LINCOLN — Don Bacon, Republican, acknowledges his brand of pragmatic politics that prizes compromise and decency may be a bit of a throwback in these aggressively partisan times. But in an interview last month with CQ Roll Call, the Nebraska Republican said that’s what voters — at least, swing voters in the suburbs — want.
When was asked why the pragmatic conservative brand appears to be disappearing, Bacon responded by saying that we have become more divided and pitted against each other in politics, to the point where compromising has become a bad thing. He said that he wants the country to not only remain competitive but to improve and be the strongest country in the world.
It is extremely difficult to achieve this when we are battling each other internally. The only way forward is by finding what we agree on and moving in that direction.
Bacon does not want to sacrifice his conservative values for this goal, but he is willing to find areas of agreement. He realized that they needed to start reaching across the aisle in the House when very few bills were passing through the Senate.
This is why he became a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus; he wants to be more effective. A recent example of this increased productivity is the infrastructure bill which started in the Problem Solvers. This led to the creation of the For Country Caucus that includes both Republicans and Democrats.
Bacon is one of nine Republicans who represents a district that voted for Joe Biden. He was asked what fellow Republicans should be doing, and what they shouldn't be doing, to reproduce his political success in similar districts. Bacon responded by saying that Republicans need to start winning the suburbs, which they started doing the last cycle, and focus on issues of education and security.
Bacon also noted that people want somebody who is polite and respectful. "You can get half of your votes on policy, but the other half really comes down to, do they like you as a person? We need to be what I call 'decency conservatives' if we want to win back the majority and compete in the suburbs," Bacon said.
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