Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper represents an ideal.
While he has many great leadership qualities – he’s charismatic, fair-minded, practical, honest, hardworking and collaborative – it’s really this ideal that fueled the excitement over his potential candidacy as governor of Colorado.
Hickenlooper was the non-political politician. In our extremely partisan state and extremely partisan nation, people truly believed that Hickenlooper would be able to transport his brand of non-political leadership out of the mayor’s office and into the governor’s office.
Yes, stepping into the race would have forced him to publicly embrace a party, but his bipartisan support suggested that people didn’t expect him to become a party loyalist.
That’s the ideal that’s missing from our political system. I believe most people have grown weary of partisanship, because it’s so negative, so unproductive, and so far removed from the issues that matter in our lives.
Most people want real leaders. They want someone who can examine a problem, understand the issues that created it, fashion remedies that will serve the best interests of the most people, and implement them based on their merits, rather than having to apply an is-it-good-for-the-party litmus test.
To understand how partisanship undermines rational thought, consider a courtroom. In that setting, prosecutors and defense attorneys are not driven by a noble desire to reveal the whole truth about the defendant or the crime. The principle aim for each side is to win the case. So they shade the truth by emphasizing facts, circumstances and conjecture that would help their side, and dismissing or attacking anything that would hurt them.
A judge, jury and rules of evidence serve to counterbalance the partisanship of the attorneys, and ideally, the whole process can achieve some degree of fairness and accuracy in the enforcement of laws.
Attorneys obviously are interested in studying the nuances of the law to learn how they might gain an advantage in the process, but regular citizens have a basic interest in the truth. A jury will listen to the evidence from both sides and try to reach a proper conclusion.
The problem with political partisanship is that there is no judge, no rules of evidence and no impartial jury to balance against the negative effects of having two adversaries whose sole aim is to win.
For true partisans, every case is decided long before the first piece of evidence is introduced. There is no need to examine the facts, consider mitigating circumstances, or even listen to the arguments presented by the other side.
Our two parties don’t set out to make decisions that will be easy to defend on moral, ethical or legal grounds. Instead, they do whatever best serves their narrow interests (winning), and then send out talking points so that their adherents can effectively defend whatever decision the party has made.
In our partisan system, it’s no surprise that the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was a mostly party-line vote. It’s no surprise that Republicans are defending warrantless wiretaps while Democrats are attacking the practice. There are occasional instances in which a politician will cross the party line, but there’s rarely any rational debate about issues.
I believe that frustration over this increasingly unthinking partisan environment was the driving force for Hickenlooper’s popularity.
People truly believed that he could cross the political divide, initiate bipartisan relationships and really bring rational conversation back into the political process in the state.
Even though the mayor is out of the running, let’s hope that the remaining candidates have taken note of his popularity and will try to emulate the characteristics that have made Hickenlooper such a popular choice among people on both sides of the political aisle.
We’re tired of the same old partisan games.
Former Bronco Reggie Rivers is the host of “Global Agenda” Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. on KBDI-Channel 12. His column appears every Friday.
