In President-Elect Obama’s Victory Speech in Grant Park, he said:
I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, bricky by brick calloused hand by calloused hand.
The emphsasis is mine. Especially when we disagree. Throughout Obama’s campaign, the President-Elect has never once attacked Republicans, he has tried to stay away from the attack (the one noticeable misstep was the Keating Five movie), but most all he has always said that we have more in common that we have differences:
We’re not a red state America or a blue state America. We are the United States of America.
I know that bipartisanship has never really existed in this country before. William Safire in Safire’s Political Dictionary quotes Ed Flynn, a New York Democratic Party leader from the first half of the 20th Century, as saying:
There is no such thing as nonpartisanship. If there were, there would be no need for elections. The phrase ‘nonpartisanship’ has a high moral tone. It is used by men running for public office to attract votes, but deep down in their hears these men know that it is only a word without meaning. There is, and always must be, honest disagreement. All of us have our likes and dislikes. And that is the genesis of partisanship..
But it is time and Change has come. The Change President-Elect Obama has promised is one of substance and style. On November 4th, we have ushered out your father’s politics and brought in a new politics for your children. Punishing Lieberman for standing up for his principles by campaigning for Senator McCain is not Change, it is politics of yesterday. Punishing Liebermann for campaigning for moderate Republicans is not Change, it is the politics of yesterday. Punishing Jan Ting for donating to Obama’s campaign is not Change, it is the politics of yesterday. We Democrats must discard our new found hubris and embrace the Change from the politics of old to the politics of new. It is time to lead.