I am referring to the days when my professor and I like to think friend, John Tower, was the first Republican elected to a national office from the state of Texas since reconstruction. Yes politics were rancorous, the member of the Democratic National Committee John shared an office at Midwestern State University with for years never spoke to him again after the election. But on the floor of the Senate John invariably referred to those on the other side of the aisle as, "my colleague", "my honored opponent", "the gentleman from Massachusetts", or similar. To my personal knowledge their wives played bridge together, their children were in the same schools, and they frequently mixed socially. Certainly they never shouted out "You lie!" during a presidential speech or publicly referred to members of the other party using four letter curse words.
There were highly respected Senators and Representatives of both parties who earned their political chops by crafting compromises to make bills acceptable or at least tolerable for most members of congress. Of course most of those deals compromises were crafted in haze of cigar smoke, over tumblers of bourbon, often in the dead of night, and almost invariably out of the glare of publicity. In fact the parties presidential nominees were in the end chosen is similar smoke filled rooms, and I am not convinced we are better served by today's primary system.
