The center of attention.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE OF THE NATION

THE FUTURE of American politics will not be written by the Tea Party or the far left wing of the Democratic Party. It may be better that way. Reform takes hold when it creates consensus and builds a more durable democracy. Currently, we are stuck on a fragile dead center. Shrill voices in the media tear at the threads that bind us, insisting it is not enough to disagree with your opponent: you must question motives and character. Rather than look for facts and study the other side's position, columnists and bloggers specialize in finding clever ways to demean. Pres. Barack Obama has done practically nothing to detoxify this culture and shows little interest in trying. He has watched with indifference as the country grows more polarized, with each political contest becoming nastier than the one before. In this atmosphere, there is little chance that Pres. Obama will achieve any significant legislative victories. He has given up on the current Congress and, given present trends, the next Congress is likely to be less amenable to his proposals. So, he will give up on them as well.

Obama has shown no interest in finding a governing center. Early in his term, he disdained Republican suggestions for health care reform and his stimulus package; he refused to endorse the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendations for tax and entitlement reform; he has taken no lead on tax or immigration reform. Always looking to the next election to give him a governing majority in Congress, he is following a political mirage.

Obama approached the presidency as if he could create the world anew. Hence, he ignored history. Finding the center of gravity in American politics is what most presidents have been able to do, often in the midst of much partisan bickering. Therefore it is not impossible to imagine that it can be done in the future. Our most reform-minded presidents--Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan--realized that change had to come in stages and with the broadest support practicable. Oftentimes, divided government produced the most stable and lasting reform, since it required bipartisan support. Most presidents either had to work with a difficult Congress of their own party or a Congress of another party.

Since the mid 1940s, presidents who sought bipartisan compromise achieved the most important legislative reforms. FDR worked with Republicans to gain the GI Bill of Rights; Harry Truman got a Republican Congress to pass the...