[Bruce Campbells Chin]

The point is is that if you're so sensitive to losing votes, you won't do more difficult things that require even more courage because they will lose even more votes. Recent examples are raising the debt ceiling and the payroll tax cut.

Rhetoric is style, not substance, and challengers don't pass legislation with their rhetoric. Elections are about winning votes, and the rhetoric you use during a campaign should be designed to do that. No purpose is served in losing votes due to rhetoric.

But passing legislation is completely different, because even if it costs you votes, you've managed to achieve something.

Look at Obama. He ran and won by mouthing vague platitudes so as not to offend anyone, and actually conned some Republicans into thinking he was just this moderate guy. But then when he got into office, he managed to pass a lot of substantive legislation and regulation that angered a lot of people.

The fact is that such a strategy works.

[throwback]

And Obama is still perceived as a moderate because no one will say “socialist”. Now we have 3 years of experience to base the accusation on, and they still can't say it. And people on the Right criticize Obama because he won't use “war on terror”, but prefers “man caused disaster”. I really wonder if there is much light between these parties anymore. Anyway, I appreciate your calm reasoned argument. We'll get to see who's right.