IN HIS farewell address to the American people, George Washington, first president and founding father, warned the country to beware of the divisive nature of political factions -- of placing the interest of the few over the interest of the many. He cautioned Americans to be calculating in foreign entanglements and to avoid treating foreign nations with abject hatred or blind affection, although he saw then-powerful European nations interfering in the politics of the fledgling United States as the main threat, rather than a war on foreign soil.
Despite these warnings from the "father of our country," Americans nevertheless coalescedinto political parties and became deeply involved in international politics. Now, the two are often inseparable. This seems especially likely in next year's presidential election..
In warning against partisan politics, Washington called upon to overcome "immediate interests" and consider rather the greater good. Partisan politics, he warned, could not take the place of the "government for the whole" and would instead "make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests."
This implies acting in accordance with the desires of the people, something our government currently needs improve. According to RealClearPolitics.com, which synthesizes the results of many national polls,only 32.7 percent of the country feels George Bush is governing well. According to the Wall Street Journal, his popularity declined steadily since his reelection in 2004. By comparison, during the Vietnam conflict, Johnson's approval rating stayed largely above 40 percent and Nixon's between 49 percent and 62 percent. Even more troubling than the president's low approval, a mere 21.5 percent of the nation approves of Congress's management of the country. Congress's extraordinarily low approval rating ought to worry Americans both more and less than that of the President -- more in the sense that it shows that elected representatives are failing the people who directly elected them, and less in the sense that this ought to be easier to rectify. Because smaller numbers of people elect congressmen, less concerted effort is required to unseat them, and therefore turnover should be easy.
But in the 2008 elections, Washington's dual fears of foreign involvement and partisan politics will come together in one of the key issues: what to do with our troops fighting the insurgency in Iraq. All of the key Democratic candidates want to remove soldiers as soon as possible, with varying degrees of rapidity. Barack Obama wants the troops totally withdrawn by March 31, 2008. Hillary Clinton introduced a resolution in April calling for troops to be out of Iraq within 90 days. John Edwards' web site calls for the immediate withdrawal of 40-50,000 troops and the rest to be withdrawn within a year.
The Republicans face a different challenge. The conflict in Iraq, inaugurated by a Republican president, has been a benchmark of Republican party unity. Candidates must choose their words carefully to avoid being seen as backsliding or being too dogmatic in holding on to party ideology. The candidates have tread a line between declaring their support for Bush and calling for a withdrawal. Mitt Romney claims he will act based on the relative "progress" made in the country and on the advice of military experts, rather than on any sort of "notion" or party pressure. In June, Fred Thompson said he would do "essentially what the President is doing" regarding Iraq. Giuliani has opposed setting a timetable for retreat and has aggressively advocated continuing the war on terror worldwide.
President Bush may be able to help his party a little in 2008. According to Fox News.com, Bush plans to cut the number of American troops in Iraq by 30,000 in the summer of 2008. This measure, almost sure to be popular with the entire American public, could aid the Republicans in the fall elections, if such a troop withdrawal appears indicative of both success in Iraq and a portent of more to come.
Partisan politics and dueling factions have become intertwined in contemporary American politics. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Not so long as the factions involved remain rooted in the interests of those they represent. Once they become detached from the pursuit of the public good and begin to seek selfish interests at the expense of the people they govern, factions become the destructive force feared by Washington. Since our current political system has the factions feared by Washington, we must exercise the "uniform vigilance" he called for in his farewell address, holding them accountable the voters they represent and making changes when they become detached.
Robby Colby's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at rcolby@cavalierdaily.com.
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