My question for the day: Is it "triangulation" if...

[Berry Cool]

...you truly have some views that appear traditionally "liberal" and some that appear "conservative"? Or some that might be called "centrist"?

In other words, is it fair to accuse a candidate--any candidate--of "triangulation" if he or she really takes a sincere mix of stances on issues, or has unorthodox ideas about how to solve various problems, and is not just doing it or pretending to do it in order to appeal to the broadest swath of voters?

[Gogi]

1. Never figured out what "triangulation" was either...

I'm usually smarter than that. (No, really, I am!)

[Berry Cool]

2. I guess this just concerns me because

I actually like and admire people who can see things as not being all black and white all the time but who know there are shades of gray. Who can see the good and the bad in looking at things from various angles. Who know that there are complexities as well as simplicities in life.

If every time a presidential candidate acknowledges a single positive aspect of his or her opponent's philosophies as not being a bad thing, it is going to get that person called a "triangulator" or a "flip-flopper" or a shameless huckster for votes from the other side...that's going to be a problem with me, because I don't think it is always true.

Note I didn't say "never" true. I said I don't "always" think it is true.

[RevCheesehead]

3. No.

It would be triangulation if you manipulated circumstances to set up a victim, a persecutor, and a rescuer.