Don't look now, but Republicans and Democrats on both the national and state levels now have the chance to show they can work together for the good of the people that put them there.
On the state level, a good place to start is to not play political games with the recount in the governor's race.
DFLer Mark Dayton leads by nearly 9,000 votes over Republican Tom Emmer. A margin of that size has never yet in American politics been overcome through a recount.
But the Republicans took the Minnesota Legislature in the national surge to the right on Election Day, and DFLers fear that Republicans will drag the recount process out in the courts.
That would give Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty the opportunity to work with a Republican-majority Legislature to pass all sorts of legislation while DFLers sit helplessly by.
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Some might argue that would be poetic justice anyway, since a Republican probably should have won the governor's race: Emmer only lost because Independence Party candidate Tom Horner, a former Republican, siphoned off enough moderate Republican votes to give the race to Dayton.
But there's no way to know for sure, and it doesn't matter anyway. In politics, you pays yer money and you takes yer chance.
Dayton appears to have won, and clean government should prevail. Emmer should make sure the recount process is scrupulously carried out, and if no major problems are found -- let it go. If Emmer believes he has legitimately lost, he should concede for the good of the political process -- and his own good name -- and not allow partisan lawsuits to go forward on his behalf.
At the federal level, we hope the two major parties can find a way to work together to get things done.
Deficit reduction and immigration reform are two areas on which they might be able to find middle ground.
Maybe they could even work together to fix some of the more onerous parts of the healthcare reform law, or find a better way to address global warming than the hated cap-and-trade bill.
This is an opportunity to show a public that is utterly sick of the partisan political battles that Democrats and Republicans can cooperate and compromise for the good of the state and the nation.
