oh, and about Carter: he was selective on human rights just like everyone tends to be. As for Reagan's good working relationship, if you recall, he had a majority in the Senate and enough Southern Democrats going along to be able to get tax cuts passed and a whole bunch of restrictions on the size of the govt early in his term. That lasted until he lost the Senate in '86, which IIRC was around the same time Iran-contra broke.
However, most of the Democratic party was screaming, continuously, that Reagan was a stooge of the rich, a warmongering numbskull who wanted to launch a nuclear war and wasn't smart enough to understand how horrible it was. I believe the term was "amiable dunce." And the Europeans were worse: they came out en masse to protest the Pershing missile placements that they were sure were nothing more than big provocations and huge targets for the Soviet Union. We know how that one worked out, don't we.
Basically, you can't fight something with nothing. If you don't believe in anything you give no one any reason to support you. Compromise works at the margins, but not at the core. Paul Wellstone, for example, didn't compromise much. I don't think Russ Feingold does much compromising either. They really believe(d) and stuck to it.
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