I’m a proud member of the Purity Police. [View all]

[Scuba]

That said, “purity” in a political candidate is not a reasonable expectation. Even the candidates with whom I most closely align have significant policy positions that differ from my own. I get that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” candidate from a policy perspective, and if there was, he/she would still have to demonstrate two more qualities: The perfect ability to get elected and the perfect ability to advance good legislation.

“Perfect”, you see, is an absolute, so grammatically there is no “perfecter” or “perfectest”. It’s “more nearly perfect” and “most nearly perfect.”

And those are the candidates I want representing the Democratic Party – the most nearly perfect ones we can muster. And that’s why I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m part of the Purity Police. I want our party to advance the most nearly perfect policies and candidates that we can.

So when you accuse me of being a “purist” I take that both as a complement and as an admission that you knowingly don’t support the more nearly perfect policies and candidates that the party has to offer in favor of lesser candidates and lesser policies.

And I wonder why that would be.