Centerfield

Some of the difficulty you describe may be in how you seek and define your terms. I've not looked too hard on this blog, but if you define 'moderate' such that you exclude the average Republican, well then of course it'll be hard to find one. These definitions have also changed over time. Zell Miller appears to have found himself caught in a shift of what he used to think was moderate--perhaps Jeffords, too.

The other difficulty may lie in the different flavors of conservatives (as opposed to Republicans or Democrats). There's your garden variety social conservative, who may have more in common with NOW on some issues than you'd expect. Then there are your economic conservatives, which although a different kettle of fish still are entwined with the other flavor of conservative.

Anyway. Mixed metaphor alert.

Good luck indeed--sometimes it's harder to be in the middle than on one end--in the middle, you get whacked by both ends of the spectrum...

Chap.

Yeah, I think there's a pretty dramatic contrast between the portion of the electorate that identifies as moderate Republican and the number of really strong Republican leaders who fit that mold.

The really bold centrists -- the ones with strong opinions and strong policy preferences -- tend to be Republicans. You've got Christie Whitman, Colin Powell, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, John McCain, Chris Shays, etc.

You also have some conservatives with strong leadership qualities. You wouldn't consider Chuck Hagel or Dick Lugar as moderates -- their voting records are strongly conservative on both economic and social issues. They do, however, have a way of evaluating foreign policy issues in an informed and balanced manner that pulls them away from the typical partisanship we see.

That's the dilemma. On the one hand, moderate Republicans -- and some really thoughtful conservative Republicans -- make for pretty strong leaders. On the other, their party tends to keep moderates away from leadership positions. There is no moderate Republican among the five top leadership positions in Congress, for example.

Two of the leading moderates listed above -- Powell and Whitman -- were part of the Bush administration. But how often did their policy preferences prevail?

We could get pretty far, I think, if we could somehow figure out how to elevate the best of the moderates in the Republican party.

Thanks.

Other possible sources of semantic confusion:

A conservative Democrat is probably a moderate and a centrist. A liberal Republican, if there was one (Lincoln Chafee?) would also be a centrist.

Both the adjective and the noun count.

The 30%+ of swing voters are new to any blog use. They have been left oustide any discussions for quite a while now. And, tired of left and right talking heads arguing as if it was any real form of discussion.

The "Centrist" label itself is problematic. Also, need to be able to actually reach the market described above.

Republicans have biased talk radio republican hosts all day everywhere. Liberals have govt. sponsored NPR all day everywhere. They also pit the left and right talking heads as if some form of intelligent discussion also. And, C-Span call-ins are largely ventings of people calling in. Besides, is not the label Bill Clinton and his crew were pushing?

Am non-partisan and an Independent.

Some initial comment regarding.

Janus

Just had a chance to read a few of the comments.

Sorry, but if knew the political history a conservative Democrat is not a moderate or a centrist. They are generally southerners who relunctantly came to the Democrat party.

There are some moderate Republicans, but there don't seem to be that many remaining in office.

Need to time to market a Centrist blog to swing voters. Know for a fact that 30%+ are swing voters. And, for this group, a particular level of writing, life experience, and applications of various knowledges are relevant.

Reiterate what stated a short while ago.
Further, at this juncture, many bloggers ( as did own evaluative checking to form an opinion)appear to be younger and also appear to think that whatever thought they have that comes off the top of the heads as their emotional opinion is relevant.

Janus

I think the word moderate and centrist mean different things for different people. For instance, I am a Bill Weld centrist and come from a more economically conservative, socially libertarian, pro-defense point of view. I think there are many Republicans, which I also claim to be, who are in this category, but are considered to be "conservative." To name a few: Jennifer Dunn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Mel Martinez, Colin Powell, Arnold, etc.

I at times suppot progressive government intervention that most economic conservatives would be opposed to, but only if the intervention is based on market principles such as those ideas outlined in the book: The Radical Center.

Then there are the Chafee moderates who are Republicans that agree with Democrats on half the issues economically and socially. This is the Rockefeller wing of the party which is pretty much extinct outside of the Northeast. I will point out, however, that many of these types of Republicans still hold power in high levels of government, such as Andy Card. I don't neccesarily agree with these people all of the time, but prefer them over the Jesse Helm-Republican types, and I look forward to a Romney, or Whitman, or Collins, or Powell for President campaign one day, and believe at the right time these individual could win the Republican nomination.

I tend to believe that the moderate DLC movement has been successful within the Democratic Party because of Bill Clinton. Lieberman, Clark, and arguably Edwards where not as successful as Clinton in convincing the liberal base that they where worth voting for.

If anything has come out of this primary season it is that, in my opinion anyway, that the DLC's power within the party is not what it once was and the extreme won out. I do think however there is more opportunity for centrist ideals to comeout again within the Democratic Party, more so than the Republicans. There are many state or local elected officials that subscribe to the "New Democrat" philosophy where in the Republican Party, the conservatives are pretty much the majority throughout. These younger New Democrats like Cory Booker, Harold Forld, Mary Landrieu, Jennifer Granholm, and Denise Majette seem to subscribe to a more "good government" message as opposed to "no government," which in my view is the wave of the future. The trouble with the New Democrats is that, in my opinion, they seem to talk the good talk and then cave to the party interests like everyone else when things come down to the wire.

So... Why am I voting for George Bush? Because I think economic and national security issues are currently more urgent than social issues, and Bush is more right on these than Kerry. I also hold the point of view that Bush is closer to my way of thinking than he has governed, and that in his second term he will be more able to focus on his legacy and ideals, and not worry about the politics of keeping everyone happy.

