Selling out completely--the key to victory!

Nicholas Kristof still thinks so, even though I think that's just what John Kerry tried. Here's the "sensible liberal" line that's gotten the attention from most lefty bloggers:

I wish that winning were just a matter of presentation. But it's not. It involves compromising on principles. Bill Clinton won his credibility in the heartland partly by going home to Little Rock during the 1992 campaign to preside over the execution of a mentally disabled convict named Ricky Ray Rector.

There was a moral ambiguity about Mr. Clinton's clambering to power over Mr. Rector's corpse. But unless Democrats compromise, they'll be proud and true and losers.

As opposed to what they are now, which is ashamed and compromised losers. Since the DLC started running the Democratic party back in 1992, they've compromised their prinicples on labor (NAFTA, the WTO), poverty (welfare "reform"), and opposition to costly stupid pointless illegal wars (well, I'm not sure the Dems ever were opposed to those). Frankly, they're running out of principles to abandon and constituencies to betray. If they really want to steal a page or two from some people who were or are popular in the heartland, I'd suggest they start with these two quotes:

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

-- Barry Goldwater

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

-- Jesus Christ (Mark 8:36)

BTW, There are some other Goldwater quotes on that page that are intriguing:

I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone.
...
If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
...
You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.

But his appeal vanishes with this one:

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

And this one:

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.