What trait would you rather have the leader of your country to have?

[Martinus]

A simple question. Personally, I think the second choice is overrated.

[jimmy olsen]

Why can't you have both?

[Ideologue]

I voted a faithfulness to Ideologue and his ideals.

[The Larch]

Too much of either is bad. If a leader is too flexible he'll be blamed to hell and back for being a flip-flopper with no ideological basis whatsoever, if the leader is too ideological he'll be blamed for being a rigid dogmatist.

[Martinus]

Too much of either is bad. If a leader is too flexible he'll be blamed to hell and back for being a flip-flopper with no ideological basis whatsoever, if the leader is too ideological he'll be blamed for being a rigid dogmatist.

I don't care what he will be blamed for (it's a different question whatsoever), but what in your opinion is better.

Imo, we, as a society, put too much stress on a politician being "true to his ideology" and deride flip-floppers and "rotten compromise". I think in the modern world, being a rigid dogmatist is a much more damaging position to take, as national sovereignty is significantly restricted by various external aspects (e.g. rating agencies, financial markets etc.). From that perspective, I'd rather have a complete flip-flopper who however is able to see where the wind is blowing from and adapt to the situation, finding a solution that works (irrespective or not whether it crosses party lines) than one that holds steadfast to his ideology when a contrary action would work.

From that perspective, the elections should be not about what the candidate exactly thinks (except for obvious extreme lunatics, of course) but the style of his rule.

[Eddie Teach]

I think the leader should have a pretty consistent ideology but flexibility regarding tactics for achieving his aims and in dealing with foreign powers.

[Camerus]

Faithful to his ideology, as long as it is pragmatism.   

[Tamas]

The whole thing would of course stop being an issue if the state wasn reduced to bare minimums.

[Ideologue]

Too much of either is bad. If a leader is too flexible he'll be blamed to hell and back for being a flip-flopper with no ideological basis whatsoever, if the leader is too ideological he'll be blamed for being a rigid dogmatist.

I don't care what he will be blamed for (it's a different question whatsoever), but what in your opinion is better.

Imo, we, as a society, put too much stress on a politician being "true to his ideology" and deride flip-floppers and "rotten compromise". I think in the modern world, being a rigid dogmatist is a much more damaging position to take, as national sovereignty is significantly restricted by various external aspects (e.g. rating agencies, financial markets etc.). From that perspective, I'd rather have a complete flip-flopper who however is able to see where the wind is blowing from and adapt to the situation, finding a solution that works (irrespective or not whether it crosses party lines) than one that holds steadfast to his ideology when a contrary action would work.

From that perspective, the elections should be not about what the candidate exactly thinks (except for obvious extreme lunatics, of course) but the style of his rule.

Visionless technocrat.

[The Larch]

Too much of either is bad. If a leader is too flexible he'll be blamed to hell and back for being a flip-flopper with no ideological basis whatsoever, if the leader is too ideological he'll be blamed for being a rigid dogmatist.

I don't care what he will be blamed for (it's a different question whatsoever), but what in your opinion is better.

Imo, we, as a society, put too much stress on a politician being "true to his ideology" and deride flip-floppers and "rotten compromise". I think in the modern world, being a rigid dogmatist is a much more damaging position to take, as national sovereignty is significantly restricted by various external aspects (e.g. rating agencies, financial markets etc.). From that perspective, I'd rather have a complete flip-flopper who however is able to see where the wind is blowing from and adapt to the situation, finding a solution that works (irrespective or not whether it crosses party lines) than one that holds steadfast to his ideology when a contrary action would work.

From that perspective, the elections should be not about what the candidate exactly thinks (except for obvious extreme lunatics, of course) but the style of his rule.

I think that ideally a political leader should have a clear strategical long term plan grounded on his ideological basis from which he gets a mandate from the electorate and then is flexible enough to compromise at the tactical level without jeopardizing this long term plan in order to react to unforeseen situations or a temporal crisis.

There has been some debate over here in Spain about this regarding Zapatero and the PSOE, as we have a clear example of this points of view with conflicting opinions. Until last year the country had been managed somehow following the guidelines of their electoral program with which they had been elected, and then in May 2010, IIRC, a huge U-turn was taken in order to manage the global economic crisis and, according to their critics, they threw their whole ideological basis and political program under the bus and spinelessly bent over to appease foreign agents (FMI, EU, "the markets", Merkel, you name it).

Critics say that, at that point, instead of flip-flopping so hard in economic policy, they should have stepped down and called for new elections, as they were clearly going to "betray" the mandate that had been given to them by the Spanish people on the basis of their platform. Personally I think that that'd have made the whole situation much worse, and at a certain level appreciate their abandonment of a certain ideological rigidity and their flexibility when adopting new measures, although I don't like some of them, but at the same time can see the point of the people that feel betrayed for this change in attitude.

[Zanza]

Pragmatism is much more important than ideological strigency.

[Sheilbh]

Pragmatism in response to changing circumstances. 

The problem is pragmatism gets a bad name from politicians who are pragmatic in response to polls. 

The other problem is I think the focus on 'what works' is a bit misleading.  Different things will work and they'll work in different ways and have different side-effects and that's the ideological choice.  Take child care for example, which lots of governments provide for a variety of good reasons.  How you structure a program, which can work in many ways, is a function of ideology and policy will be shaped by that.  Lot's of things work and the choices should be based on what a government wants to achieve ideologically within a broad idea of what's possible politically.

I also think that doing 'what works' has driven the EU for a long-time with its technocratic structure and I don't think it's worked.  It reminds me of Alastair Darling's line that he was having dinner with a few other finance ministers and he was the only politician there, they were all technocratic appointees.  They were all amazed that he could get anything done if he had to worry about voters.  He couldn't believe they could do anything without worrying about voters.

The other problem is what's the point of a pragmatist if they don't know what they're trying to achieve.  I think Gordon Brown suffered from that and Cameron's not far off either.

[Zanza]

Our current chancellor Merkel is the ultimate non-ideological pragmatist. However, that actually hurts her now as the conservative base of her party start realizing that she is only interest in power, not in their favored policies.

[Brazen]

Option 1 is Nick Clegg who has disappointed me badly. Option 2 is David Cameron, who is letting the lower-middle and working classes get poorer and poorer. I don't have to choose, I get both 

[Sheilbh]

Our current chancellor Merkel is the ultimate non-ideological pragmatist. However, that actually hurts her now as the conservative base of her party start realizing that she is only interest in power, not in their favored policies.

Have you heard Berlusconi's wiretaped opinion of Merkel?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-undermined-by-outspoken-mps-2354986.html