What I am saying is that on key core issues there ultimately are only winners and losers. The “middle ground” never satisfies either side, it is only a temporary truce in an ideological war.

Minor issues of course can be solved by compromise as neither side is absolutely committed to their position. But this is not so on major issues such as morals or what society should look like. On issues like these there is no compromise, only a struggle for ultimate victory.

For instance, take Social Security. There is no longer any question as to whether or not the government should use public funds to support retirees, but rather how much they should spend, what age the retirees should be, etc. We gave up the fundamental ideological question on that issue – does the government have the right to collect taxes from working people to redistribute to retired people. As a result, the conservative position on that issue is now to quibble over the rate at which the government should collect the tax and redistribute the wealth – it is given that the government has every right in the world to do so. What started as a 1% pittance to support people who lost their savings in the depression (hardly worth quibbling over, given the seemingly greater political issues of the day) is now a bloated government wealth redistribution program that is bankrupting the treasury.

Compromise only works when both sides agree on the fundamental issue. If we agree that states should have representation in a national federal government, we can disagree on how many representatives each state should have, how they should be apportioned, etc, and then we can compromise on those details. If you believe that states should have representation in a national federal government, but I believe that the states should be consolidated into one national government with no parliamentary representation of any kind, we cannot compromise without one side sacrificing their fundamental position, because our positions are totally incompatible.

In response to the first commentator, the National Journal shows a fairly clear trending of McCain’s voting record throughout his congressional career, despite whether 2007 was left out. And the trend demonstrates a clear evolution from the right to the center of the political spectrum. In my opinion, the only way to defeat this point is by demonstrating that the criteria used by the National Journal to determine the conservatism of McCain and the liberalism of Obama was is somehow flawed. I have yet to see this happen. At most, I’ve heard complaints about the “findings” of National Journal rather than the methodology used.

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In response to the second commentator, it is clear to me that compromise isn’t always a good thing, particularly in matters where a policy is clearly right or clearly wrong. So your criticism of “selling out” is taken as a salient point. However, on the flip side, without the art of compromise good things are unlikely to happen. I think we can all relate to this point in our personal or business relationships when people are consistently unwilling to work out a solution that’s mutually beneficial to both parties involved.

My chief concern is with this mentality or perception that one side is always right and the other is always wrong. This fosters the very bullish behavior and political game-playing we see in Congress right now. My position is that right and wrong isn’t always clear, and those who are seriously invested in their own positions need to possess a disposition of open mindedness and an ability to step away from political obstinacy for the benefit of the American citizenry.

I agree with you that there are some issues that cannot be compromised. For instance, it’s fairly clear to me that the recent Supreme Court decision about granting Constitutional rights of Habeas Corpus to enemy combatants is wrong. This issue shouldn’t have been compromised, and I don’t think McCain would compromise on this issue either. However, I tend to view right and wrong in the realm of politics from a skeptical viewpoint, and therefore tend to advocate an art of compromise, which I believe Obama does not possess in the slightest bit.

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In response to the third commentator, I think it’s a misrepresentation that McCain is not a conservative. McCain falls into the neo-conservative camp particularly because he has a tendency to tolerate a more active role of the federal government that deviates from the classical conservative conception that the government is only meant to protect us from harm and fraud. However, he is not a liberal either. He does not presume that the federal government’s function is to nurture us like we see with liberal programs like welfare. McCain is not dead set against social programs as long as it fosters some independence and eventual productivity, and this is part of the reason why he is a neo-conservative. But this is besides the point. I don’t want to get into a debate in the commentary section of why I believe McCain is a brand of conservative rather than some brand of liberal. His voting record on national defense demonstrates his conservatism. And I think the National Journal does a good job showing his conservative philosophy throughout his voting record in Congress.

But, McCain as a “Great Compromiser” is fallacious because a compromise implies both sides get a half-loaf. McCain’s tactic is to take up residence on the Left side of the isle & have his mail forwarded.

Conservatives don’t like McCain simply because he lies about being one of them. A great example of this is his amnesty policy. He has taken to saying he’s “gotten it”, but as recently as this week, he’s started a”closet wispering tour” limited to Hispanics & no recording devices where he repudiates his close-the-boarders position. Unfortunately for him, a Hispanic-American Minuteman was in attendence and has blown the whistle.

This puts tactic every public statement he’s made in doubt. It is McCain’ most non-conservative trait. We cannot abide a liers.

Didn’t mean to start off on McCain, it is simply that he’s this century’s perfect example of why compromise of Core Principles isn’t possible. If you can compromise on it, it isn’t Core. The Founding Fathers didn’t compromise on Core Principles, but on the mechanics.

Even the “Great Compromise” on slavery wasn’t a compromise, because the mechanics were put it place that allowed its erasure from our society. That was the basis of the 3/4s-man representation item.

Please excuse spelling errors, I’m on the web using a PDA w/o spell check…

– martin.musculus

Clearly you’re accustomed to liberal blogs where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. You probably won’t get much traction here. Most of the people on the right don’t like John McCain. So running down McCain isn’t a good way to instigate. He doesn’t represent conservative thought in any way, shape, or form, as indicated by the article. You won’t find any cheerleaders with whom you can mindlessly counter-cheer for your anointed one. If you want to equate Pat Robertson or Hagee independently endorsing John McCain with some racial separatist kook who’s been Barack Obama’s pastor, personal friend, and mentor of 20 years, the place to do it is somewhere where A) it is actually the intended topic of discussion and B) anyone actually still cares.

On top of that, you utterly missed the point of the article. Political experience and the ability to compromise are indeed one way to “get things done”. If all you’re interested in doing is “getting things done”, you can do it pretty easily by waffling, compromising, selling out your principles, and making do. The article’s author views this as beneficial. More often, it is not. For instance, nominating judges who are palatable to leftist activists who believe in judicial legislating is a good way to get a judge put on the bench if your congress is largely leftist. It will certainly “get it done”. Is having a leftist judicial activist judge legislating from the bench beneficial for the country? Is the compromise really accomplishing anything? If your goal is simply “put a judge on the bench”, the answer is yes. If your goal is more lofty, like, oh, say, having a judge on the bench who will adhere to the constitutional role of the judiciary and apply fair standards of law to the cases he hears, then not so much.

If one “side” is right, and the other is wrong, this mystical nirvana of the “center” is at least half wrong. Compromise usually means sacrificing something that is right (read: correct, factual, logical, constitutional) for something that is wrong (read: incorrect, not factual, illogical, unconstitutional). “Compromise” between a wise man and an idiot is of no benefit to the wise man.

Let us not forget that the very same Roger Sherman who negotiated the Great Compromise was also responsible for the Three Fifths Compromise. Let’s also look at the flip side of the author’s Lyndon Johnson argument: What did those who opposed his Utopian “Great Society” get in return for “compromising”? Moderated Bolshevism? Reform Bolshevism? Collectivist socialism wasn’t any less egregious after “compromise”. That a candidate has been willing to be on the dead-wrong side of an issue is no indication of his virtue.