Voters Play Key, if Overlooked Role in Debt Drama

By AP / CHARLES BABINGTON Sunday, July 31, 2011

(WASHINGTON) — Dear voter: Want to know why Democrats and Republicans in Congress find it so hard to work together to solve tough problems like the debt ceiling, health care and Social Security?

Look in the mirror.

Americans gripe about cowardly, self-serving politicians, and Congress doubtlessly has its feckless moments and members. But voters are quick to overlook their own role in legislative impasses that keep the nation from resolving big, obvious, festering problems such as immigration, the long-term stability of Medicare, and now, the debt ceiling. Here's the truth: The overwhelming majority of senators and House members do what their constituents want them to do. Or, more to the point, they respond to people in their districts who bother to vote. Nothing is dearer to politicians than re-election, and most have a keen sense of when they are straying into dangerous waters.

For a growing number of senators and representatives, the only risk is in their party's primary, not in the general election. Most voters, and many news outlets, ignore primaries. That gives control to a relative handful of motivated, hard-core liberals (in Democratic contests) and full-bore conservatives (in GOP primaries).

In politically balanced districts, a hard-right or hard-left nominee may have trouble in the general election, when many independent and centrist voters turn out. But many House districts today aren't balanced, thanks largely to legislative gerrymandering and Americans' inclination to live and work near people who share their views and values.

The result is districts so solidly conservative that no GOP nominee can possibly lose, or so firmly liberal that any Democratic nominee is certain to win. In these districts, the primary is the whole ball game.

Republican lawmakers are under constant pressure to drift to the right, to make sure no fire-breathing conservative outflanks them in a light-turnout primary dominated by ideologues. The same goes for Democrats on the left. (See why Republicans are pointing the finger at Obama.)

So who turns up on Capitol Hill for freshman orientation? Democrats and Republicans who can barely comprehend each other's political viewpoints, let alone embrace them enough to pursue a possible compromise on big issues.

(Tweets and faxes: See how each party is rallying supporters for a debt deal.)

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