Say Kerry wins in November. We'll have a Democrat back in the Oval Office, but Congress will still be Republican-controlled. The GOP has, over these past four years, made it abundently clear that they don't care about extending ANY benefit, large or small, to the Democratic party.
So...and I genuinely want to know, here...should we just give up on bipartisanship as a lost cause?
Now, say we get the best of both worlds: the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch are back in Democratic hands. Heck, why not say we get to appoint a few liberal justices to the Supreme Court!? What then?
I think we'll need to remember that the GOP is the party that railroaded us through the circus that was the Clinton impeachment, the party that has sought to exclude Democratic Senators and Representatives from committees, the party that has driven through partisan agenda after partisan agenda, and has even entertained the notion of marring our Constitution with a hate-driven amendment. This is the party that has fought to forestall investigation into borderline illegal activities purpetrated by its members, and, when those investigations do happen, has worked to stack the investigative bodies with members in that party's pocket. This is the party that has ruled largely on the basis of fear: fear of terrorism, fear of "anti-Americanism", fear of anything outside its own, narrow vision of the world. This is the party that spawned a thousand right-wing "journalists" in the 1990s, and which, now, has so cowed the media that the truth of any issue is difficult to see through all that party's lies. This is the party of opportunism, grabbing at everything it can for its own poltical gain, including potential voter fraud, by proporting unverifiable voting machines designed by its own partisans.
In fact, this is not a party. It is a beast. And one cannot rationalize with a beast. So, again I ask, why even bother?
Some might say that compromise must be a goal, as one day the shoe might be on the other foot. To them I say that the GOP, as soon as it saw the opportunity, siezed that shoe, tore it apart, and then went after the foot that wore it. They were the ones to throw down the gage.
Unfortunately, bipartisanship may be a thing of the past, but if that is so, it is by what THEY have wrought.