There might be a place for an argument like this:
I know we're at the Democratic convention, but if an idea works, it really doesn't matter if it has an "R" or "D" next to it. Because this election isn't about liberal versus conservative. It's not about left versus right. It's about the future versus the past.But that place is not at the Democratic National Convention.
Your party's convention is where you make the case as powerfully as you can that your party is better than the other party. If you're a Democrat, that means you say, "the Democrats are great, and the Republicans are terrible." And, you say it loudly and proudly and over and over and over again.
What I find most frustrating about all this "bipartisanship" talk is that, while both parties engage in it to some degree, the Democrats really don't seem to understand how the game is played.
When a Republican like John McCain talks about "reaching across the aisle," it's a con. He's just trying to convince independents and some Democrats that he isn't a deranged right-wing extremist. In other words, he's lying in order to siphon off a few margin-of-error votes.
When a Democrat like Mark Warner talks about bipartisanship, he really seems to think that there is something wrong with being a Democratic partisan.
No keynote speaker at any Republican National Convention anywhere at any time would ever utter an expression like the Warner quote above. He would be booed off the stage with rotten vegetables flying about his head and neck. And he would need armed security to get out of the building in one piece.
Why it would occur to any Democrat to say it at the Democratic National Convention is just beyond me.
If Mark Warner really doesn't think it matters if you're a Republican or a Democrat, then when the convention rolls around again in 2012, he should change his affiliation to "Independent" and stay his bipartisan ass home.
