Presumed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton can learn an important lesson from possible Republican White House contender Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a political writer says.
Slate's Jamelle Bouie writes what the American public ultimately wants are results, calling Walker "the only person in the present presidential field who seems to understand that political comity is a fool’s errand...."
"Clinton needs to listen to Walker," he writes. "He gets it. Instead of a promise to work with Republicans, Clinton should promise to elect Democrats. It’s the only way she’ll get results, and ultimately, that’s what the public wants."
Bouie writes even though the public "craves political comity and wants its leaders to affirm values like cooperation and bipartisanship… there's no way anyone can keep this pledge."
"If elected president, Hillary Clinton won’t bring anyone together, just like Barack Obama didn’t overcome bitter partisanship and George W. Bush couldn’t sustain the national unity of his first two years in office …" he writes.
Even the public is more polarized, he writes.
But Walker understands those dynamics, Bouie writes, quoting Walker's remarks in 2013 to reporters after the government shutdown.
"[T]he conventional wisdom was that Americans want divided government… that's not not necessarily a good thing," Walker said at the time.
"Instead of checks and balances you get a lot of gridlock. What we learned in Wisconsin and what many of the other battleground states, particularly in the Midwest, learned during the 2010 election, was that if you want to get big, bold reform done in your state you need a team to help you do that."
"So in our case everything switched from Democratic control to Republican control in 2010 and that empowered us to go out and make reforms that would’ve been much more difficult without those changes," he added.
Bouie insists "there’s no chance of bipartisan cooperation in the next presidential administration, and to promise otherwise is to set yourself up for failure."
"The only way a President Hillary Clinton will succeed in 2017 is if she has a Democratic Congress to pass her policies, confirm her judges, and staff her administration," he writes.
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