# Hardliner or moderate?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [April 30, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859 "2015-04-30T00:55:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/1 "2015-04-30T00:55:49Z")
Simple, straightforward poll:
Liberals: Would you prefer that your side nominate a centrist moderate who has a 70% chance of winning, or a strongly liberal candidate who has only a 40% chance of winning?
Conservatives: Would you prefer that your side nominate a centrist moderate who has a 70% chance of winning, or a strongly conservative candidate who has only a 40% chance of winning?
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### Author:  [@mrldii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrldii)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/2 "2015-04-30T01:06:39Z")
Oh, jeez…find a centrist/moderate from _ANY_ party, and I’ll gladly vote for that person.
I’ll give money AND donate my time to campaign for him/her, too.
🆒
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### Author:  [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/3 "2015-04-30T01:13:57Z")
Well I’m conservative and want the moderate… but I’m moderate. So a candidate that more closely resembles my position and has a good chance of winning isn’t much of a dilemma.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/4 "2015-04-30T06:10:55Z")
I’m a centrist by European standards, which places me on the far left fringe of the American political spectrum. For example, I consider those who can’t accept the scientific consensus on global warming to be nutcases. Similarly for supply-side crackpottery, moon hoax stuff and the Timecube, though I admit I haven’t sorted through all these ideas at [crank.net](http://crank.net).
Despite my far left leanings (US context) I’ll take the moderate with the 70% chance. In order to be nominated by the Republican Party, you need to either be crazy or simulate crazy. Otherwise the Republican Primary voter will pass you over for another asylum inmate.
Luckily we have plenty of Democratic political moderates in the US like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, etc.
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/5 "2015-04-30T14:48:30Z")
My compliments to the OP for an excellent question. I’m about as far left wing as you can get, you can’t get much more left without being off the bird entirely. I’d love to see Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the White House. If nominated, they might win. But it is far more important to me that no Republican ever gets in the White House again. Abortion rights, gay rights, and voting rights would be jeopardized if a Republican president started packing the court with Thomas or Roberts clones. So I will happily forfeit some progress in order to prevent any regression.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/6 "2015-04-30T15:22:05Z")
> [@mrldii](#):
>
> Oh, jeez…find a centrist/moderate from _ANY_ party, and I’ll gladly vote for that person.
😕 That’s most officeholding Democrats.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/7 "2015-04-30T15:45:16Z")
I’m not a liberal, a conservative, or a moderate. (And hence could not vote in your poll).
If I had a choice between a politician (of any party) with mild anarchist sentiments who had a 70% chance of winning and a politician (of any party) who intended to outline an actual anarchist agenda who had a 40% chance of winning, I’d totally go with the “extremist”.
& would I ever love to find myself faced in real life with such a choice to make!
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/8 "2015-04-30T15:50:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> 😕 That’s most officeholding Democrats.
Most people consider their own side moderate and the other side radical.
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### Author:  [@mrldii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrldii)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/9 "2015-04-30T16:45:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> 😕 That’s most officeholding Democrats.
Not once they start running for POTUS; anyone running for POTUS, especially from the two major parties, begins pushing their party’s platform…which is simply to be as far away from the _other_ major party’s platform, as possible
meaning we’re left to vote for the lesser of the two most-extreme evils.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/10 "2015-04-30T17:00:59Z")
I don’t even care about the chance of winning. I want a moderate candidate for the sake of being moderate. Politics is a compromise and you don’t always get everything you want. Maybe that should be the campaign slogan of the candidate I’d like to vote for.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/11 "2015-04-30T17:15:16Z")
> [@mrldii](#):
>
> Not once they start running for POTUS; anyone running for POTUS, especially from the two major parties, begins pushing their party’s platform…which is simply to be as far away from the _other_ major party’s platform, as possible
>
> meaning we’re left to vote for the lesser of the two most-extreme evils.
Wow. What a giant pile of grade-A bullshit. Have you not been paying attention to the Republicans lately? Seriously?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/12 "2015-04-30T17:25:20Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> I don’t even care about the chance of winning.
I don’t understand, then why vote?
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/13 "2015-04-30T22:37:14Z")
I’m more interested in a moderate, but a moderate must have some firm principles. I don’t like squishes. What I do like are heterodox politicians(mavericks) who are willing to work with the other side. But who do have identifiable principles which they refuse to budge on. Think John McCain or Ron Wyden, as opposed to Arlen Specter or Ben Nelson. Russ Feingold, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Rand Paul also qualify. Any Blue Dog or liberal Republican who just plays “split the baby” politics because their primary motivation is getting reelected are not the kinds of moderates I want.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/14 "2015-04-30T22:40:43Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> I don’t understand, then why vote?
I think **dracoi** was saying he/she preferred a moderate not\* just because \*they would have a better chance of winning, but because he/she prefers a moderate.
