> Do the other Dems really think they can win a fight with a bunch of
> thugs by
> turning the other cheek? I thought these guys were professional
> politicians,
> i.e., that they were hard-nosed realists who knew how to mix it up in
> the big
> leagues. I must be missing something.
Folks like us tend to see Bush vs. the eventual Dem candidate as a prize fight, and thus prefer a hard-slugging candidate, but "these guys" *are* professional politicians. Therefore, they are basically concerned with only two things -- how much money they can collect for their campaigns, and how many votes they will get next November. It's not a blood sport with them. More like applied mathematics -- calculating $$ and votes. If they think crowding the center will earn them more of these commodities, that's what they'll do. Dean seems to have been betting that projecting an image of a "fighter" (though I've seen news stories about him that suggest that he is temperamentally more comfortable with a belligerent style, also) will bring in more bucks and votes than making nice with Bush, but the other candidates are indeed being "hard-nosed realists" by taking positions closer to Bush. That's how they're trying to differentiate themselves from Dean, who is the front-runner for the nomination at this point.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax