November 16, 2012

GREG WALDEN: Well, Luke, as I said, I don't think anybody would expect the president to run away from his principles or Republicans newly elected to the House to jettison their principals. In between that, though, if it's about trying to get government back to where we can afford it, generate revenues by creating new jobs and closing loopholes in the tax code, there would be a piece of it. I think we can find common ground. We get hung up on what somebody says here or there and saying if you don't abandon your principles then there's no solution, I think that's the wrong course of action. Let's get a framework in place. See what we can do to find common ground and get to an answer here. It won't be easy but if the problems were easy they would have been resolved long ago. If we get hung up over saying, oh, you have to abandon your principles, Mr. President, or Republicans, you have to abandon yours, and then we're going nowhere. I think that's a cul-de-sac, a dead end street. LUKE RUSSERT: Pacific Northwest pragmatism there.