re: #7 KGxvi

Let me point to another part of his ABC interview, where Stephanopoulos asked him how he’d deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if he became president. Hickenlooper makes reference to a regional transit initiative he pursued while he was mayor of Denver:

When I come into office, I would go to Mitch McConnell to his office and I would sit down with him and say, “Now what is the issue again?” and we would talk and I would continue to speak back to him — it sounds silly, right? But this works, this is what I did with the suburban mayors, and they hated the city of Denver. You go to any metropolitan area in the country, the arguments between the big-city mayor and the suburban mayors, they’re almost endless. We’re the one place where this has gotten done, and I think it’ll work in Washington.

Here’s the problem for a Democratic president: Today’s Republican Party isn’t just committed to a particular set of policy preferences, it’s also committed to a style of politics in which 1) any compromise with Democrats on a controversial issue is an unconscionable betrayal, and 2) literally any tactics, no matter how morally reprehensible, are justified in the pursuit of their goals.

If Hickenlooper really thinks he can just talk to the GOP and get a compromise, he doesn’t belong in the White House.

I really hate throwing shade at a geologist, but there it is.
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