At her Silicon Valley speech last week, Hillary spoke about the importance of bipartisanship, saying that we can’t make progress on the biggest issues facing our country if we don’t work across the aisle and listen to each other. Hillary said, “I’d like to bring people from the right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice, warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems.”
In the meantime, a slew of potential Republican presidential contenders spent the week at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington, where they engaged in hyper-partisan rhetoric and distracted from the real issues at hand.
Hillary’s message was a positive one aimed at bringing both sides together. She said, “I don’t think I have all the right ideas. I don’t think my party has all the right ideas.” And she even praised Republican Congressman Paul Ryan for working with Democrat Senator Patty Murray on a budget deal in 2013 to avoid a government shutdown.
Ted Cruz’s message at the conference was fiercely combative, telling the audience they should “stand up against” President Obama and those Republicans who disagree with him ideologically. Carly Fiorina’s speech was even worse — full of one attack after another against President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Senator Warren.
Instead of using this opportunity on the national stage to talk about real issues and deliver a positive message for the American people, these politicians decided to stick with negativity.
No wonder Americans are so fed up with Washington. This kind of hyper-partisanship embodies everything that is wrong with our political system. Americans want Washington and Congress to work again, for all of us, which is exactly what Hillary Clinton wants, and what she did in the Senate. Notable Republicans from Lindsey Graham to John McCain have praised Hillary Clinton’s ability to put politics aside for the sake of progress while she was in the Senate.
When asked if she could wave a magic wand and have her wish granted, Clinton said, “that we could get back to working together cooperatively again, that we could get out of our mindsets, our partisan bunkers. You can’t run a great country like that, and this is the greatest country, and we need to start acting like it and working like it again.”