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When I was a little girl, I remember seeing a bumper sticker that said, I dont belong to an organized party. Im a Democrat.
But the nasty partisan atmosphere in the Senate can be blamed on the Republicans.
The strength and weakness of the Democratic Party is in its diversity. Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt forged a coalition of Southern Democrats, laboring men and women and the middle class, the party became a huge tent of every stripe of immigrant, from Plymouth Rock to the present.
The Republican Party, on the other hand, is homogeneous. There is some strength in this, in terms of reaching agreements among themselves easily. But there is a real weakness: they represent a narrow spectrum of America.
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A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that bipartisan voting in Congress has plummeted in the last decade. In previous years, some Blue Dog Democrats would break away on very conservative social and fiscal issues, and some Republicans would cross the line on the same issues.
But the deliberate partisan atmosphere the Republicans are fostering has become so bad that Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York says senators no longer eat together in the Senate Dinning Room. He recalled recently how you could always find colleagues of both parties there, but thats no longer the case.
Breaking bread together outside of partisan posturing is important to legislative cooperation. According to legend, a fellow Republican once found President Abraham Lincoln having dinner in a hotel restaurant with a Democrat. Confronted, Lincoln responded, Why, this Democrat is so good natured enough that he can eat out of the same trough with a Republican. Its a shame weve lost this.
As for Massachusetts, thats our fault. Democrats had a wake up call in Virginia and New Jersey and ignored it. Our attention is now got.
Democrats lost a vote. We have not lost our values. We will not lose on health care reform. And we will remain committed to our principles of reforming the economy, reducing the national debt, keeping taxes fair and keeping America safe and secure.
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