--- title: A New Birth of Politics? description: Abe Lincoln cut all kinds of deals to do great things. Now it's our turn canonical: https://time.com/archive/6596214/a-new-birth-of-politics/ author: Joe Klein article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-12-10T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-25T06:22:43.225Z article:section: Politics og:title: A New Birth of Politics? og:description: Abe Lincoln cut all kinds of deals to do great things. Now it's our turn og:url: https://time.com/archive/6596214/a-new-birth-of-politics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A New Birth of Politics? twitter:description: Abe Lincoln cut all kinds of deals to do great things. Now it's our turn twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Politics](/section/politics/) # A New Birth of Politics? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ccb81d45-a707-43b7-a13f-7909c69f0c0c&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) Dec 10, 2012 5:00 AM UTC by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) Dec 10, 2012 5:00 AM UTC Suddenly it seems as if everyone in the political world is talking about Steven Spielberg’s splendid film Lincoln. Instead of the standard Hollywood hagiography, it is an act of civic virtue: a movie about a living, breathing, horse-trading, occasionally mendacious genius of a politician. It resurrects the noble greasiness of politics at a perfect moment: we need some inspired horse-trading in Washington right now, with short-term stimulus, long-term deficit reduction, health care and other issues on the table. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help thinking about Senator John McCain. Not the current embittered McCain but the earlier version–the reformer who tried to clean up the political system. He was right about campaign-finance limitations, though thwarted since by the Supreme Court. But he was profoundly wrong about earmarks, those tiny emoluments doled out to individual members of Congress for works, good and not so good, in their districts, often in return for their votes on larger issues. McCain railed against them, reciting the more ridiculous examples–a study of moose mating habits, the Whac-A-Mole hall of fame, whatever–that made them seem corrupt and ultimately made them toxic. They shouldn’t be. Earmarks are a useful lubricant for the great gears of legislation. Lincoln obviously loved them. In Spielberg’s film and Tony Kushner’s brilliant script, Lincoln doesn’t compromise his principles to win passage of the 13th Amendment. He compromises his morals, a little. He trades jobs for votes. He pulls a Clinton–lawyering the truth–over the question of whether he’s about to commence negotiations with a rebel delegation. That was the miracle of Abraham Lincoln, politician. He pursued the high purpose of moving justice forward via the low arts of patronage and patronization. Indeed, in a democracy, it is usually the only way great deeds are done. If he’d been negotiating Obamacare, Lincoln would have made the infamous “Cornhusker Kickback” deal–$100 million in Medicaid funds for Nebraska to secure a Senator’s vote–in a heartbeat, even if the press howled as it did when Barack Obama agreed to it, forcing its cancellation. Which raises another point: if we’re going to resume dealmaking in Washington, my colleagues in the media are going to have to get off the high horses we mounted when, in the wake of Watergate, exposing “corruption” became the surest path to journalistic gold and glory. We’re going to have to stop the nonstop cynicism about politicians and start celebrating those who have the genius to find consensus, even when it gets messy. We need to be less puritanical about politics. What would Lincoln do about the fiscal cliff? The answer seems obvious. He would narrow the debate where necessary–on the revenue side–while expanding it to make more-creative long-term judgments about spending. He’d set a revenue figure, let’s say $2 trillion, and allow politics to run its course toward a $1.5 trillion-or-so compromise, with the actual menu of rate increases and loophole closings subject to the convenience of the pols. On the spending side, he would probably have to look at health care in a new way. Universal health coverage is now the law of the land, thanks to the Supreme Court. And in its broadest outline, if implemented successfully, Obamacare bears more than a passing resemblance to the voucherized Medicare system proposed by Paul Ryan. The “if implemented successfully” part is crucial: we need a really strong, competitive market for health insurance. It should be a national online marketplace, an Amazon.com for health insurance, rather than the state exchanges currently planned. If there’s real competition, premiums may come down. (They will certainly come down for individuals and small businesses if they’re part of a national buying pool.) And if every American automatically has health coverage, the age at which Medicare kicks in becomes a less fraught issue. We could gradually raise the age of Medicare eligibility a bit, according to income, and save money. I can hear liberals and health care wonks groaning. Health insurance is ridiculously complicated in our country. There are a multitude of special interests involved. A functioning insurance market is only part of the answer when it comes to controlling costs: the real efficiencies, and better care, will lie in eliminating fee-for-service Medicare and moving to a system in which doctors are salaried rather than paid for the piecework–the tests and procedures–they perform. You need a master politician to cut a deal where both sides get what they want: Democrats get truly universal coverage; Republicans, reduced costs. And the public gets better service. Thanks to Spielberg, we’re now reminded that a master politician always needs some grease to get the wheels turning. So be it. As Lincoln himself almost said, “We shall have a new birth of … politics!” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6596214/a-new-birth-of-politics/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6596214/a-new-birth-of-politics/"},"headline":"A New Birth of Politics?","datePublished":"2012-12-10T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T06:22:43.225Z","description":"Abe Lincoln cut all kinds of deals to do great things. 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