hard heads soft hearts

a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
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Wednesday, June 05, 2002
 
Why did Gore higher such incompetent politicos? Because he doesn't respect them. Because he didn't respect them, he hired them on the basis of how hard they worked, as opposed to their good judgement. The idea that one should take politics out of policy is refreshing and idealistic. However the idea that one should take policy out of politics is cynical and repulsive. Even worse, it is wildly ineffective. Every good political operative has to have a decent grasp of the issues, even if just to defend one's position. Voters care about issues, they don't care about "the issues". And the best politicians have a very good grasp of how to explain policy issues in ways that voters can understand.