An enormous amount of time and effort has been expended in arguing that "pragmatic" means "conservative". This is an attempt at rebranding "conservative" as "necessary for electoral success" and has nothing to do with what pragmatic really means. I have previously addressed the meaning of pragmatic in this diary.
So what are pragmatic voters and how do they vote? Find out below the tangled web some weave.
In a great many jurisdictions as many as 30 to 40% of registered voters register as neither Republicans nor Democrats. Some are third parties but many are simply the equivalent of "undeclared" or "not stated". These are our pragmatic voters. They fall into various subcategories, some of which are enumerated below.
The first are those who are really kidding themselves and who should register as Dem except or GOP except. They will vote for the candidate from their preferred party except in the rare case where that candidate is too odious to even contemplate. In such a case they will either not vote for anybody for that office or vote for any exceptionally well qualified candidate from another party.
Similar voting behavior can generally be found among one issue voters, often mockingly called purists by conservatives self-styled "pragmatists". Some of these, however, have no generally preferred party and generally vote as if they were issues voters (also sometimes mocked as purists). Some one issue voters are single issue voters with respect to multiple issues, as well. Thus, somebody could focus to the exclusion of all else upon both peace and women's issues.
Issues voters make a sincere effort to vote for candidates based upon their position(s), if any, and action(s), if any, with respect to significant issues that fall within the jurisdiction of the office they are seeking. Party affiliation is completely irrelevant to this group except as an indicator of their position on matters covered by the party platform (doesn't apply to Dems).
Pork voters, like personal/local benefit issues expect government officials to generate direct state, local or personal benefit, be it roads, military bases, inbound corporate relocations, shared oil severance tax revenues or whatever. This is often a state or local local issue involving targeted tax breaks, anti-union legislation and the like.
I call these pragmatic voters because they base their voting decision upon multiple criteria instead of simply automatically voting for the candidates of their party. They actually think about who they are voting for and why, at least to some extent.
This is where the Democratic Party falls down
Let's refer back to the last sentence of the description of issue voters with a wee ellipses.
Party affiliation is ... an indicator of their position on matters covered by the party platform (doesn't apply to Dems).
Most parties have an ideology and a platform derived therefrom. Party members will work to enact legislation and generate regulatory activity or inactivity in accordance with that platform. The rest of their party will support such efforts. Not so the Dems.
The Democratic party does technically have a platform, carefully crafted to be subject to a wide variety of interpretations, but it is meaningless. Nobody is expected to adhere to it or to try to advance it. Democratic candidates, appointees and elected officials are all over the map with respect to any and all issues. Sometimes even the same candidate or official is all over the map on some issues depending on the day of the week, locale, direction of the wind or venue. Sometimes during the same day.
Admittedly there is some strategic flip-floppery on the part of non-Dems but it seems more of an issue with the Dems because there is no underlying unifying ideology. The Democratic party has no principles or core beliefs that allegedly guide and direct the drafting of the platform or serve to inspire action. There is no reason for party members to work together toward a common goal and no reason to expect them to do so.
Some lip service is paid to the ancient New Deal values, but everybody knows that those went by the board long ago, the New Deal was killed by the New Democrats, the openly corporatist wing that took over the party. Nowhere in the New Deal do we see the fetishism of deregulation, balanced budgets, tax cuts, austerity, globalization, "free trade", "welfare reform" and, in general, corporatism and neo-liberalism. Nor was the New Deal openly imperialistic. Nowhere among the New Dems do we see real concern for the poor, the working class, labor, retirement security, or even, really, the middle class.
Thus, the few principles that the party publicly espouses are obviously pure PR, ignored by all, including the candidates, officials and officers, and the voters. The pragmatic voters especially know these to be hollow words spouted by hollow people. The party stands for nothing, the candidates ... Who knows? It has become the party of Eliot's stuffed and hollow men ineffectually roaming a desolate land full of crushed and shattered slogans and symbols not of their own creation and trying to recite poetry they neither remember nor understand.
You can drive a tent peg with a hammer, a hatchet, a rock, a tree branch or lug wrench, it really doesn't matter. That is pragmatism. You cannot, however, drive one very far with a gust of air or a pail of water, and that too is pragmatism. If your values are on the right, then there is clearly but one clear choice, and if they aren't, well, what then?
The non-aligned left and center could be ours if we only stood for something, something beside a hollow imitation of either our predecessors or our opponents, sitting nearly formless in the corner and drinking weak tea.