We All Want The Same Things

I think this version of "both sides" has been eroded, somewhat, but once upon a time, a motivation for covering almost everything that way was the underlying assumption that, basically, Both Parties Want The Same Things They Just Disagree About How To Get There.
 
It's how, for example, they could claim Paul Ryan really cared about poverty, with his "put poor people in the wood chipper until they earn more money" policies. Paul Ryan's plan to end poverty through suffering! Both sides want to end poverty!

Add that to certain mostly unacknowledged biases - government bad, free market good - and the conservative fake solutions to problems they were not interested in solving always seemed better!

...actually hadn't read this Bouie column before I typed this, but related!