Some might dispute the image as representative of politics in our nation so far as we have gone into the 21st century. I even envision not two Fascistic axes one pointing far left the other far right, as much as the pair facing differently, one slightly and almost imperceptibly slanted to the left, the other quite clearly slanted dead right. Yet each with its bindings and ring elements tightly held and intact.Between the two, do you see Dean Barkley and Tim Penny, saying, "Me, me, me," or something else? I see something else, uniting the two axes. Between them I see a revolving door. See, here, here (a hopeful thing aiming for reform), and the recent Politico article I find timely and most interesting, here, which opens:
Aftershocks hit K Street
By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 11/5/08 4:25 PM EST
The day after Barack Obama won the presidency, BGR Holding, once one of Washington’s dominant Republican-only lobbying shops, announced it had acquired a Democratic firm with close ties to the incoming administration.
BGR’s acquisition of Westin Rinehart illustrates a broad restructuring on K Street that’s accelerating now that Democrats are poised to control both Congress and the White House.
Republican heads of business trade groups are bracing for pink slips, and some corporate offices are giving Democratic lobbyists promotions to co-chair their shops and help open more doors on Capitol Hill and in the new administration.
The repositioning highlights how little Washington is likely to change, despite all the anti-lobbyist rhetoric tossed around in the campaign.
The partisan titles might shift, but the tactics won’t. Access to people in powerful positions remains a valuable commodity, and Democrats are finding plenty of people willing to pay high prices for it.
BGR Group Chairman Ed Rogers, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush, didn’t hedge when asked about the reason for the deal with Westin Rinehart.
“We wanted to build our strength with Democrats,” he said. “It’s a matter of strategic positioning.”
Westin Rinehart was founded by Morris L. Reid, a former senior adviser in the Clinton administration’s Commerce and Housing departments. He was in Chicago on Tuesday night when Obama was declared the winner of the White House.
Although not with the campaign, Reid said he was an “outside surrogate,” making television appearances on behalf of the Illinois senator’s candidacy.
Like BGR, Westin Rinehart has offices in Washington and London and specializes in lobbying, strategic communications and marketing strategy. Its clients include Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, trade associations and hospitals.
There is more to the article and I urge you to read it. For a merger like that, "strategic positioning" as the one spokesman said, I imagine two bodies of pond scum coalescing to better capture light and nutrients and spread a contagion over an entire pool to choke off life beneath it.
The metaphor is judgmental. We each have our own views.
Check out in detail the second above link, please. It offers hope and thoughts.
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With the election over and no present campaign ties, and after an out of [the two-party] body experience, Christopher Truscott has resumed blogging. He has posted thoughts about two party dominance and related matters before working on an IP campaign, e.g., here, here and here. Hal Kimball also has looked at the IP and had frustrations with the two-party dominance and methodologies. I am not saying either of them has a "best answer" but each at least is posing the question, and pointing out a very, very flawed status quo.