The nature of PL vs: "Idealism"

One of the things that we (as people who follow the political arena) find most problematic in the reconciliation of Liberal views or Conservative views with the respective political realities of the parties is that the Idealistic precepts of any ideological system are consistently in conflict with the simple ability to run a government. It is impossible, or nearly impossible to work in government and achieve an ideological Ideal. Because what this gets translated as is: NO COMPROMISE.

One of the things many passionate people find problematic with politics is that those who are considered the best politicians, most exciting, principled, and worthy of our vote are those who hold to their Ideals with a religious fervor(see Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Sarah Palin, Russ Feingold, Barney Frank, Christine O'Donnell, Bernie Sanders- all the right and left wing 'nut jobs'). Senator Barack Obama may have been included in this list just a couple years ago, but now he's seen as almost ineffectual by his base because it seems that he hasn't 'stuck by his Ideological guns' so to speak.

The politicians who are most able to make an effect are those who get to Washington, and yes, do things they told you they would never do, in order to make the government run. We should be proud of these people for calculating political reality, but we despise them for giving in to the party, or perhaps, the higher calling of governance. So these people get swept out of office, especially when there is an Idealist ideological movement like the Tea Party moving through. A successful Ideological reconciliation with political reality results in the slow-down or outright arrest of government function. And very few even Idealistic ideologists desire this.

I am not free from my own Idealistic pandering, but I find it constantly juxtaposed with my knowledge of facts on the ground. I find my Political Liberalism versus-ing my ideological Idealistic Liberalism and this is why I would find it difficult to enter politics.

As strange as it sounds, and as much as we give the other side crap for it, it's the politicians who manage to hold contradictory views, the politicians who promise one thing and then find themselves willing to compromise, the politicians who don't even necessarily believe what they are saying that are the most effective politicians in the realm of moving government forward. . As representatives, they preside over a group of people who collectively have many conflicting views, changing views, and views rooted in ignorance of how the system actually works. In order to represent those people as best as possible, sometimes its best to do things that the base hates in order to push something through. Even if it means that the electorate won't forgive, and the seat will be lost. Or even if it means lying to and manipulating an ignorant electorate to get back up to Washington to do more of that governing. These politicians who seem to represent everything at once, and therefore 'nothing at all'-- it is these politicians that, somehow, almost, deserve our praise.

If only we could remember that our personal ideologies are effective only for ourselves, and that governing means looking ideologically spineless from time to time. But compromise means the other guys win. We want our enemy clearly defined. How can we reconcile these views with what we know to be realistically true without all of us, ourselves, becoming in our everyday lives, these boring personas which we sometimes disparagingly call 'empty shirt' or 'spineless' politicians? So we keep fighting for 'purity' in politics. : )