Bill Bradley: The New American Story

Politics is stuck,” writes Bill Bradley, in his latest book "The New American Story", but “idealism isn’t dead. It can be reawakened." Bradley calls attention to the polarization of American politics resulting from the power of ideological extremes within both parties and partisan gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Bradley says that the drawing of Congressional districts by partisan politicians in control of state legislatures has reduced the number of competitive U.S. House districts to 40. Since the vast majority of members of the House come from districts that lean heavily toward one party, they often cater to extreme factions within their party to ward off potential primary challenges rather than more moderate and independent-minded voters.

One of the great myths of modern politics challenged by Bradley is the red-blue divide. Bradley cites polling data indicating that 72 percent of blue state voters favor capital punishment and 62 percent in red states oppose job and housing discrimination against gays.

Bill Bradley makes some good points. At some point, we look have to look beyond the ant-hill mentality of single issue fanatics on both sides and focus on the big picture. The party that stands up to the single issue zealots and appeals to mainstream America will be rewarded at the polls. That is not to say that the burning social issues are not important (I happen to be passionate about a number of issues) but a lot of critical matters like energy independence are being downplayed.

I do think certain critical issues have to take priority given the mess that we are in right now thanks to short-sighted politics in both parties. Issues like abortion, gay-lesbian rights, gun control, the role of church and state are not going to be important to us if we lack energy, jobs, housing and health care.