{"id":15542,"date":"2017-01-01T11:44:07","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T18:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15542"},"modified":"2017-01-01T11:44:07","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T18:44:07","slug":"schweitzer-values-unite-us-issues-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/01\/schweitzer-values-unite-us-issues-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Schweitzer: Values unite us, issues divide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Brian Schweitzer<\/p><\/div>\n

Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer showed up on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d<\/a> Sunday morning to talk about prospects for the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Schweitzer\u2019s name has been tossed around as a possible Democratic candidate to replace Ryan Zinke in the U.S. House of Representatives if Zinke is confirmed as President Trump\u2019s secretary of the Interior. The speculation hasn\u2019t come from Schweitzer, who has kept quiet about his political prospects since early talk about a run for president ended with a couple of ill-considered remarks to the National Journal<\/a> in 2014.<\/p>\n

Given how the 2016 race played out, those remarks seem almost comically innocent. But Schweitzer publicly apologized and talk of his candidacy dried up.<\/p>\n

CNN moderator Jake Tapper didn\u2019t ask about the House race on Sunday, but Schweitzer, wearing a neatly trimmed goatee and a bolo tie, seems not to have lost any of his political savvy. Asked why Barack Obama ran so much stronger in Montana in 2008 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 (Obama lost by two points, Clinton by 22), Schweitzer replied, \u201cWell, maybe the governor that was running for re-election got 66 percent of the vote. Maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

That governor, of course, was Schweitzer.<\/p>\n

Schweitzer also had more substantive things to say. Using one of the folksy metaphors he is known for, he said that if you go fishing, you can\u2019t just put your line down next to the boat. You have to stand up and cast as far as you can.<\/p>\n

Trump, he said, threw the line far from the boat and was able to appeal to working-class voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said things that Republicans hated to hear,\u201d Schweitzer said.<\/p>\n

Democrats made the mistake of sticking close to their base and acting like they were the smartest person in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want them to be the smartest person in the room,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I don\u2019t want them talking like they\u2019re the smartest person in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats also supported trade deals that hurt some working Americans, he said, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and what he called \u201cSHAFTA,\u201d the Trans-Pacific Partnership.<\/p>\n

Democrats even took the blame for Obamacare, which Schweitzer said was drawn from a Republican plan to enrich insurance and pharmaceutical companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cObamacare was a Republican idea passed by Democrats,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The most striking thing Schweitzer said was that political success comes not from advocating a set of policies but from finding common ground on which people can discuss what matters to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou win elections because values unite people,\u201d he said. \u201cIssues divide.\u201d

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer showed up on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d Sunday morning to talk about prospects for the Democratic Party. Schweitzer\u2019s name has been tossed around as a possible Democratic candidate to replace Ryan Zinke in the U.S. House of Representatives if Zinke is confirmed as President Trump\u2019s secretary of the Interior. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[146,628],"class_list":["post-15542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-brian-schweitzer","tag-ryan-zinke","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}