Loss of moderate unfortunate for state [UPDATED]

Published 9:37am Friday, February 3, 2012 Updated 11:37am Friday, February 3, 2012
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The retirement of Republican State Rep. Mark Murdock, who represents the eastern half of Otter Tail County, certainly is unfortunate for his supporters.

One of the things he said in an interview regarding the news of his resignation was more disappointing.

Murdock, an Ottertail resident and Perham hardware store owner who has served in the Legislature since 2008, said the part of his service that most frustrated him was what he saw as a sometimes impossible rift between the two major parties.

“It’s quite partisan there, and if we could just take the gloves off and forget about party politics sometimes, we could get a lot of stuff done,” he said.

Well put. It’s clearly disappointing that someone who is interested in working with those on the other side of the aisle and finding solutions both sides can live with decides to leave the game.

The likelihood is that he won’t be the only one. And if moderates are not encouraged to step up and run, then our Legislature will be even further filled by extremists.

In other words, the trend appears to be more extremism, which will unquestionably be accompanied by more gridlock, and little in the way of compromise.

Comments
  1. Jerome Mullins February 3, 2012 at 3:18 pm <Link>

    Moderation in the face of evil is no virtue, and extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. (Barry Gokdwater?)

    It is no surprise that the liberal Daily Journal editorial management would prod people to not contest the ceaseless efforts of the socialist dominated DFL in St.Paul, both in the legislature and governor’s mansion.
    That DFL militates constantly to creat a Super Nanny State, to crush working families under onerous taxes, and degrade and demean our traditional values.

    And the Journal continues to do the DFL’s bidding by labeling opposition to socialist domination as “extremism”, and , by inference, to accuse all who cannot abide the DFL’s goals and policies and tactics , as knuckle dragging extremists.

  2. William Schulz February 5, 2012 at 1:54 am <Link>

    Name the author of this quote. “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only Death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit”.

    The current dismal state of our State’s and nation’s dismal unemployment, high taxes, tragically poor public education systems, and hostility toward the businesses which create jobs and begin the flow of cash to workers in salaries and wages, all of this is the consequence of compromise between rational decisions and crushingly stupid mandates from a Democrat party gone mad.

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