Two former senators want to undo US political 'crisis point'

Trent Lott and Tom Daschle make an unlikely pair. Trent is gregarious, talkative and loud. Tom is retiring, mild-mannered and quiet. Interview them together and their differences are pronounced.

But what makes them almost unheard of as a couple is that Lott is a Republican and Daschle is a Democrat. Specifically they are both former leaders of their respective parties in the US Senate.

They believe they were in US government at a time when it actually worked, when Republicans and Democrats certainly disagreed but it didn't stop them co-operating in order to get things done. That was the 80s and 90s - even the first few years of this century.

But in American politics today, functioning, supportive, respectful bipartisan teams are like dodos - they simply don't exist anymore.

Which is exactly why these two men, who have spent more than 50 years between them in Congress, have decided to work together to try to fix this broken system. Their new book Crisis Point is the result.

Lott and Daschle's diagnosis of the problem of hyper partisanship in the US is not particularly new - broadly, they believe, there's too much money in politics, centrist voters are apathetic, the boundaries of Congressional districts encourage extremism and US campaigns are too long and too negative.

They are particularly vexed by the constant need to raise cash in order to get re-elected. They say new Democrats elected to the Senate were advised to spend some four hours a day fundraising, which dramatically cuts into time spent on the job of legislating.

Lott and Daschle at a bill signing for a bill they co-sponsored on corporate fraud in 2002

They also bemoan the rise of social media which makes members of Congress nervous about saying or doing anything that might make them look like they are co-operating with the "enemy" because it will instantly get reported, then distorted in their districts back home.

As I said, we have heard before much of this before. What makes the book interesting is partly the unusual pairing of the authors, but it's also the timing of the book and their prescriptions for fixing the problem.

The two former Senate Majority leaders published Crisis Point at a time when US voters appear to be rejecting the very notion that the established system can do anything at all to make America work better.

Congress - under construction

Lott and Daschle call for better leadership. Many angry Republican voters agree with that need but they are looking outside the system (at Donald Trump and Ben Carson) to find that leadership. Meanwhile many angry Democratic voters are flirting with a leader - Senator Bernie Sanders - who comes from the system but whose socialist politics would make co-operation less likely not more.

Senators Lott and Daschle are correct - American politics is so divided that the country is almost ungovernable. It is refreshing to see them come together to work to try to solve the problem rather than point fingers at the other side.

They are calling on American centrists to turn out and vote for more conciliatory candidates. But the tone of this campaign is anything but conciliatory, and it is hard to see how their solutions will be implemented in this environment.

This "point" of crisis may last a long time.