"You have it within your grasp to be regarded as one of the greatest legislative sessions in the history of the state. If you're bold and if you're ready to aggressively reach for our future, all the ingredients are here. The opportunities are waiting for us"
About this Quote
Kempthorne’s pitch is a masterclass in political alchemy: take ordinary parliamentary mechanics and refract them into destiny. “Within your grasp” flatters legislators as protagonists, not functionaries; it’s empowerment language that also quietly assigns blame. If greatness is available and you don’t seize it, you chose smallness. The line isn’t just motivational, it’s disciplinary.
The superlative framing - “one of the greatest legislative sessions in the history of the state” - works less as a measurable claim than as a reputational bribe. It invites lawmakers to vote for a package not simply because it’s good policy, but because it can be branded as historic. Politics, here, is memory management: Kempthorne is offering them a future plaque.
His conditional rhythm does the real work: “If you’re bold... if you’re ready...” It creates a binary moral economy where support equals courage and opposition can be painted as timidity or nostalgia. “Aggressively reach for our future” is tellingly kinetic, a frontier metaphor dressed as technocratic progress. “Aggressively” signals urgency and appetite for risk while keeping the object - “our future” - safely abstract, roomy enough to hold tax cuts, infrastructure, education reform, deregulation, or all of the above.
“All the ingredients are here” suggests inevitability without naming tradeoffs. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of a stocked pantry: no one wants to be the person who refuses to cook. The context is the perennial moment governors face with legislatures: corralling factions, lubricating compromise, and making a vote feel like a once-in-a-generation choice rather than Tuesday’s agenda.
The superlative framing - “one of the greatest legislative sessions in the history of the state” - works less as a measurable claim than as a reputational bribe. It invites lawmakers to vote for a package not simply because it’s good policy, but because it can be branded as historic. Politics, here, is memory management: Kempthorne is offering them a future plaque.
His conditional rhythm does the real work: “If you’re bold... if you’re ready...” It creates a binary moral economy where support equals courage and opposition can be painted as timidity or nostalgia. “Aggressively reach for our future” is tellingly kinetic, a frontier metaphor dressed as technocratic progress. “Aggressively” signals urgency and appetite for risk while keeping the object - “our future” - safely abstract, roomy enough to hold tax cuts, infrastructure, education reform, deregulation, or all of the above.
“All the ingredients are here” suggests inevitability without naming tradeoffs. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of a stocked pantry: no one wants to be the person who refuses to cook. The context is the perennial moment governors face with legislatures: corralling factions, lubricating compromise, and making a vote feel like a once-in-a-generation choice rather than Tuesday’s agenda.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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