@Finn dAbuzz,
The difficulty which the Republican candidates are labouring under is that they know that zeal precedes charity if not from J.B.Newman then from their own common sense. They know that the incontinence of devout and virtuous feeling and a morbid scrupulosity of conscience are predicated upon the previous exercise of zeal. That is a fundamental conservative dogma.
But they need to get votes in a cultural climate, an enveloping medium, in which the incontinence of devout and virtuous feeling and morbid scrupulosities of conscience are rampant and where zeal is felt to be not far short of a hair shirt.
Such a difficulty does not apply to the Democrats who are free in their own minds to pander to the incontinence of devout and virtuous feeling and morbid scrupulosites of conscience to their heart's content.
Hence the Democrats look better on TV but are at something of a loss at the desk where the bucks stop for the very simple reason that zeal does actually precede charity.
Wringing the hands is much easier than digging with them.
