Matthew Dowd has stood and served on both sides of the political spectrum, working early in his career for Democrats including Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and then filling key posts – including chief strategist – in the Bush-Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004.

Now a special correspondent and analyst for ABC News, he’s a professed independent longing for an end to partisan gridlock. Dowd sits down with UMKC professor and former U.S. ambassador Allan Katz to discuss his book A New Way: Embracing the Paradox as We Lead and Serve, in which he offers his model for effective governance. It entails leaders who place country over political party, community over profit, and the Constitution over personal power, who balance such paradoxes as realism and idealism, big vision and local action, delegation and accountability.