I am not convinced those presidents would have been bad. Can we say that they were all acting in the same way as "unprincipled politicians who can compromise, and adapt, and win elections" or maybe did they believe something earnestly that is just different from what you believe?
Would you rather have an ethically malleable liberal than a principled conservative? In most cases I would rather have the principled politician because they will have some kind of goal to benefit some segment of Americans. Can we really say that any ethically malleable politician, of any flavor, will always help some segment of Americans?
Then as a counter to all this. Nixon did found the EPA.
I agree that maybe those presidents would not have been necessarily bad. Maybe, if Dole would have won, G.W. Bush would have never been elected, and the world would now be a very different (and better) place.
I think malleable politicians are malleable because they try to benefit the largest section of the population that they can. Conservatives, lately, have focused on benefiting a very small segment of the population directly, expecting the benefits to trickle down.
However, the trickle down has not worked. I know very little about economics, but, I remember, headlines in newspapers eight years ago were mainly about unemployment, and the growth of the National debt. The euro was $1.30 (now it buoys around $1.10).
I think the American economy is much better now than it was eight years ago, and a larger section of the population has benefited from that, than when principled conservatives were in the government. (And this is just from an economic point of view, which is a small part of the benefits).
Would you rather have an ethically malleable liberal than a principled conservative? In most cases I would rather have the principled politician because they will have some kind of goal to benefit some segment of Americans. Can we really say that any ethically malleable politician, of any flavor, will always help some segment of Americans?
Then as a counter to all this. Nixon did found the EPA.