromise, too. They just had to do it with a group of people inside their party that didn’t want all people to be treated equal.
yes, on civil rights, LBJ had to work across the aisle. I don’t know how much he compromised, though.
And on many issues, both FDR and LBJ put together bipartisan support for bills that a lot of their own party opposed. But that gets back to the way partisan lines have been drawn tight in recent decades.
Well, yeah, considering that people like Fightin’ Bob LaFollette was a Republican. Hell, today he’d be a pretty far left Democrat. And LaFollette wasn’t alone. So times were indeed different. Can the present Democrats adjust?
It is now both harder to attract votes from across the aisle and tougher to pass legislation because of the new 60 vote requirement for nearly all proposals.
It’s harder(until Scott Brown) because you had people backstabbing their own caucus. Here is the other thing I don’t get. We know that Team Obama isn’t afraid to get involved in Congressional races. So why didn’t they see what a mess Coakley was making. They had to know she felt to aloof to campaign. And I wonder why that was never corrected.
There’s a reason you’re my favorite progressive blogger. Clearly said and worth saying. Thanks for the sanity, again.
I’d really like to see retired the overused “The American people understand, or are smart enough to understand…xyz”
The guy who wins is the one who can leverage without triangulation all the way down to bumper stickers.
I’d like to retire “the American people.”
I’d like to retire the worn out Obama phrase: “we need to move beyond the tired debates between right and left.” It’s the right that’s worn out. The left argued for a bigger stimulus, single-payer and a bunch of other stuff. All of which the Broder-ites won’t go near.
Not only did NAFTA demoralize the democratic base, but Clinton passed it over the majority Democratic vote in Congress. That was an utter political and policy fiasco. And once it was done, he had no cred.