Pragmatism is what got the McCain Amendment passed by 81 votes on Wednesday. I call it compromise, and it seems the republicans are the only ones who do it.
I don't know that you can equate all pragmatism with a badly decided act of pragmatism. I think pragmatism like anything else has to be practiced in a thinking way, not in a knee jerk way. Obviously there are times pragmatism is not called for and the McCain amendment is certainly one of them. However I don't think that can be equated to simply recognizing the political realities of the states you're running in and adapting accordingly, especially in areas where as governor there's no constitutional ability nor mandate to act, such as in the area of abortion laws. On the other hand if the people of the state are demanding fiscal conservatism and as a Republican you run on the idea of spending more, than that's just stupid.
Equating bad decisions in terms of pragmatism with those that may be wise would be like using rape to say all sexual acts are horrorific and violent.
No, you're misunderstanding me.
The amendment was not an act of pragmatism. It was a borderline act of treason.
The pragmatism happened at the time all of the RINO's who supported the amendment were elected. At least, that's what it was called at the time by those who know better.
The bottom line is, the more we let the left infiltrate our party, the more say they'll have in the direction it takes. To me, that's not pragmatic. It's suicidal.