Roy Moore’s Win and Bob Corker’s Retirement Deliver Blows to Bipartisanship

State by state, centrist Republican voters will be faced with an insoluble dilemma--vote for rigid ideologues and perpetuate gridlock in DC, or do the unthinkable, cross the aisle, and vote for Democratic candidates in the hope of getting SOMETHING done in DC. One can only hope some common sense can prevail, but I'm not holding my breath

The billionaires are in charge.

Bob Corker helped with the Iran deal. I can't think of any other issue where he broke party lines. He spent the entire Obama administration locking arms with McConnell same as every other Republican. We should probably be cheering his departure. What people fear is getting something worse in his place. Roy Moore is not an encouraging sign. I wouldn't read too deeply into the Alabama primary just yet though. Luther Strange's brief tenure in office was actually quite strange. Like Trump, the man seemed to waffle between conventional and extremist positions. Petitioning all but pleasing none. He behaved like a weather vein in a tornado. Unlike Trump though, he lacked the conviction of falsehood to utterly and inaccurately contradict himself in a single sentence with complete fortitude. The only other option was Moore. I take to Corker's departure and Moore's nomination as coincidental rather than indicative. I'll agree the weather is going to get worse before it gets better. The center built a comfy nest for themselves and their overdue for a blow. I'm just not sure which way the wind is blowing yet. Rest assured though, a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Moore is going to make people nostalgic for Trump even when he has gone nowhere

The only bipartisanship in Washington is that Democrats and republicans are getting in the same room together. That's it. However, republicans are still voting in lockstep ( except for health care ) and are still supporting this train wreck of a President. Democrats are not going to let erode hard fought for rights of any kind, nor are they going to bankrupt the country ( via more tax cuts ) like they have done in previous years. I suppose there is still bipartisanship in regards to photo ops...

Corker enabled Trump while he thought there might be a political benefit (Secretary of State). As he demonstrated on the Foreign Relations Committee, Corker is smart enough to know better but chose to make that gamble for his own benefit. Now that it hasn't worked out, he's just going to walk away from the mess he helped create? Nothing to respect there.

Bipartisanship had a stake driven thru it's heart when Mitch McConnell wouldn't even give President Obama get his Supreme Court Nominee a hearing. To pretend that there is any spirit of Bipartisanship is a canard. The Republican led Senate, only cares about what it's white male members care about. They don't even consult with the female senators and expect them to be a rubber stamp on legislation that they have no input on. Bipartisan, please!!!

How can anyone believe the republicans in our congress give a lick for America after first coming up with the most despicable health-no-care plans, then voting yea, for them? Of course John McCain and Susan Collins excluded in this incident. Next we have the primary in which Mr.Moore won. Give me a break! This guy is rivaling Trump for attention. The republicans of today by far believe in themselves, think of themselves, legislate for themselves. Grandiose is a word which comes to mind, especially when they are preaching to us. We have no freedom of opinion anymore, speech, and if they have their way -voting.

"Mr. Dent said “pragmatic Republicans” such as himself and Mr. Corker are being pushed aside in Washington by extreme forces in both parties who diminish the appeal of serving in Congress." This says it all. The ugliness of our politics is no accident. Citezens United has made is so aweful that good and decemt people avoid the stench of Washington electing small, greedy little men who gladly take their money and provide votes in return. Disgusting.

The only bipartisanship in Washington is that Democrats and republicans are getting in the same room together. That's it. However, republicans are still voting in lockstep ( except for health care ) and are still supporting this train wreck of a President. Democrats are not going to let erode hard fought for rights of any kind, nor are they going to bankrupt the country ( via more tax cuts ) like they have done in previous years. I suppose there is still bipartisanship in regards to photo ops...

The DC press seems to love bipartisanship without explaining how its any better than having one or another party in power. In practice, a lot of government in parliamentary--the GOP has trouble governing because of its divisions and it has not been willing to constructively engage the Democrats. There are parliamentary coalitions that do exist and continue--people in small states have fought for things like support to their medical schools. Bipartisanship isn't completely dead but it requires looking beyond parties and how parties have come together (or not) in the past Moreover, they never want to blame one party for not being bipartisan. The current drive against bipartisanship is tracable to the health care fight of 1993 and the election of Newt Gingrich. That's all about one party and not the other--there's no "both sides" do it here. If you want bipartisanship wit will require changes in one party, not both.

Even the term “bi-partisan” is anachronistic at this point in American history: we are multi-partisan so far as the opinions of our electorate is concerned —both the Republicans and the Democrats have constituent groups which are deeply opposed to the others in the party— and have been for quite some time now. We just don’t know yet what those parties will be. I do not believe the U.S. is able any longer to provide world leadership in the issues which I care most deeply about. I fear our time is past. I’m baby-boomer, having been politically active in the 60s and early 70s in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. What I, like many, were fighting for back then was what the western world calls “enlightenment” values: a commitment to the rule of reason and decency. We may have coined the term, but we do not have a monopoly on those values. Yes, we are entering a very dark period, but that doesn’t mean the lights are going out forever. There will always be others, in other countries, who can pick up the torch.

It was time for Corker to go. Tennessee needs fresh leadership in Washington.

The real problem faced by so-called moderate Republicans (e.g., Bob Corker and Susan Collins) is that they have very little leverage or respect in their own party and provide a fig leaf of respectability to a GOP that has morphed into a hydra-headed beast of bigotry, immaturity and irrationality. The members of the "Republican establishment" are themselves no better, in thrall as they are to their big bucks donors. Running for the exit is the only sane response, and I'm happy for Senator Corker that he has seen the light. If Mitch McConnell and his toxic maneuverings represent "bipartisanship," then all I can say is "Up the revolution!"

This paper once asked "What's wrong with Kansas?". Wrong question. The question should be "why should we care about what Kansans do unto themselves?". Now do you see the paradox in all this nonsense about Alabama? It's only the people bent on compelling everybody everywhere to do things their way who will care about Kansas, or Alabama, or wherever. Nobody asks about Californians, because they are seen to be doing the "right things" even if they are pricing the "middle class" out of house and home. There is plenty wrong with California, but the wrong things are not the things the NYT and the central govt. fans in DC care about. Ask not what Alabamans are doing, but focus on what your own people do.

Washington looks like a sewer that has been blown up with the stench and contamination reaching into distant parts of the globe not to mention our own rivers, soil and air, literally. The irony of it would make Republicans correct, that the government is a problem and not a solution. How long the pillars of our democracy will take the relentless attack on them by the current administration will be for future historians to commemorate, provided there is a future and a democracy.

Bipartisan? How about no party? Because after all, Donald Trump only speaks about Party when he is bullying one party or the other. He knows nothing about either. He tries to just be the Trump Party whatever that is, nothing good, for sure. Who would want to stay in DC? Trump said he was going to drain the swamp. Surprise! His chaos and lack of leadership is doing just that.

It's simple really, the states need to adopt ranked choice voting, the primary system has led to the most extreme candidate from the the left or right winning. Moderates lose the primary because they can't appeal enough to the hard core party member who reliably vote, then the extreme candidate in a state like Alabama of California will win the general because ideologically people won't cross the line for the other party. In California we now have many instances in which the two candidates in the general are from the same party but almost always the more moderate person wins based on ability to appeal to more people. They also then know they can go to Washington and govern without having to pass some impracticable ideological purity test. The party apperti are splitting the country and feeding our worst instincts because that is how they are incentivized. It's time for that to change.

The problem is that there is no realistic chance at bipartisanship, so these two developments matter not. The Democrats must conform to the resistance and the Republicans are incapable of passing any legislation. When will we realize that this is all a dog and pony show by the uniparty to make sure nothing gets done so that the status quo can continue to exist for those who have enough money and influence to navigate the system and profit from it?

Once again the real problem in the US rears its ugly head. Tens of millions of Republican voters are certfiably crazy. Their lunacy stems from a combination of crippling problems -- ignorance, stupidity, racism, homophobia, and fundamentalist religion, most likely Christianity. The idea that anyone would vote for Roy Moore for any elective office is horrifying. If Moore wins and becomes Alabama's junior senator, he will be lying when he takes the oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. Moore clearly believes the Constitution is of secondary importance. His guiding document is the Bible, a book that should have no role to play in the decision-making of an elected official in a supposedly secular government. Moore is just the latest in a now long line of Republican candidates and office holders who are unfit to serve in our system of government.

I'm sick of the "both-sides-ism". We are witnessing an asymmetrical radicalization in American politics. The most radical Democratic politician is perhaps Bernie Sanders (who strictly speaking is an independent) because he...*gasp* supports universal health care. Behind him is Elizabeth Warren who supports such "radical" notions as a consumer protections bureau to protect consumers from companies like Equifax. In any other developed country, moderate Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton would be seen as right-of-center.

Well, this is depressing! In other words, it's all only going to get worse. As if it could ...

"Mr. Dent said “pragmatic Republicans” such as himself and Mr. Corker are being pushed aside in Washington by extreme forces in both parties who diminish the appeal of serving in Congress." Just exactly who are the "extreme" forces in the Democratic party? Names please, and not Bernie Sanders. He is not a Democrat and does not speak for the Democrats. The hyper-extreme partisanship from Republicans no matter who is in the White House has driven us to where we are today and that began with Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s. The media is playing into this insanity constantly. Stephen Bannon was elected to NOTHING. He and Breitbart are not a political party and are not even legitimate sources for news, but more extreme spewers of propaganda and appear to only be satisfied when they are destroying anything they can get their greedy, sociopathic hands on in America. I wish this paper and all of the media outlets would put a hard, unrelenting focus on the state-by-state gerrymandering that has gotten us to this awful place, and on the sleazy voter suppression policies put into place by so many Republican led-states. It's not a sexy issue, but it is far more important to me given the fact that 2.83 million voters like myself could not elect our candidate.

This is no time for bipartisanship - one elected official kissing the other's tush to get re-elected. This is the time for every single lawmaker and citizen who believes in true democracy - social and economic equity for ALL Americans - to step up and stop the general theft of OUR resources and OUR treasury by The Con Don and his brethren on a daily basis. The media is treating this like "business as usual". It is not. The United States of America is under imminent threat of being destroyed from the inside by the worst of humanity. People in the area should storm the Senate when Moore steps in for the first day. Show him anger "the likes of which have never been seen in America before". Do the same thing with The Con Don wherever he goes and his brethren in OUR United States Congress/Senate and OUR United States cabinets and agencies. There is not a moment to waste.

What if incumbents, from both parties, worried about fringe challengers form a new party, say The Unity Party, which allows individual members to disagree on most points except a commitment to working together. It could be temporary. If the founders specifically courted half center-right and half center-left candidates, that would preserve balance. The center needs a voice, and I'd rather the adults in the room not leave the children in charge.

Corker is no moderate/bipartisan, although he creates a good illusion. The reality is that Corker was prepared to vote for the monstrous Graham/Cassidy Obamacare repeal legislation which have deprived millions of health care. He talks about "conscience" to sell his book, but where was it on this issue. Funny too that he's leaving the senate right after he qualifies for a life long pension.

I don't feel the republicans had any desire to work with the democrats anyway, I think overall this is a democratic advantage in that the republicans are further fragmented, albeit from the right. If we can somehow make it to 2018 elections. (If the democrats don'w win back power then, well, goodbye USA). And have fun.