He's certainly a politician through and through, but I believe that he will actually consider things as opposed to jumping to conclusions as Bush seems to do. In fact, in some respects, bending to the wishes of your consituents is a positive thing. It all depends on how much you bend. During this season, though, I think it's more about presentation than actual intent, and he's trying to get as many votes as possible. Notice how he always talks about "killing" the terrorists, hardly ever "capturing". That's very pandering, IMO, especially since the people that would offend (like me) aren't going to vote for Bush no matter what, so it's only going to potentially affect the votes on the Bush side.