I think all successful politicians find ways to obfuscate their views to make them more palatable to more of the electorate. One reason that Ted Cruz fared so poorly was he tends not to sugarcoat his extreme views. The trick is to still seem "authentic" - which is to say, lie well. How it is that people think Donald Trump is "authentic" is beyond me. He exudes deception. (And enthuses in it, too. Marla Maples opens up about her affair with Donald Trump; A fact checker looked into 158 things Donald Trump said. 78 percent were false.)

A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich