Let's have compromise in 2011

Michael Dawidziak has been a political consultant, strategist and pollster for over 30 years.

The No. 1 political story of 2010 was the defeat handed to President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in the midterm November elections. Last week was the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year. Last month, Election Day was surely the darkest day and lowest point of Obama's political career. The good news for him is it can only go up from here.

The 111th Congress will go down in some people's books as a successful one for the Democratic Party - though that depends in large measure on how you define success. With their control of the White House and both houses of Congress, they were able to ram through legislation without input from the minority Republican Party. No matter the merits of the legislation itself, the way in which it was passed - using what James Madison described as the "tyranny of the majority" - not only made the Democrats look bad but was out of step with Obama's campaign promises.

Credit the Republicans for being much better at staying united and keeping on message - not a skill set they've always been known for. Republican Congressional Minority Leader John Boehner, soon to be Speaker of the House, excelled at herding his cats to news conferences to complain about such trifles as not even being given the chance to read bills before they were voted on.

The big problem for the president, however, was this took him off his own message and derailed much of the hope and the promises he made on the campaign trail. When you look at the polling data from 2008, most people voted for Obama to turn the economy around, create jobs, end the war, build a new spirit of cooperation, and end the partisan bickering that leads to gridlock in Washington.

It's not that Americans didn't think health care reform was important. But jobs and the economic recovery came first. Instead of focusing on what the American people were saying they felt was most important, the Democrats chose to focus on what they felt was most important.

Even after the 2009 electoral setbacks in Virginia and New Jersey, and then Scott Brown's stunning victory in Massachusetts earlier this year, the Democrats stayed entrenched. The result: The president was forced to be far more political than his campaign rhetoric had promised.

Obama clearly has gotten the message now. The day after Election Day 2010 he said, "No party has a monopoly on wisdom." Immediately after, he hammered out a compromise with Republican leaders on tax cuts and an extension of unemployment benefits. The polls unanimously report that a majority of Americans is pleased with this new spirit of cooperation. The only mystery is why anybody would be surprised - the polls have been saying this is what voters have wanted for well over a year.

Historically, it's often been the case that the best thing that can happen to a president is for his party to lose control of Congress. After the Republicans lost control of Congress in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower forged a close working relationship with then-Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Together they passed legislation from advancements in civil rights to building the infrastructure of America's highway system. President Ronald Reagan had much the same kind of relationship with House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-Mass.).

If this president can cement a working relationship with the leadership of the opposing party - one that's based on mutual respect - then much can be done for the country in the spirit of bipartisan good will and compromise. That's hope and change for the New Year that we can believe in.