>>Although I obviously disgree with your assertions, you did articulate well your premise about pandering.<<
As much as I’d like to take credit for that, instead I simply looked up “pandering” to see if “lying” was in the definition. Instead I found that a panderer is “someone who caters to or exploits the weaknesses of others.”
One obvious example is a pimp, and I suspect that the examples of it being an upstanding thing to do are few and far between. However, as with pimping, it does have its uses, particularly among the political class.
Given that Barack Obama was elected primarily by people who thought he was the be-all and end-all of politicians, I would credit him with the Best-of-Panderer award. Disappointment logically followed, given the nature of pandering, i.e., that it relies upon exploitation of personal weaknesses. For Progressives, of course, that would have been weak-mindedness.
Logical, and to-the-point. Nice. But, since Conservatives act on principles, can they really be pimped out, pandered to? Is this what RINOS try do to us when they promise to act on a conservative issue, and then do a liberal issue instead? Or they refuse to act on a conservative issue because they tell us it would ‘upset’ another class of voters, ie. progressives, either liberals or moderates? LOL. Really, no need to answer, but you get my point.