Rahm Emanuel

So I'm responsible for helping the Democrats in 2005 and 2006 to get the House back and get the majority to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker.

While I'm beating the crap out of Republicans, recruiting Democrats, President Bush and I work on the Great Lakes Restoration Act.

I passed a landmark environmental bill restoring the ecological health to Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, etc.

So you've got to know how to work together and had every Republican in the Great Lakes states co-sponsor the legislation.

That was my first bill I introduced as a member of Congress.

So you can do that, and bipartisanship is one thing, but it's just... And I've been, as you and I were talking about earlier across the country, there's more consensus...

in America than there is in Washington.

And don't lose sight of that kind of gravitational pull.

It can get ugly, but it requires all of us working on empathy, and I will be honest, I need to do that myself.

I have played a game that's in bare-knuckle politics and sometimes, no doubt, have crossed the line.

So all of us have to work on it.

You two have to work on it.

We all have to work on it.

Not just listen to other people, but try to hear them, both what they're saying and the intent they mean to communicate, even when we disagree.

And I'm not sure I do a good job of it.

I definitely know I have a spouse that thinks I suck at it, okay?

I will tell you two anecdotes to tease out a lesson.

Jean Sperling, Bruce Reed, and I are responsible in the final balanced budget negotiations, the final item, the Children's Health Insurance Initiative.

President Clinton had introduced part of the balanced budget agreement, kids' health care.

It's called CHIPS.