QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:01 A.M. ET:   Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is one of this country's great political resources.  I think he probably knows more about American politics, and how to do American politics, than anyone else.  He is warning, properly, about the demands of some for ideological purity in a Republican candidate for president.  He should be listened to.  From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

...Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national party chairman, delivered a stern warning to Republican Leadership Conference delegates: Don't look for perfection in the potential nominees and don't even think about drafting a third-party candidate when the nomination fight is done.

"Don't get hung up on purity," he said. "In politics, purity is a loser. ... In this business, it is unity that wins elections. ... Barack Obama has worn out three sets of knee pads down his knees praying for the tea party to become a third party, because he can't lose."

Barbour, who has already announced that he isn't running for president, didn't call any of the announced candidates by name. But the warning was clearly a recognized party elder trying to navigate the disparate movements on display at the three-day conference that culminates Saturday with the announcement of a straw poll of more than 2,000 delegates.

COMMENT:  The genius of American politics is that it's practical.  Americans want effective, quick, practical solutions.  They are not very much interested in ideology, and, to their credit, they tend to reject extremes.   Fiorello LaGuardia, the great mayor of New York, once said that there's no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the garbage.

Clearly, we want our candidates to have an identifiable point of view, and one that we favor as voters.  But rigid ideology is something else.  Contrary to myth, Ronald Reagan was a very practical conservative who avoided rigidity.  Barbour quoted Reagan:

He added an axiom he attributed to former President Ronald Reagan, "Remember that a fella who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and ally; he's not a 20-percent traitor."

Very solid.

June 18, 2011