You know, Obama has disappointed a lot of people.....

[laundry_queen]

24. I disagree.

First, few Americans identify as liberals because of the demonization of the word "liberal" by the right. If you poll them on the issues far more people are most assuredly liberal. I know of people in the 2008 primaries who identified as hard religious right that took online political quizzes and agreed more with Kucinich than Paul or McCain. Asking people to label themselves is not indicative of their principles and priorities.

Secondly, I think American liberals tend to think too much about strategy and because of this put up with far too much from the centrists. Look at how the right keeps moving to the right...it doesn't disparage those on the fringe - it embraces them. The right doesn't say, "oh, well, only 20% of our party is Tea Party so we're not going to adopt THOSE policies, since they are in the minority, no, we are going to be pragmatic and move toward the center where we have the votes!" LMFAO, that has NEVER happened, and it's why they get their agenda through. It has nothing to do with rationalizing emotions and everything to do with the power of observation and the madness of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different outcomes. It's time for liberals to stop apologizing for their principles. I've seen how left leaning (practically socialist) politicians here in Canada make their case and American liberals could learn a lot from them.