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Sounds Nice, But Will It Get Votes?

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The converts whom Obama has attracted to his cause? He has been endorsed by Jim Leach, a former liberal Republican congressman from Iowa; Lincoln Chafee, a former liberal Republican senator from Rhode Island; and Jim Whitaker, the mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska. Not exactly the Rat Pack.

But that doesn't matter. Postpartisanship makes for good headlines. It heightens the self-esteem of goo-goo sophisticates who want to be above disagreement. But the truth is that you can't have democratic politics without disagreement. The sharp differences between the two parties are there for a reason. Folks think differently about how much income you should take home, what sort of judges should sit on the bench, what type of light bulb you ought to use, how and when the troops should come home from Iraq, how great a role religion ought to play in public life, who was the greatest Beatle, etc. In this evenly divided nation, political success depends on motivating the groups that agree with you to go to the polls in greater numbers than the groups that don't.

And that is the postpartisan's dilemma. Partisans will happily pull the lever for one of their own. But how many will turn out for a maverick?

editor@weeklystandard.com

Matthew Continetti is an associate editor at the Weekly Standard and the author of "The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine."

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