Tyrannosaurus Ted?

Let's Hope That Bipartisanship Is Not Extinct

Look, there's Ted Kennedy, shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain, Republican presidential front-runner, just after the collapse of the immigration deal the pair had brokered. And there he is, again, right behind a beaming Mitt Romney -- Kennedy's '94 Senate opponent, Massachusetts governor and, yes, 2008 Republican presidential wannabe -- as Romney signs a health care bill.

What, you may ask, is wrong with these pictures? The icon of Democratic liberalism, the Republicans' favorite fundraising device (just mention "Teddy" and a torrent of direct-mail dollars gushes forth) -- what's he up to -- consorting with the opposition and helping its presidential prospects?

The answer is that he's up to nothing more than Kennedy business as usual. In the public consciousness, Kennedy's persona may be that of the unflinching liberal warrior, champion of government-based solutions and red-faced berator of Republican nominees. And he is, when that's called for (and, at times, when it's not).

But this Kennedy caricature is misleading because it is incomplete. Into his fifth decade in the Senate, he is a dogged, pragmatic practitioner of the legislative arts. Kennedy-McCain on immigration, Kennedy-Romney on health care (the Massachusetts senator worked behind the scenes to get the necessary federal go-ahead and also as an emissary to hostile state Democrats leery of giving Romney a big win) -- these aren't aberrations but simply the most recent examples of Kennedy cross-party collaboration.

Which raises the most interesting and unexpected question about Ted Kennedy: Is he a political dinosaur? Not in the usual way that issue comes up -- that his brand of unabashed liberalism is outmoded in a "big government is over" age -- but in the sense of whether Kennedy-style legislating is outmoded in an age of smackdown partisan politics. In short, unlikely as this sounds: Is Ted Kennedy a starry-eyed naif?

These are, if not in those exact words, awfully close to the current Washington whispers. He doesn't understand the way things work these days , you'll hear. You can't cooperate with these guys the way he's used to doing. You work with them and they'll just roll you in conference, or trot out the 30-second spots against you. Or both.

Look what happened to Kennedy -- so the argument goes -- when he teamed with President Bush to pass the No Child Left Behind Act: The president failed to deliver the promised funding. It happened again when Kennedy began working with Republicans to craft a Medicare prescription drug bill, only to see it hijacked in conference, when it was too late to stop it. Fool Kennedy once, these Democrats say, shame on Republicans. Fool him three times, shame on us.

Among the advocates of this view is New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who contends, privately, that Kennedy is unaccustomed to operating in a world in which Republicans control the White House, House and Senate and hasn't adjusted his tactics accordingly. Bipartisanship has thus become a quaint luxury that Democrats can't afford, at least not right now, at least not on the big-ticket items.

"There's bipartisanship and there's stupidity," one Senate Democratic aide says of the immigration stalemate. The aide pointed to the prospect of substantively and politically damaging amendments on the floor, along with an intolerable measure emerging from conference in October, facing Democrats with an unpalatable preelection choice. "We've seen this play before."

It's easy to understand this point of view, even sympathize with it, but it's wrong, I think, in the particular and immediate matter of immigration reform. If Democrats right now are more interested in regaining a majority, any majority, than in taking risks to achieve substantive results, that's understandable, if not laudable. And if they don't trust Republican assurances -- well, history offers ample basis for wariness.

But what is the point, really, of being in Congress if you're not there to at least try to get something done? If you think it's too dangerous to go to conference because you're frightened of the results, then what, exactly, have you been elected to do? Between the antics of the leaders on both sides -- You're wrong. No, you are. Well, you started it. -- and the prospect of crafting a legislative compromise, put me down in Kennedy's column.

Consider just one day's elevating e-mail barrage on immigration: 10:04 a.m., "Frist Denounces Minority Leader's Efforts to Gag Debate on Immigration Reform"; 12:29 p.m., "Reid and Pelosi: Spin Doesn't Change the Mean-Spirited House Republican Immigration Bill"; 3:59 p.m., DNC, "The Republican Party Stood in the Way of Comprehensive Immigration Reform." This is not the work of grown-ups.

Kennedy is "a throwback," says one longtime Democratic strategist who uses the term admiringly (and who has never worked for the senator). "He grew up in an era when you tried to get things done. Now we try not to get things done, on the theory that somewhere down the line, if we take over, we'll be able to get things done."

Except, of course, when Republicans, with the tables turned, stop them. If Kennedy is a dinosaur, we should all -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- lament the arrival of a new political ice age in which the ability to legislate is frozen and bipartisanship extinct.

marcusr@washpost.com