Centerfield

Last night I saw more coverage on the Umass student who wrote an editorial saying Pat Tillman got what he deserved. This idiot has subsequently apologized, in the wake of multiple phoned death threats.

Now I absolutely don't defend this guys views. At all, even though he has the write to speak them. But it got me to thinking, what kind of person calls someone up and makes an anonymous death threat? Here in Massachusetts we drove NE native Bill Buckner from the area with vitriol, in the wake of AN ERROR IN A BASEBALL GAME.

Clearly, some people have so much subconscious anger that their ability to get a grip is limited. Any opportunity for genuine anger leads to a gushing. It's a problem.

Anyway, this leads me to say thanks for the thoughful collegial atmosphere here at Centerfield.

That editorial also got me wondering about the idea of "getting what you deserve." Sometimes you get angry when you feel you're not getting what you deserve, and sometimes when you are honest with yourself you wonder whether you really want to get what you deserve, since you may doubt whether you deserve more or less. And the promise of a judgement day is that eventually everyone gets what they deserve. Is that heartening or frightful? It's a peculiar litmus test of yourself, if you think about it.

Before the servers went down earlier this week, there were some comments about idea that the Centrist Coalition would do endorsements of candidates, which surprised me at first since I’ve primarily a blog reader as opposed to the main website and idea of “starting movement”, but I can understand it as a important thing to do in the broader sense.

As a daily reader of this blog, the issuance of endorsements probably wouldn’t change my reading habits, but I’d hate to see it have a negative effect on the discussion that goes on here. What I find unique about this blog is the wide range of opinions on various topics, but more importantly it’s usually based on ideas rather than candidates or party affiliation. I find the “Liberals are evil”/”Conservatives are evil” websites push a particular agenda, and for the most part, the comments section typically have one or two “devil’s advocates” that stake the extreme opposite point of view, and the discussion turns into a big bashing session. Authors and commenters here take strong positions on individual topics, but often without the baggage of having to color it a particular way to make one party or candidate look better than another.

Will the endorsements be based on candidates that espouse Centrist principles or will they be based on the theory of “the lesser of two evils”? For example and argument’s sake, would you endorse a presidential candidate based on which one is more closely aligned with your principles, or would you opt-out from making an endorsement because both (hypothetically) fall outside the scope?

I would argue supporting a candidate with a clear Centrist track record makes good sense, but endorsing the best of two bad candidates would require making qualitative assessments on what principles one value’s most. Two pro-choice, strong on national security voters may hold similar beliefs, but vote differently for a candidate based on what values they hold most dear.

In reality, it probably wouldn’t change the level of discourse much, but it might dissuade new contributors who wander by and may view it as red-herring site.

Note:

It looks like the comments are showing up with latest first, rather than the usual chronological order. It could be another side effect of the server change. I'll try to change the order back when I have a chance.

Will,

With regard to endorsements, the plan is to avoid lesser evilism. We don't need to endorse someone in every race. The idea is, that if we can find a race where there is a centrist running against a non-centrist, we'd endorse the centrist.

Regarding the presidential campaign, neither of the two party candidates are centrists, so I would recommend that the group make no endorsement.

Will (and Rick) Even though our views here are often similar, I get the sense that we are a fairly independent bunch, so I don't think we will or should make a "coalition" endorsement. But i think it would be fun and OK for any of the poster to make their own endorsement and say what their rationale is. In essence, any endorsement of this type would likely act as the same thing as "here's who I'm voting for, and here's why."

Or we could even run a thread inviting people to make their own "I'm from the state of X, I'm going to vote for Z, and here's why.

Or we could run separate threads, one each devoted to pro-kerry, con-kerry, pro-bush, and con-bush, not to mention the popular "pox on all houses" alternative.

Is anyone working on a candidate survey that we can send out for endorsement purposes?

In Wisconsin there's a Republican Senate Primary but naturally they're all running to the right in their public appearances so it's hard to tell if any of them are centrist Republicans and out of the 4, only one of them has a previous record that can be examined.

Very interesting topic Will, Rick, and BK. At some point we might deal with it in its own thread.