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t even care about the chance of winning. I want a moderate candidate for the sake of being moderate.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/15 "2015-04-30T22:52:27Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> I don’t understand, then why vote?
Well, maybe that was slightly phrased wrong? I’ll clarify:
I don’t vote for or favor a candidate based on how much I think other people will like them. I vote for the one that embodies the positions or characteristics that I personally want to see. It’s not a wasted vote as long as it goes to the candidate I like best.
Certainly, I hope that enough other people will agree with me so that my candidate of choice wins, but I won’t be discouraged by people saying “But he’ll never win.”
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### Author:  [@mrldii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrldii)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/16 "2015-04-30T23:03:48Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Wow. What a giant pile of grade-A bullshit. Have you not been paying attention to the Republicans lately? Seriously?
Oh, my!!!
Well, yes, I HAVE been paying attention to the Republicans lately, and for 30+ years, as a matter of fact, while I was registered as one. But, I will admit that I do not hang on their every word…nor do I stay tuned to Fox or Rush for the latest.
Was it announced this afternoon that as a party they’ve - or even just a one of them has - decided that’s it IS OK to be Pro-Choice and/or that marriage between same-sex partners IS OK and/or that basic medical coverage for every single one of this country’s citizens IS a good thing?
Or has someone broken from the party line and decided the current POTUS is NOT going to take over the world, one country at a time…with the U.S. being his first trial-run at it?!?
😕
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/17 "2015-05-01T01:47:13Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> Certainly, I hope that enough other people will agree with me so that my candidate of choice wins, but I won’t be discouraged by people saying “But he’ll never win.”
Good deal.
Discussing an election at work during the 1980s, an ignorant fellow said, “Plant, I did not vote for your man because I did not think that he could win.”
I am glad that you are not in that group. 🙂
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/18 "2015-05-01T01:59:05Z")
> [@mrldii](#):
>
> Oh, my!!!
>
> Well, yes, I HAVE been paying attention to the Republicans lately, and for 30+ years, as a matter of fact, while I was registered as one. But, I will admit that I do not hang on their every word…nor do I stay tuned to Fox or Rush for the latest.
>
> Was it announced this afternoon that as a party they’ve - or even just a one of them has - decided that’s it IS OK to be Pro-Choice and/or that marriage between same-sex partners IS OK and/or that basic medical coverage for every single one of this country’s citizens IS a good thing?
>
> Or has someone broken from the party line and decided the current POTUS is NOT going to take over the world, one country at a time…with the U.S. being his first trial-run at it?!?
>
> 😕
Okay. That post full of incoherence aside, then what policies of the Democrats are anywhere equal to the things that MAINSTREAM Republicans are pushing for now. What will Democrats in the primaries have to promise their voters that’s anywhere CLOSE to the insanity that the Republicans in their primaries are going to have to promise their voters to have a chance?
I guess what I was asking was, when’s the last time you actually saw a Republican moderate with any kind of political power? An actual moderate, not a relative moderate…just because half the party wants to criminalize miscarriages doesn’t mean that the ones who only want to ban abortion are moderate.
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### Author:  [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/19 "2015-05-01T02:05:09Z")
If the presidency were a more powerful office I might have a harder time with this. As it is, the moderate at least might take occasional suggestions from the hardliners, and will have an easier time working with Congress, plus there’s coattails – all sorts of reasons I’d rather my side win.
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### Author:  [@mrldii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrldii)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hardliner-or-moderate/718859/20 "2015-05-01T02:25:50Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Okay. That post full of incoherence aside, then what policies of the Democrats are anywhere equal to the things that MAINSTREAM Republicans are pushing for now. What will Democrats in the primaries have to promise their voters that’s anywhere CLOSE to the insanity that the Republicans in their primaries are going to have to promise their voters to have a chance?
>
> I guess what I was asking was, when’s the last time you actually saw a Republican moderate with any kind of political power? An actual moderate, not a relative moderate…just because half the party wants to criminalize miscarriages doesn’t mean that the ones who only want to ban abortion are moderate.
You can _attempt_ to skew whatever I’ve posted/am posting into whatever manner best suits **your** purposes, but it will not change what I’ve stated.
NEITHER party will put forth a “moderate” candidate, as that’s NOT conducive to what U.S. politics has become, which is simply: which party CAN stray the _farthest_ FROM the middle ground, with one party claiming the left spot and the other claiming the _right_.
When - and IF - A party (not even one of the two mainliners) can produce a candidate IN the middle ground, that person will have my full financial and time-and-effort support. Whether or not they actually win will be of little importance to me, as the general voting public has _confirmed_ that despite any political rhetoric during campaigns, We, The People, are just fiiiiiine with “Business as Usual” in Washington, DC.
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