In theory, parents are supposed to empathize with one other - find common cause in the fervent desire to preserve and protect the world for the next generation, and connect on some deep, almost mystical level that those poor souls who have not experienced this kind of all-consuming love cannot possibly comprehend.
Actors and writers and adjuncts are always looking for their next job: they find common cause with the female Uber drivers on contracts who have also been unprotected victims of sexual harassment.
We are all different. Yet we are all God's children. We are all united behind this country and the common cause of freedom, justice, fairness, and equality. That is what unites us.
I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.
As president of Common Cause, I joined a coalition of groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to Consumers Union, and we went to Congress with over a million signatures asking that Net Neutrality be made law.
Like many older D.C. organizations, Common Cause has had to come a long way both in its use of the Internet and its understanding of the great value of engaging people in a broader online dialogue.
Certainly, my advice is that communicating, lobbying, fundraising and engaging the public in policy and politics is far more exciting and inexpensive via the Internet. Old guard organizations like Common Cause had to evolve to embrace this new environment.
One of the reasons I wanted to leave my position at Common Cause and return to politics was to regain the freedom to speak out politically - to not be constrained by a non-partisan organization.
We become distracted from productive labors by our perceived opponents; we become focused on them and not on our larger calling to advance our nation; our debate becomes more about scoring points against an adversary and less about advancing our common cause.
These false barriers that we've erected of space and race, all these illusions that we've allowed to infect us like toxins, we've got to rid ourselves of that. We are a better nation when we are ultimately united in a common purpose and a common cause.