Okay, so our problem is GOP extremism -- but what's driving that?

Jonathan Bernstein advances a kind of Bad Man theory of contemporary American politics -- the bad man being Newt Gingrich, the GOP's Faust. The problem with U.S. politics, he argues, isn't structural, and it's not political polarization per se:

No, the problem is the Republican Party, which has developed a weird and dysfunctional set of incentives along with the legacy of a handful of role models they would be better off without. There’s the race to be the True Conservative, which requires staking out ever-more-crazy positions in order to differentiate from RINOs and squishes – and the reaction by mainstream conservatives who are terrified at losing their conservative credentials and therefore cling as close as possible to the nuttiest radicals out there. There’s the lucrative conservative marketplace, which thrives on incivility and conflict – that’s one set of perverse incentives – and which also thrives when Democrats are in office, which is another set of perverse incentives. There’s the conservative closed information feedback loop, with Republican Party actors and politicians failing to see the U.S. that the rest of the nation sees.

Pulping the bully approach to presidential leadership

Occasionally at least, practicing political tacticians and political scientists arrive at the same conclusions, presumably by very different paths.

In the Times front pager on Obama's proposed budget, the most important perspective comes last, from Kent Conrad:

The budget confirms that Mr. Obama is not taking the lead in embracing the kind of far-reaching deficit-reduction plan recommended in December by a bipartisan majority of his fiscal commission. It proposed saving $4 trillion over a decade through specific cuts in spending for domestic, military and entitlement programs and new revenues from overhauling the tax code. 

Instead, he has called on Republicans to negotiate with him to reach that goal.

While that disappoints deficit hawks in both parties, many say they are sympathetic or even supportive of his caution because neither party seems ready to compromise.

Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and a Democratic member of the fiscal commission, said: “In this highly partisan environment, if the president proposes something, there is automatically some group that is opposed. It may be better for him to play the role of referee.”

Mr. Conrad added: “To get a result, the president has got to be part of a larger process that involves Republicans and Democrats, the House and Senate. How one gets to the table is not just one move, it’s a series of moves. And it’s very, very difficult.” 

Compare Matthew Yglesias in December, retailing a piece of poli sci wisdom regarding presidential persuasion:

It sounds silly to call for less presidential leadership, but I think the evidence suggests that what’s needed here [in the SOTU] is actually a very vague and generic endorsement of the concept of tax reform plus some themeless pudding. Frances Lee’s important book Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U. S. Senate argues persuasively that what happens when a president tries to “lead” on an issue like this is that a dynamic of partisan polarization kicks in. What you really need to get tax reform is for some hard-working members of congress from both parties to take the initiative in hammering out a framework and building support on the Hill. If such a thing happens, the White House should of course try to play a constructive role. But jumping all over the issue and a creating a dynamic where tax reform becomes “a key priority for the Obama administration” that opportunists on the right want to kill for the sake of a political win would not be a constructive intervention.