The vaunted "moderates" are people who live without principle. They might like to couch it in terms like pragmatism or Realpolitik to give their rudderless nature a sense of, somehow, intellectual superiority. The Republican establishment is almost entirely this sort. To them political victory is its own reward, rather than the things you can accomplish with that political victory. That's why they're quite happy to line up behind people like Mike Castle and the Maine Sisters, people who might as well be Democrats. It's all a grand parlor game to them, in which they take turns with the Democrats at playing the role of the Dealer.
I have long doubted the barely-questioned wisdom that these "moderates" and centrist squishes are the kingmakers that we're told they are. Rather than pandering to them (hint: you cannot pander to something that has no core positions) we should have a clear, direct articulation of the things we believe, that is, the core positions that we very much do possess. The goal should be to smack these "moderates" about the head with a considered explanation of belief, maybe even give some of them a fleeting sense of shame about their own tentativeness, and drag them over to our side at least in presidential elections. I very much doubt the wisdom that says any signs of genuine conservatism and the middle will all be spooked over into the waiting arms of the hardcore Left that has been so busily upending our civilization. And if that is the case, so what? We're having this damn showdown one way or another anyhow, might as well try it at the voting booth.
