A good point on this argument. For the "crazies"* to make the "moderates"* the crazies must present a credible POLITICAL threat/promise. An analogy: Before I got my first car I took the bus to work everyday; my transfer point happened to be in front of a car lot. One day, one of the salesman, not being busy and apparently bored out of his skull shouted: "Trade in those shoes on a car - I'll give you a good price!". My reply, looking at the quality of what was on his lot was "Sure. Make it an even swap!". That ended the conversation; if I had seriously been in the market for a car and wanted to do business with that lot, my reply would have been different. I think for a "crazy" position to empower the "moderates" it has to demonstrate the ability to not just attract but mobilize real popular support. Of course you can't get to that stage if you never advance your position before you are at that stage.
(Note: by the way that I put both "crazies" and "moderates" in scare quotes. "Crazies" for the most part strikes me as an inaccurate put down of people who have quite a lot of argument on their side; "moderate" (in politics is an empty term. For example there are people on this list who take more of an ultra-leftist stance than Carrol (though not many). And Carrol would probably be considered to the left of Doug Henwood. So Carrol could describe himself (if he wished) as a moderate, navigating between extremes of the right and left. If he chose to so describe himself, and someone questioned that self-description he could truthfully reply that he was being as accurate as anyone else who ever used the term "moderate".)