Following President Barack Obama’s post-election press conference on Wednesday, MSNBC “Hardball” anchor Chris Matthews ranted against Obama for not deviating from his standard modus operandi of always defaulting to his constituency on key issues in search of “common ground” and not looking beyond that for “compromise” or making deals to create that common ground.
“What bothered me about him is he keeps talking about ‘common ground,’” Matthews said. “Damn it. There’s very little common ground between left and right. But what there is is compromise. You do something for me on minimum wage, I’ll do something for you in corporate tax reform. You give me something on corporate tax reform and I’ll get rid of some of the loopholes or I’ll do something on trade for you. He never talks about trading and compromising, he always talks about common ground. Well, damn it, you cannot run a government on common ground.”
“He misses the main point of politics which is to be a politician and to trade,” he continued. “OK, you want this? You want to take care of people who have been here illegally for 20, 30 years? Here’s what I want. No more illegal hiring, and that’s all in the Senate bill. But he won’t sell the compromise. There’s something in this guy that just plays to his constituency and acts like there is no other room out there. And that’s going to be a collision at the end of this year like you have never seen. I do believe it will be like waving a red flag in front of the bull. I think Mitch McConnell is headed for a fight with the president.”
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