We currently sponsor two discussion areas -- Centerfield and the forum that's integrated into the Centrist Coalition site. I believe, in both places, that we should always emphasize diversity of opinion and always make people feel comfortable expressing whatever opinion they happen to have.

This is an area where centrists may be able to contribute to the political discourse in a distinctive way -- inviting everyone to join in and establishing a civil, respectful atmosphere where people can engage in constructive dialogue.

Basically, this means the weblog Centerfield will never endorse anyone. This is a free-speech zone where we want diversity of opinion -- both for and against the administration, in favor of and against Kerry, etc.

Those involved actively with the Centrist Coalition, however, are aware of our plans to begin endorsing candidates in the 2004 election cycle. We won't be taking the "lesser of two evils" approach, but will focus, rather, on identifying strong and distinctively centrist politicians.

Our endorsements won't mean much this election cycle. It's not like many people are watching. In the long run, however, we want to get involved in the active, nitty-gritty of politics. We want to put more centrists in office and help keep them there.

Is anyone working on a candidate survey that we can send out for endorsement purposes?

Hi Adrian. We don't have any kind of a candidate survey. I have a feeling we'd have a hard time getting people to complete it, at present.

There is, however, an extraordinary wealth of information available on the Project Vote-Smart website and a few other places. We're putting together profiles in the Candidate Research section of the forum at the Centrist Coalition site, so you can get a sense for a candidates overall pattern of views and their specific stances on the more high profile issues.

I know you've been involved in some of the CC stuff before, and I would invite you to work with the group that's putting all this together, if you're interested.

Something to break the ice.

I just bought a GPS navigation for the car. It gives voice commands so you don't have to look at the screen, and has an adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter. It's based on a Palm, so I can take it with me if I'm navigating on foot, and want to look up an address. I like it.

The comment above about GPS was actually the first post. I don't know how the time stamp got screwed up. It wasn't meant to be a non-seuqiter

For the record and before you think "get a life", I didn't post "Cheney Should Go" at 1:37 a.m.

About centrist candidates... I have long favored moderates in both major parties at election time. The more centrist the better. In line with my personal political views, I go with moderate Republicans when I can.

This year is the first time since 2000 that I will have the opportunity to vote for a moderate GOP - in the Congressional race in my district. Two moderates are vying for the GOP nomination. What troubles me is how moderate GOPers in Congress have been treated in the last 4 years by the hardline GOP establishment, particularly Rep. Tom DeLay. Moderates who step out of line face stiff challenges from hardline conservatives in their re-election bids. That being the case, I don't intend to vote for any moderate Republicans until I see some objective evidence that they will vote their conscience and not ditto the Party Line out of fear.

About the Pat Tillman letter reference earlier... I was gratified to hear the guy who co-hosts Air America's "Morning Sedition" radio talk show absolutely tear into the guy who wrote that. He condemned the letter in no uncertain terms, which was the right thing to do IMO.

Along the lines of the party punishing moderates, check out this article from The Hill back when campaign finance reform was passed. The moderate Republicans who made that happen ended up being passed over for committee assignments and leadership positions.

I wonder, though, if the Republicans might not be ripe to turn to the McCains and Powells among them before too long.

Here's my beef of the week:

Paul Wolfowitz, 2nd civilian in charge at the DOD...testifies before a House Appropriations subcommittee...and when asked how many US troops had died in Iraq says, "It's approximately 500, of which . . . approximately 350 are combat deaths,"

On the day Wolfowitz testified 722 US troops have died in Iraq, 521 of them in combat.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/04/30/at_hearing_wolfowitz_falls_short/

It's completely disgusting that this guy doesn't care enough about the troops to even know the correct number of deaths we've incurred over there. What a pig.

Ted Rall calls Pat Tillman an "idiot."
(www.msnbc.com/comics/editorial_content.asp?sFile=tr040503)

Hey Todd...

Help me out...how is that comic strip referring to Tillman as an idiot?

I can't see it.....

Carla --

The cartoon was pulled. See here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4893131/

Carla --

Here it is.

http://asmallvictory.net/archives/006657.html