Bipartisanship opponents draw a bead

If we’re lucky, the recent trend in political discourse calling for the disqualification of elected officials who cooperate with opposing parties doesn’t catch on. The gridlock that has held back progress in Washington could be worse.

Perhaps it was the dream that some day America will become a one-party state that inspired 20 tea party and conservative organizations — including several county organizations in Tennessee — to call on Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to resign because he has worked with Democrats.

The war on bipartisanship could have consequences. In today’s Senate, a Republican who never made an effort to work with members of the majority party would leave Tennesseans toothless.

The petitioners, who claimed to represent about 10,000 members, criticized the 73-year-old senator for the “compromise and bipartisanship” that “our great nation can no longer afford.”

Alexander said it best in his reply, published in an op-ed piece in The Tennessean newspaper.

“Sen. Bob Corker and I have introduced a plan to reduce runaway entitlement spending by a trillion dollars,” Alexander wrote.

“We’ve made speeches. But that’s not enough. We need a result. We need to solve the problem. How do we do that?

“Well, I learned to count in Maryville City Schools. So I know that if you only have 45 votes and you need 60 senators to get something important done like balancing the budget and fixing the debt, then you have to work with other people … ”

The senator preceded that remark, of course, by reminding readers of his own right-leaning credentials, mentioning the word conservative four times, citing his anti-union stands, his criticism of Obamacare and his opposition to “an outrageous Washington overreach” — a proposed ban on fishing below Tennessee dams.

Alexander also has been quick to mention the support of conservative former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and even made a public appearance in Tennessee recently with the libertarian Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

So what has been the chink in Alexander’s conservative armor?

For one thing, he was a major player in helping break an impasse and prevent student loan interest rates from doubling, co-sponsoring a compromise measure with two Republicans, a Democrat and an Independent.

And he helped get the ball rolling on immigration reform, which the Senate passed in late June — with a tough new Southern border security plan — by a bipartisan vote of 68 to 32.

So far, these offenses have drawn at least one primary opponent to Alexander’s re-election campaign, and two others are said to be weighing their chances.

State Rep. Joe Carr says he decided to switch from his congressional campaign to a Senate run because “if Lamar Alexander is voting for Barack Hussein Obama 62 percent of the time, he is voting against Tennesseans.”

Carr’s campaign director, Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman, immediately resigned.

Luckily for Corker, he is not up for re-election this year, having worked with Democrats on such issues as housing finance reform, immigration and the federal budget deficit.

Not to mention the round of golf he played May 6 at Andrews Air Force Base — with Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and Barack Hussein Obama.