Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[CaptainHenreh]

who cares what they actually believe, what matters is whether or not a politician hears what the people want and give them what they want.

I'll go ahead and side with your friend on this one. If the politician makes promises I support and then actually delivers on those promises, I don't much care what they actually believe. Figuring out their actual beliefs is totaly unrealistic and likely not helpful.

Absolutely this. I don't give a hoot what a politician thinks. Or believes. Or does outside the political sphere. I care how they're going to use the political power I've consented to give them. Bill Clinton's oval office dalliances, for example, were unseemly but ultimately unimportant. Having a woman shot by a sniper while she held her baby was much more offensive to me, when I was a wee lad.

I don't much care about what someone says, but rather who they've shown to be when given an ounce of power.