Where do we go from here?

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.
• Position: Political Landscape - "Crisis Point: Why We Must - and How We Can - Overcome Our Broken Politics in Washington and Across America" by Trent Lott and Tom Daschle - Book review

IN Crisis Point: Why We Must--and How We Can--Overcome Our Broken Politics in Washington and Across America, former Sens. Trent Lott (R.Miss.) and Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.) sound an alarm on congressional partisan polarization.

Lott, former Senate Majority Leader and senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, cofounded the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group. He also serves as senior counsel at Squire Patton Boggs. Daschle, also a former Senate Majority Leader and founder and chief executive officer of The Daschle Group, cofounded the Bipartisan Policy Center and serves as chair of the board of directors at the Center for American Progress.

Despite philosophical differences and divergent views, Lott and Daschle work together, remain friends, and share a vision for a "new dawn of American politics." With a combined 59 years as congressmen, the authors "speak from pragmatic experience" in analyzing and offering corrections for much of what has reduced the 113th Congress to competition with the 112th for the "do nothing crown."

In analyzing the government in crisis, the former senators identify five areas--chemistry, compromise, leadership, courage, and vision--desperately in need of change. The authors consider bipartisanship the "life force" that keeps the government running; without it, government constitutes "voices shouting and nobody listening."

Today's congressional leaders are not practicing bipartisanship. In fact, the capital environment "does not allow for it." The fundamental system of checks and balance and the party system have ceased functioning, as "petty bickering" has replaced rational debate, and bipartisanship "sounds like a dirty word." To reverse government dysfunction, Lott and Daschle appeal for an opportunity to communicate, an incentive to compromise, and "an aisle not so wide and barren that even trying to cross constitutes political suicide."

Tension exists among the branches of government and between the governing and the governed. Washington has fallen victim to the "permanent campaign," a term describing the current "poisonous environment." Congressmen who need to work together for the government to function now engage in constant opposition, always "framing themselves as candidates." Time, energy, and money required to win an office subvert governing, wreck relationships, and "poison the chemistry legislation requires."

Expensive, mechanized, and dominated by professional politicians and public relations specialists...