Furthermore, just because I think the New Democrats still have a chance to appear on the national scene, doesn't mean that they neccesarily will, or that they will play any significant roll in the Kerry administration... Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy are still in charge. Showing some sort of signal that this is not the case would definetely help Kerry's cause, but I think the problem with that is that he truly deep down is an old-style, New Deal Democrat and returning to the philosophy that goverment can fix all problems is regressive and dangerous for the overall development of our nation.

Mathew,

I was a registered Republican through most of the 1990's. Bill Weld was one of the inspirations. I was hoping that he represented the vanguard of a new socially liberal Republicanism. I was even a delegate to the 1994 state Republican convention where Weld was renominated, and Romney nominated for Senate.

The national GOP went in a different direction, and I bailed out.

I still prefer the GOP locally, and approve of Romney, except for his stance on gay marriage. But since he is an official of some sort in the Mormon Church, I understand the position he is in.

I wonder how many "moderate" Republicans have simply left the party and that's why they are so hard to find. Are there any statistics on how many registered Independents there are?

I ask because I have been giving serious thought to leaving the Republican Party and registering as an Independent. The only thing currently stopping me is that our state's primary is not open and my voting impact might not be as significant.

And there's a few folks like me, who really don't care for either party all that much, and work, vote, or campaign for the candidates we think would we be the best choice out of what's available. I'm registered Republican so I can vote in the primary. My wife's registered Democrat so she can vote in the primary. Neither of us have failed to vote in any election we could for the last 25 years. Neither of us gives a hoot for (or donates to, or works for) either county party, or their state or national counterparts. Babbling lunatics and/or power mongers, all.

In the last five years I've worked for about twenty candidates for various offices. sixty percent or so were Democrats, the rest were Republicans. Eight of those campaigns I was paid (often little) for working. All the candidates can fairly be described as moderates or centrists--certainly in comparison to their opponents. I don't work for extremists, paid or not. I've also worked in volunteer community agencies for most of that decade. I've run two. I sit on the boards of several. And I've worked on non-partisan local political issue campaigns (schools and other public works).

And it is surprising how, when I'm working a campaign for a Democrat, other workers who are partisan Democrats express shock at finding out I am registered Republican. "You seem so reasonable," they say, "How can you possibly be a Republican?"

It is simply inconceivable to them that someone could be a reasonable, caring person with views that don't run in lock-step with the party line. That someone could work for the best candidate or the most beneficial side of an issue, rather than toeing that party line.

On the flip side, I get something different. Partisan GOP'ers make the assumption that someone who would run or work with or volunteer in community organizations, or help run public works campaigns, must be a Democrat.

"You seem so reasonable," they say, "How can you work with those nut-case liberals?" (See above)

And the very few rabid partisans you find in volunteer community organizations are indeed rabid liberals. But they're liberals that are willing to put their time and effort into their community itself, rather than partisan political efforts. And yes, they can be annoying when they start to rant, but can quickly be brought back to task by pointing out to them that they're in the wrong place for ranting. Or they leave because they find out the organization wants workers, not political proselytizers.

They never notice the Republicans among those they work with, because the Republicans are mostly quiet about it. They've been subjected to too many lunatic fringe rants to want to hear any more. And the Republicans that do volunteer work don't tend to come from the extremes. Extremist Republicans don't do community work. They're off marching aginst the extremist Democrats, who are off marching against whatever.

In the overall mix of community volunteers, there is really no clear line or trend. The popular wisdom is that non-religious community volunteer groups are staffed entirely by rabid liberal volunteers. I can only speak for my area, but here that isn't true. They're staffed with people who honestly want to make a difference in their communities, and so go out and volunteer. They do it because they don't believe they can make much difference in their communities by working through the parties. And the only clear trends I've noticed among them is that they tend to have children, and go to church. (If you think church-goers are all conservatives, you haven't visited many churches lately.)

That's the great middle that politicians want to reach. People who are respected in their communities, by their neighbors and friends. Democrat or Republican, they are mostly moderates, and they've been driven away from both parties in droves by the fringers. They're the people who can be of enormous value when elections come around, because they're known and respected as "reasonable people" who know their way around the political park, yet have demonstrated non-partisan results-oriented thinking.

And they're the people neither party has much luck in bringing into the fold--because they won't swallow the party lines as Gospel.

Heather, I can only speak for my area, but registered non-affiliated voters are about a third of all voters here.

And registered non-affiliated voters who actually vote on a consistent basis are about 20% of consistent voters. Only about 60-65% of all registered voters vote at all, and only about half vote consistently in all major elections. 25% or less vote in all elections.

Many of the people registered as "Independent" are folks who were rounded up in voter drives and simply didn't declare a party, and don't bother to vote at all.

I'm puzzled. Our current president is the most moderate Republican in power in decades, but is treated by most Democrats as though we were the anti-christ, much as Bill Clinton was one of the most moderate Democrats in power in decades, but was treated by most Republicans the same way.

My assumption, in both cases is that the partisans can't stand the idea that someone in the other party has moved toward the middle and might thereby take votes from them.

Those who don't like Bush would likely be even more opposed to most other Republican alternatives.

This is the first time since the early '60s that there has been an influential moderate voice in the Republican party, and whatever power moderates had recently among the Democrats seems to have completely vanished from public view.

If Senator Kerry is a moderate, I'm a jelly donut.