Griscom: The fickle political landscape

Gov. Phil Bredesen was signing legislation to revamp accountability in the state's education system.

Student performance would be used in evaluating K-12 teachers, and graduation and retention would be the determining factor in funding higher education.

Novel ideas? Not really, but after years of resistance to the application of student progress as a primary measure for keeping a teacher in the classroom, those barriers fell with the stroke of the governor's pen.

At the signing, however, a different question surfaced.

The political gristmill was pushing out that a Democratic governor was preparing to switch political allegiance.

Gov. Bredesen, who has been more than willing to set aside partisan considerations to advance his agenda in Tennessee, put to rest any notion that he was the governor in question. He did suggest that a glance in a more northeastern direction might be more relevant.

Why is this noteworthy?

At a time when there is more hand-wringing by Democrats -- encouraged by a restless band of cable television talking heads -- over how to remove their political wagon from a voter ditch, the question posed to Tennessee's governor says more about the state of partisan politics than about the GOP Senate come-from-behind win in Massachusetts.

Gov. Bredesen is a Democrat, but he wears his politics under, not on, his sleeve.

He is comfortable with his politics and his policy, having irked Republicans and Democrats but governing from the center of his state -- literally and figuratively.

But he is asked the party-switching question because of his willingness to stand up and speak out on the national health care reform plan. Some believe an opportunity to be the secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration was derailed because of his candor.

Perhaps, but as a former health care executive, he was one politician who learned from actual workplace experience and not from anecdotal information absorbed from one special interest group or another.

In dissecting the Scott Brown win in Massachusetts, those in the media who are interested in nothing more than keeping the partisan political fires stoked fan the flames of a failed presidency and a Democratic Party in tatters, resembling nomads

wandering without purpose or principle. A mere 372 days earlier, many of these media types were filling the airwaves and pages with the declaration that the Republican Party was being relegated to a regional status bordered by Southern states and a few in the Southwest. The opportunity to break out of that entrenched position was presumed to be minimal for years to come.

Something went amiss, though, as these same political prognosticators bolted from the new age Democrats and once more cozied up to the outcast Republicans.

Is it because a political tsunami named Massachusetts wiped out all that went before?

For weeks to come there will be more and more interpretations of the Massachusetts upset.

Republicans will be declared back from the dead.

The Tea Party types will attempt to claim credit.

Democrats, as is typical in a losing election regardless of party, will a) blame the candidate or b) blame the political consultants.

Republicans will pick up the tune to that old-time Democratic anthem, "Happy Days Are Here Again," singing the words as if the Massachusetts election were an embrace of their politics of partisanship and just voting no.

For some time there has been little difference between Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, as all they know is how to build partisan fences to separate instead of how to search for common ground.

For the media the time is past to search for the next loser. The answers are in holding all the politicians accountable for deficits, stimulus votes and missing the mark on issues that affect the voters -- "It's the economy, stupid."

The refrain from the 2000 Bush/Gore election echoes yet today.

Transparency and accountability, two words that underpin the role and reason for vibrant professional journalists, need to replace the desire to play the partisan-fed blame game.

To reach Tom Griscom, call 423-757-6472 or e-mail tgriscom@timesfreepress.com.