The rhetoric is getting a bit old, isn't it?
When a politician is "fighting" for something for you, he's really just reaching into the pockets of your fellow citizens. The latter never seem to get credit for the goodies the politician is "fighting" for. The "compassion" of the politician has a similar source.
The "fighting" metaphor makes a lot more sense if you visualize him as an ancient Norseman, pillaging productive agrarian English villages and bringing the loot home for his constituents.