Sacrilege:
While your position seems reasonable, the truth is that moderates do not win. 2008 was a race between a moderate and a far left candidate; Obama won handily.
I imagine the reason is that moderates are not able to engender emotions and so cannot create movements.
I personally think moderates are dumb and simplistic. I am conservative, but I can see how someone would have different values than I have. Moderates seem to have no values, or no idea how their values translate into specific actions.