Yes. If they are *working for short/medium-term goals* you disagree with, then you wouldn’t want them to be leaders. If they are *working for short/medium-term goals* you agree with, and they are effective, then it doesn’t matter whether they’re striving for the same goals due to completely different ideals and a completely different background — you would want them to be leaders. This is called “coalition”. In other words, if they end child poverty, it doesn’t really matter whether they do it out of Christian conviction or Muslim conviction or Marxist conviction or sheer pragmatism. But if they increase child poverty, again, it doesn’t really matter what their ideals were which led them to do this….

One of the parties in this country has been filled with candidates suffering a severe disconnection from reality in the last few years — insisting repeatedly on doing things which have the opposite effect from the effect they claim to want. This makes it really hard for them to successfully do anything good. It wasn’t like that 20 years ago; it was common to go “ah, both of these candidates have good ideas and seem basically competent”. Now the other party is nothing special, but at least they’re not all nuts.

2. Is it possible that someone can be a good leader even if they don’t do things they way you want?

“the way you want”? Yes, of course; that’s merely a question of tactics and methods. If you get into deeper questions, like, do they go for the *results* you want, then it depends what you mean by “good leader”: someone can be a very effective leader, very good at leading, and nevertheless lead people to a very bad destination. Pol Pot? Franco? The charge of the light brigade?

3. Is the leader you want most always the leader a country needs most?

Depends how wise and well-informed you are, doesn’t it? :-)

Incidentally, in France the classic “libertarians” are communists — they’re *anarchist* communists. They also have fascist parties, so they really do have radically different parties.

As for informing yourself, read foreign newspapers via the Web. British newspapers are opinionated but very excellent at distinguishing opinion from fact, which they present accurately — it can be fun reading the old British upper class, techie, financier, and socialist views on the same thing (in four different newspapers) and being able to get the same set of facts clearly from all four.

US newspapers have deteriorated massively in recent years; the New York Times is often good but has also printed outright lies; the Wall Street Journal has a record of dishonesty a mile long. The Washington Post is constistently dishonest. The local papers are usually empty of content. The *AP* routinely spreads inaccurate stories. And television news is just worthless, of course.