Frankly, TC, I think a good majority of Democrats are trying to do exactly that. You look at these recent elections and see how when the polls started to show that Republicans were going to take a large hit every single one of them started to cry about partinsanship. "Oh, we can't have a single party government, you can't leave government to just one party, you need to have an alternative vote." Never mind the irony that Republicans have had a majority on that type of partinsanship for as long as I can remember, going back to before Clinton. The real laffer, two F's there, is that as soon as Barack Obama gets into office he shows a tremendous effort to be inclusive, appointing Republicans to key positions, inviting a Republican delegation to the White House to voice their concerns, inviting Republicans to be a major part of the drafting of the health care bills, and what do they do? They spit in his face. They spread lies about death panels, they stand behind far-right propagandist commentators who are crying about socialism, they accept these invitations from the President to be a major part in drafting legislation then come right out of these meetings and say they won't vote for the legislation even if there are changes made to appease them. Oh, and guess what, they're STILL crying about partinsanship despite all these efforts to be inclusive. I find that funny, seeing as how everyone who was privy to George Bush and how he ran things the past eight years has said that he didn't even listen to people within his own party who disagreed with him, and he never would have been caught dead asking for a Democratic opinion on major legislation.
The sad thing is, I do agree that America would be better off if we could get some consenus on issues. Unfortunately, what consensus there is rght now is downplayed. Any politicians who is liberal is automatically labeled as acrazy socialist. Never mind that most Democrats are very moderate, and that many of them have very moderate views on economic issues. That's the kind of stuff that needs to be played up if we ever are to get some consensus between parties. Unfortunately, the Republican Party has shifted its focus to the far right and is slowly strangling out all moderates from its party. At the DNC last year a moderate Republican came out and spoke in support of Barack Obama and he represents a growing rift in the Republican Party, one that seems to be getting pushed aside in favor of the Mitt Romenys and Sarah Palins within their ranks. If real bi-partinsanship is ever going to happen we first need to get rid of the inflammatory name-calling, the accusations of socialism and Nazism, the racial epithets, and the constant attempts to distort the political spectrum and portray everyone not in line with one's political philosophy as extremists. Sadly, I just don't see that happening, not until the Republicans undergo a major ego check. Frankly I think they're going to have to suffer a defeat that sends them into obscurity similar to what happened to the Whigs back in the day. The only other option is for a power shift to happen, a change to leadership that is ready to concede every now and again and isn't content to just hardline on every issue. I'd prefer the latter, but the party's strategy right now is so much easier and seems to attract more votes, and until that changes I don't see an easy transition as being realistic.
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