WOULDN'T EVERYBODY HATE US IF WE TOLD LIBERALS TO GO TO HELL? | 2003-05-03
If you say that moderation is stupid you will be told that you are not being Wise and Practical. You will be told that "Politics is the art of the possible" and that compromise is what politics is all about. You will be told that while amateurs like you demand a move to the right, all the experts agree that victory lies in the middle of the road.
Well, the third biggest publisher on earth published one of my books on politics. That is about the only qualification you need to be a political expert, and I have a lot more qualifications than that, a whole lifetime's worth.
Let me tell you once again that moderation does not work politically. In the real Congress, there are very, very few people who are really elected to that body who are not on the right or on the left. In presidential elections in our generation, every moderate Republican lost and Reagan won twice. The only elected moderate was Bush, Senior, and he was elected as Reagan's successor and defeated when he ran on his own in 1992.
You will see an example of the reason that moderation loses if you look at the two articles above.
Let me ask you a political question
Would Bush get more votes if he continues to worry about liberals who would accuse him of "fighting the war for oil," or would he win if he said "We liberated the Iraqis, but they should pay at the least the monetary cost of their own liberation by helping us undercut OPEC.
In fact, I wouldn't even insist they break OPEC completely. Australia and Britain produce their own oil, so I think OPEC should be left free to blackmail Europe. Britain and Australia produce their own oil and we deserve a big break on our oil imports.
Would Bush get more votes if he made sure Iraq got OPEC prices from Americans for its oil or if would he do better if he used Iraq to break OPEC and give us an economic boom and tax cuts?
A moderate is not in the middle of any real political road. A moderate's politics comes from compromising between conservative politicians and the liberal elite.