Party Games

Political writer Ed Kilgore recently noticed a trend: Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are bucking the desires of voters in their own parties.

For instance, polls say most Republican voters are in favor of a public health option -- yet Republican senators are ignoring those party constituents by not committing to the public option.

And polls show Democrats want the public health option and stronger environmental laws -- yet many Democrats are fighting against those very issues.

Kilgore framed the trend this way: President Obama should aspire to be bipartisan with Republican voters, not with Republican senators.

Comedian Bill Maher frames the trend another way: Politicians in both parties are beholden to corporate donors, not to the will of their constituents.

"The battle isn't between Republicans and Democrats. The battle is between corporations and people," Maher says.

Maher is generally thought of as a pro-Obama liberal, but he thinks Obama has moved too slowly and timidly. He said exactly that on his HBO show, "Real Time," which at first made the liberals in his California crowd grumble.

But Maher is actually just one of many left-leaners who don't think Obama is the liberal enactor they thought he'd be.

"He is beholden to some corporate interests," because the president raised hundreds of millions of campaign dollars from "fat cats," Maher says.

Maher complains that Obama's plan in Congress would reduce carbon emissions by just 4 percent by 2020.

"I mean, come on, that's just nothin'. We might as well say, 'OK, we're toast,' " Maher says. " 'Just do whatever you want until we all drown, or die, or until the planet explodes or melts.' "

Maher wants "deep, direct taxes on polluters. I think that's the only way you're gonna change behaviors."

And Obama and Senate Democrats haven't even banned toxic credit default swaps, which helped cave the economy.

Maher hasn't soured on Obama, but he's not thrilled.

"We all had high hopes," he says. "If you read the paper -- and I know that's sort of out of fashion, and I know that facts suck -- he's not quite the revolutionary we thought."

Obama has missed a golden window to make real change, he thinks.

"The time for radical change is the first five months," he says. "Remember the first 100 days of FDR? It's that first 100 days -- strike while the iron is hot.

"You're swept into office, people are behind you, the Republican Party is in disarray. This is the time to shove some meaningful reform through the Congress. And they didn't do it.

"And it looks like the reason they didn't do it is the same reason Democrats haven't been doing it for the last 20 years -- they're too in-the-pocket of corporations."

Nothing in government will truly change as long as the corporate system lauds and rewards only financial bottom lines and profit margins, he says.

Look at the health care industry, he says. Everyone applauds profits but no one asks "heroic questions."

"Nobody looks deeper into the situation and thinks, 'Yeah, but how many people had to die so that these corporations -- these HMOs, these insurance companies -- could increase their bottom lines year to year.' "

Obama doesn't strong-arm Congress, either.

"The president doesn't seem to be doing that arm-twisting and cajoling and threatening -- the stuff that's part of the legislative process," Maher says.

As I say to Maher, Obama is a fan of Lincoln and reads books on Lincoln. It's as if Obama sees himself as a an agent of reconciliation. But he needs to read fewer books about Lincoln and more books about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the great arm-twister.

"Right! Exactly," Maher says. "That's what he needs is a little LBJ. Or as I was saying a couple of weeks ago, a little George Bush. Bush had terrible ideas, but at least he knew how to push them through."

Meanwhile, Republicans just keep shooting themselves in the foot politically, and not just by having extramarital affairs, but by sticking to ideas that sent them into the minority.

"Its not like they're making a break with what got them into this mess. It's like they're doubling down on it," Maher says.

"They're asking anyone who's a reasonable Republican to leave the party. Colin Powell -- 'Get out of the party.' John McCain - 'Get out of the party.' Rush Limbaugh says so. This is crazy. All the demographics are moving toward the Democrats -- young people, Hispanics, octuplets."

Republicans are appealing to mostly white males, polls show, he says.

"And that is a dwindling, shrinking demographic," he says. "That's just not the country we live in anymore."

That's true. But we also still don't have many politicians who values voters' interests over special interests, regardless of the party in power.

Contact Doug Elfman at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman @reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.