Governing without labels in the United States – sounds like a pipe dream, right?
But that’s the vision of former George W. Bush adviser and John McCain presidential campaign strategist Mark McKinnon with his “No Labels” movement that has captured quite a bit of media attention as of late. However, it hasn’t exactly won over the likes of New York Times columnist Frank Rich or conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. According to MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, the two of them aren’t enlightened enough to appreciate this so-called movement.
On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Scarborough attacked Rich and Limbaugh for not realizing the importance of finding middle ground.
“Well, sure – but as we’ve been saying for two years on our show, this is still James Madison’s Constitution. You have Frank Rich on the left enraged by what Mark’s doing. Rush Limbaugh on the right – enraged. And they have the luxury of never actually governing. Never being a president, never being a senator, never being in Congress — realizing you actually have to, at the end of the day, sit down and deal with people across the aisle.”
Scarborough said it was due to the thinking of people like Rich that the Democratic Party suffered in last month’s midterm elections.
“You want to talk about magical, childish thinking?” Scarborough said. “To quote Joan Didion, Frank Rich and the left have had a year of magical thinking right now, where they believed they can get absolutely everything they wanted, and when they didn’t get it, they became petulant and went off in the corner. What did that end up getting them? Well, about 80, 85 newly elected Republicans in the House of Representatives.”
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, insisted that the country is governed from the middle and that when either side gets out of line, they are usually punished.
“We govern in the middle,” Scarborough said. “We always have. With, with apologies to Arthur Schlesinger, there’s not a pendulum swing ideologically in America. America stays in the middle, and we saw it. When you go too far left, they slap you back and when Republicans go too far right, they slap you back as well, into the center.”
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