Word: pragmatist
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...leader from Mississippi, in which Lott is described as "gracious and conservative," though the writer warns that he may have trouble managing his more partisan colleagues. Lott may not have the ideological fire to satisfy the right wing of his party; instead, he is perhaps better characterized as a pragmatist...
GROZNY, Russia: The new president of Chechnya is a military man and separatist war hero--and also a political pragmatist who may be the republic's only chance at winning independence. Aslan Maskhadov, 45, has 63 percent of the vote with about 90 percent counted; official results are expected today. Maskhadov masterminded the daring offensive last August to retake Grozny and bring the Russians to the peace table. He negotiated the deal that made Monday's elections possible. But the Chechens' overwhelming choice of Maskhadov over rival Shamil Basayev, a young rebel leader, shows political savvy in equal parts...
...counterpart is the tongue-tied Gregory Larkin, a professor of mathematics at Columbia, superbly played by the scene-stealing Jeff Bridges. An academic and a pragmatist rather than a romantic, Gregory is totally overwhelmed by anything remotely related to sex, and literally swoons at the sight of a short skirt or a doe-eyed co-ed; Elle Macpherson, in a cameo as his ex-girlfriend, reduces him to a whimpering puddle without doing much more than blinking and smiling. Devastated by the failure of all his sexual relationships, Gregory decides that the sole route to true happiness is through intellectual...
That might have come naturally to Dole; but instead he tried something harder. He tried to change. For the entire first half of the race, his fear of Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan was enough to shake his faith in running as himself, a pragmatist against the ideologues, one who was willing to "downsize government, [but] not devastate it," as he said in May 1995. When Buchanan started peeling the paint off the walls with his talk of America's greedy corporations, Dole was suddenly George Meany, denouncing corporate layoffs. Soon his campaign was a battleground state...
...trying to reassure everyone that there is nothing to fear from an Islamist-led government. Turkey is a member of NATO and a crucial ally of the U.S.'s in a dangerous part of the world, so Western diplomats were the particular targets of soothing words. Erbakan is a pragmatist, and while he has often denounced NATO and the West, he has now backed away from his Islamic hyperbole...