Lynne Cheney: Gridlock Isn’t New

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Susan Page, Lynne Cheney: Gridlock Isn’t New; Ex-VP’s wife talks about Madison’s book. USA Today, May 7, 2014.
www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... -president/8728645/

Quote:

(a) “Lynne Cheney * * * speculates that the founder known as the Father of the Constitution wouldn’t be dismayed by today’s politics.

(b) “'Madison founded partisan gridlock, in a sense,; Cheney said in an interview at her home [in McLean, Virginia, as shown in the byline] with USA’s Capital Download on her new book, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered. That is to say, the nation’s fourth president helped establish the young nation’s first opposition political party, and he governed in a political climate as vitriolic as anything today.

"'The Washington administration was underway. Alexander Hamilton was really in charge of policy, and he was taking it beyond the Constitution, Madison thought. There was no way to combat this, he finally concluded, Madison did [conclude], without setting up an opposition party. And that was a very unusual thing to do. Parties had not such a good reputation then, just as they don't know. But it was a way to have a legitimate opposition * * * The founding of this party ushered in an era of partisan politics that's easily as combative, cruel, mean and nasty as today,' including attacks and innuendo against Madison's wife, Dolley." (ellipsis original)

"Some of Madison's view are in sync with today's Tea Party movement, she says. ' If you're concerned about the scope and reach of the federal government, as many people are these days, Madison is your man.'

Note:
(a) The link above is the transcript of the interview. The print report is actually much abbreviated. (Quotations above are from the print.) So there is no need to read the transcript.
(b) Democratic-Republican Party
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic-Republican_Party
(1791-1825)