Every politician tries to play multiple sides. You have to appeal to as many people as possible to win an election. Every person has their own conception of what "truth" is, so when you say a politician is honest, they're just honest to the extent that you agree with their opinions. There aren't universal truths that everyone agrees with all the time... So yes, politics is a game of trying to appeal to wide audiences with wide and sometimes contradictory ideals, but pointing out that it is a game is irrelevant and redundant. It's kind of like saying that in order to win a basketball game, you must pass a basketball through the hoop as many times as possible, from as many different angles and positions as possible. Well... duh!

The problem comes when some of them completely sell their souls for a win, and only espouse opinions that they test in focus groups for hours, like Hillary. Nothing she says is not scripted, tested, and approved beforehand. Obama and McCain speak from the heart more than she does, and they're both playing multiple sides to an equal extent. But you can't have a politician that tries to appeal only to a certain subgroup of the population. That would be like Ron Paul's tactic, and it's clear it doesn't work.

PS: that wasn't a Ron Paul bash.