Lovers and Fighters Together Again
by digby
Dylan Ratigan discussed the poll I mentioned earlier in which a large majority of Republicans say they don't want their leaders to compromise while half of Democrats want their leaders to do just that. Ratigan mumbled something about skewed questions and then asked Republican strategist Matt Lewis what he thinks accounts for this difference. He had a very unexpected and interesting reply:
Well some of this might just be that Democrats are demoralized after the election and conservatives are fired up and want to hit the ground running. But I actually think this poll is accurate. If you look at the success of conservative talk radio and you look at the success of some conservative television shows vs.say liberal talk radio, I think a lot of times, this is a microcosm here Dylan, a lot of liberals don't want to listen to the liberal version of Rush Limbaugh they want to listen to NPR. And I think that speaks to their temperament rather than their ideology. A lot of liberals are sort of temperamentally modest, I would say. Conservatives are maybe a little bit more ready to fight. So I think the poll is accurate.
Sam Sedar went on to point out that left leaning people tend to have some measure of doubt and that they're not so sure that they're right all the time while the right tends toward zealotry. He said that's why the left has been willing to compromise for a long time, while the right hasn't.
Lewis, grinning like a jack-o-lantern, ended with this sage observation:
Well I think the real world implication here Dylan, is that if the Republican base does not want to compromise and the Democratic base is willing to compromise Republicans are going to win more public policy battles than they lose.
What can you say to that?
.