"The campaign is over. It's time for the work of governing to begin"
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A line like this is designed to sound like a handshake across the aisle while quietly tightening the speaker's grip on the room. "The campaign is over" doesn’t just mark the end of ads and rallies; it’s a soft rebuke to anyone still posturing for cameras, still scoring points, still treating politics as performance. Daschle, a Senate operator by temperament and training, is invoking a Washington norm: elections are for contrast, governing is for bargaining. It’s a call to lower the volume without surrendering leverage.
The second sentence does the real work. "It’s time" frames cooperation as not merely desirable but overdue, a matter of civic schedule. "The work of governing" elevates policy into something like labor: unglamorous, continuous, morally respectable. That phrasing flatters the institution (and the people who run it) while setting a standard that opponents can be accused of failing. If you keep campaigning, you’re not just partisan; you’re shirking.
The subtext is also defensive. This is the kind of line leaders reach for when they anticipate gridlock, buyer’s remorse, or a legitimacy hangover after a bruising election. It tries to convert a winner’s mandate into an expectation of compliance: accept the result, stop relitigating, get in the room. In the post-1990s era of permanent campaign politics, it’s almost quaint - and that’s partly the point. It performs seriousness, and in Washington, seriousness is a weapon.
The second sentence does the real work. "It’s time" frames cooperation as not merely desirable but overdue, a matter of civic schedule. "The work of governing" elevates policy into something like labor: unglamorous, continuous, morally respectable. That phrasing flatters the institution (and the people who run it) while setting a standard that opponents can be accused of failing. If you keep campaigning, you’re not just partisan; you’re shirking.
The subtext is also defensive. This is the kind of line leaders reach for when they anticipate gridlock, buyer’s remorse, or a legitimacy hangover after a bruising election. It tries to convert a winner’s mandate into an expectation of compliance: accept the result, stop relitigating, get in the room. In the post-1990s era of permanent campaign politics, it’s almost quaint - and that’s partly the point. It performs seriousness, and in Washington, seriousness is a weapon.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
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