March 29, 2009
This Tool Might Prove Useful After All

Posted at 8:31 pm, in: Republican Party
Tags: Bipartisanship, John McCain

As many people may know, I have been talking trash about Sen. John McCain for years. In fact, I never thought he would get the nomination. In one of my classes, I predicted that his campaign was dead. Boy, was I wrong! And, how I wish I was right.

Although I consider him a tool, I’ve never seen much use for him, until now. Watching him on Meet the Press (sorry, I had to view it using On Demand since I had to go to church), I finally get it. I finally understand how this tool can be used to benefit the Republican Party: hold him up as the example of what not to be!

SEN. McCAIN: I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Have Republicans heeded that call, and do you think President Obama has heeded that call?

SEN. McCAIN: I think neither side, perhaps, has done it as much as maybe we should. But you establish an environment. Really, bipartisanship is sitting down across a table from each other and negotiating, recognizing there’s got to be compromise. And in all due respect to the incoming administration, the speaker said, “We won. We wrote the bill.” There was never any serious negotiations over the stimulus package, over the omnibus spending bill. Now there doesn’t seem to be any on the budget. Those are all party line votes. There’s not the negotiations. And I–look, I’ll take blame on our side for maybe not being more forthcoming, but really the president does beat the drum and sets the pace. And so far there has not been not an instance where they sat down across the table and said, “OK, what do you want? What are you demanding here? What do you think is best?” And including some of those concerns as we come–as we move forward with really large, encompassing packages about the future of this country.

I don’t want bipartisanship. I don’t elect people to be bipartisan and allow the other side to push through their views. I elected you to represent me. I’m glad that Republicans are getting the name of being the Party of No. That means they are being true to those who voted for them, instead of being true to those who voted for their opponent.

I want the days of “me, too Republicanism” and “liberal-lite Republicanism” to be left in our past. Any time Republicans work with Democrats the Republicans lose. Democrats throw them some table scraps and they go looking for a gold star for being bipartisan.

A bipartisan Republican is a Republican that just sold out his principles and his base. That’s not what you were elected to do. It’s the Democrats that crave this Kumbaya, sit-around-the-campfire, let’s-get-together mentality. Republicans aren’t that needy.