Poll: Americans Don’t Really Seem To Care About Bipartisanship

I tire of the endless bickering about “bipartisanship” in Washington DC. It’s always one side accusing the other of not wanting to work together. As if our government weren’t made up of people who are ideological opposites on many issues and thus not ever likely to find much middle ground.
And, in general, the public seems to like the idea of “bipartisanship.” After all, aren’t we taught from kindergarten on that we’re all supposed to get along? To work together?
It’s a nice idea in theory, but in practice I’m not sure the public wants or cares about bipartisanship. And at least one poll about bipartisanship on the health care bill backs that up.

A new Pew survey should throw cold water on the logic behind the Democrats’ desire to to get bipartisan support for anything. The survey finds that only a thirf of Americans (32%) were actually aware that no Republican senators voted for health care reform (29% thought Republicans in the Senate had voted for the bill, while 39% said they don’t know). …
The low information level of the voters points to the the inherent problem with Obama’s insider strategy and obsession with Republican buy-in. Most Americans just don’t understand or pay attention to legislative procedure or vote counts. Only 26% of people surveyed even knew that it required 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster. An essentially, statically equal number (25%) of people think it only requires 51 votes.

I’m not sure how obsessed the President is with Republican buy-in. I think that’s a lie liberals frustrated over the lack of progress on the health care bill tell themselves. The truth is that Democrats had, up until Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, a filibuster-proof majority. They could have slammed the health care bill through…if their own party was united.
It wasn’t. So it hasn’t been Republican buy-in that’s been the problem. It’s been getting all the Democrats on the same page.
Which really speaks to just how unpopular this bill is that not even a party with a super majority can pass it.
But back to the bipartisan issue, it’s a talking point political types like to throw around. And generally it’s a pretty thought. But in practice, I think we all have a certain view of what government should and should not be doing and elect people to make the government do the things we want it to do (or in the case of some like me, stop doing a lot of the things it does).
Bipartisanship is irrelevant from that standpoint.