In today’s politics, small ball beats big ideas

Americans say they want politicians to tackle the big issues and get things done. In 2008, they even elected a presidential candidate who said he was interested in “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Yet almost every time elected officials have tried bold problemsolving in the past 20 years, it has produced a backlash against them. The more ambitious the attempt, the worse the political repercussions have been.

The pattern has persisted now through three administrations. President Bill Clinton’s attempt to ban assault weapons succeeded, and his attempt to reform health care failed; both of them contributed to his party’s loss of the House and Senate in 1994.

President GeorgeW. Bush’s ambitious initiatives also backfired. The education reform called No Child Left Behind, although it passed on a bipartisan vote, became unpopular as parents blamed it for schools’ “teaching to the test.” Bush’s attempt to make Social Security solvent arrested anymomentum he had after his re-election. And a lot of the Congress members who voted for the 2008 legislation that rescued the financial systemnow probably wish they could have done it by secret ballot.

The two most important pieces of legislation to be proposed under President Barack Obama — the 2009 fiscal stimulus and the 2010 health-care law— both passed but got mostly negative reviews. The health law seems to have cost the Democrats seats in

President GeorgeW. Bush visits a school to promote his No Child Left Behind initiative, which was never popularly received despite its bipartisan passage in Congress. Getty Images