What Does Political Compromise Look Like?

During the first two years of President Obama’s current term in the White House there was a desire to create conditions for compromise in the stimulus and health care legislation.  The fact that both measures contain GOP wishes with either amendments that were added as in the stimulus bill, or ideas that were jettisoned as in the health care bill prove the case that compromise was attempted.  That there was a firm desire by Republicans to not provide any votes (except one lonely GOP congressman for the stimulus bill) did not stop the Obama White House from trying to broaden the legislative support for various measures. 

Given the political balance after the mid-term elections the next two years are predicted to be stormy and filled with rancor.  One has to ask if there is any hope for compromise between the parties?  History would say there is a way for compromise to be shaped if a leader can be found who can speak to all parties and be seen as a fair player.

All this leads to me a book.  A fantastic book.

I finished this slim volume dealing with one of the most contentious issues that ever faced our nation.  Slavery.  

The book, “At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union.” by Robert Remini is proof that if people want to find common ground and move on it can be possible.  But the key is, and current Washington may need to be reminded, that compromise is different from capitulation.  

Robert Remini is steeped in history and was able to provide in about 180 pages a true snapshot of a time when slavery in one way or another was part of every issue that gripped the nation.  There were sides and factions on every aspect of the issue, and no clear path expect to war and dis-union.

After reading the book I think it a good starting point for others who think about, or wish for compromise in Washington.

From Publishers Weekly…..

…..focuses on Henry Clay, who as an aging, ill Kentucky senator spearheaded the Compromise of 1850, a complex balancing of Northern and Southern interests that averted Southern secession. The compromise guaranteed that California would be a free state and New Mexico and Utah free territories; gave Texas $10 million in return for its relinquishing its claim to parts of New Mexico; the enactment of a more effective fugitive slave law; and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. The compromise gave the North 10 years to industrialize and find a leader in Abraham Lincoln who could restore the Union. Clay, who also delivered the 1820 Missouri Compromise, emerges as a complex figure, a slave owner who regarded slavery as an evil that betrayed American values. He was an electrifying orator and remarkable statesman who lacked discipline (he indulged in carousing, gambling, and drinking). Not all readers will linger over the legal details of the compromise, but Remini ably dissects a dangerous moment in the nation’s history and the remarkable but flawed man who ushered the nation through it. 

History shows that compromise is often needed in the more dire of times.  Given the emotion and desires of various factions compromise is always very difficult to achieve.  That it is imperative at those critical times to reach a deal should not be news to anyone.  Yet sadly, compromise or even talk of it, can lead to all sorts  of outcomes. 

Ask conservative Republican U.S. Senator Bennett how his election in 2010 fared after he dared to venture into working partnerships with Democrats on the issues that impact the nation. He lost his seat, in part for working with ‘the other side’.

There is much to say about how compromises must be constructed to allow for everyone to feel they gained something while knowing they also gave something up.  But if the nation can not even get to the point in thinking in broad terms that the art of compromising is a worthwhile goal then we are truly lost.

If Bennett is the example of the future of those who compromise than even Henry Clay would find it impossible to deal with modern day Washington