Electing Mitt Would Reward Bad Behavior

Regardless of how you feel about Mitt Romney's policies, there's a big reason not to vote for him: A Romney win would reward the bad behavior the Republican Party has exhibited over the past four years, writes Steve Kornacki at Salon. After President Obama was elected, the GOP made basically no attempt to work with him, instead spending his entire term "cranking up the hysteria and treating virtually every Obama initiative as a step toward socialism" in an effort to stall his agenda—because Republicans believed he, not they, would be blamed if the country didn't turn around.

All the while, Republicans have failed to come up with any "feasible alternatives" to the policies they so adamantly oppose. If the GOP manages to win this way, we could very well wave goodbye to any hope of a bipartisan Washington. "There’s no reason to think they won’t behave the same way again the next time Democrats claim power. For that matter, it’s possible Democrats will begin to behave the same way," Kornacki writes. "The GOP’s post-2008 behavior has not been healthy for our system of government. It’s troubling to think what might happen if it’s rewarded." Click for his full column. (More Election 2012 stories.)