Will they look good losing?

B. Jay Cooper
3 min readOct 13, 2021

Back when I worked in the Reagan Administration, Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, my boss, would say of the then-right wing of the Republican Party: “They like to look good losing.”

That’s because those folks would have rather died on the battlefield clinging to their most extreme beliefs rather than compromise with the moderates in the party, or the Democrats.

Today, the same can be said in the Democratic Party. Progressives are holding any compromise hostage while they cling, at least publicly, to their $3.5 trillion package of spending and programs…

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B. Jay Cooper

Former deputy White House press secretary (Reagan and Bush 41) and former head of communications at Republican Natl Committee. My blog: bjaycooper.com.