>> The only reason he ran as a Republican was because ONLY a Republican could win in that suburb. He ran the city like a liberal would.
>> “... I did come away with a valuable political lesson, one that so many “pragmatists” and “Anyone But Hillarys” have yet to learn ... putting an (R) after your name won’t make you a Republican.”
You seem to be mistaking pragmatism for supporting selling-out conservatism. I dare say that NO ONE on this board would support the Mayor in your example, or would call him a “pragmatist”. He was a liberal - plain and simple.
On immigration, Lindsay Graham wasn’t pragmatic, he was liberal. He wasn’t compromising on his conservative beliefs ... he was ADVOCATING liberal ones. There is a difference between occasionally compromising conservative principles where necessary for progress, and actively campaigning for liberal principles.
There is a distinction between a pragmatic conservative like George W. Bush (retarded immigration bill notwithstanding), and an outright liberal Republican like Olympia Snowe (for instance), or Lincoln Chafee pre-switch.
Your mayor was a liberal. He didn’t compromise his conservatism due to pragmatism ... he never held the conservative beliefs to begin with.
H
There is a big difference between playing at being a conservative and being a conservative trying to stake out as much of a conservative position on any given topic as they can in the prevailing environment.
This damning the reachable good for the sake of the unreachable great is pure folly.