Compromisers Always Lose Elections

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo explains why every compromise by the White House and congressional Democrats is making Obama's re-election less likely:

Far from being insane, this approach is actually eminently rational. The GOP needn't hold the presidency every cycle. All they need to do is prevent a Democratic President from accomplishing much of anything progressive while forcing him or her to clean up Republican messes. Then when they inevitably get back in office, they can continue to ratchet public policy as far to the right as possible until they inevitably lose again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Insanity is what Democrats do: try to win every election and remain popular in the polls by compromising and appealing to the moderate voter while insulting their natural base, whether they're in office or out of office. If Democrats were smart, they would figure out that voters didn't suddenly love Democrats in 2006 any more than they suddenly loved Republicans in 2010. The Democrats' job should be to push policy in as far a progressive direction as possible and build the base while in office, and then prevent Republicans from governing as Republicans when they naturally oscillate out of the majority.

In American politics, there is no consequence for extremism. Extremism is, in fact, constantly rewarded. In a binary system, the media will always say that "both sides do it", and voters will always think the grass is greener on the other side.

The one and only thing that matters is who can shift policy farther in the direction of their natural base while in office. In this, Republicans have figured out the game masterfully, while Democrats are left constantly chasing a fickle moderate voter they cannot hope to keep in their column. The GOP knows it can get away with attacking Social Security, because it knows it can count on fickle, angry seniors to vote for them anyway in their disgruntlement over Democratic rule.

In this context, who wins or loses individual elections matters far less than how much ideological shift the winner can make in terms of public policy when they do win. As long as the opposition can remain remotely electable when the public sours on the incumbent Party, there is simply no consequence for ideological extremism.

Liberals go with what works. That applies to elections as well as policy.