Morning Joe (still one of the best ways to start your day) looks at the political class’ mega-partisan gridlock and ponders how you fix frozen Washington:
Some of the points raised:
1. Congress is more polarized than the American public.
2. It’s in Congress member’s interest to keep (and whip up?) the polarization.
3. Americans are mad at both parties right now so the GOP could well win in 2010..but will likely lose in 2010.
4. One party having the monopoly has hurt both parties when they had the “privilege.”
5. Obama doesn’t have the Republican equivilent of a Tip O’Neil (which Ronald Reagan had) but he doesn’t have the support from the Democratic side, either.
6. There’s a need for another Ross Perot, who began to actually crack the system. (Personal note: as an independent voter I was also attracted to Perot until he pulled out in a way that suggested he had “issues.”)
And more. Watch it for yourself:
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.