Centerfield

Actually, Rick, you are wrong about the crowd at BOPnews. They are the looney left. I came across this site a few months ago and posted a few comments on some particularly poorly argued positions. It seems to me that they prefer not to argue.

Newberry, at one juncture, attempted to refute an argument I made by referring to me as a "freepsuit," whatever that is (it was clear from the context that he disapproves of freepsuits). Recently, I was barred for espousing "psy-op trollery." In actuality, I was pleading for a competitive, engaging Democratic Party.

While it is obvious that BOP has the right to reject comments, it seems odd to me that they they respond so angrily (your post, for example, yields a response likening it to date-rape. Way over the top).

I wonder if they would just rather be right than be intellectually engaged. I presume that Newberry, et al are friends of yours but it baffles me that they make grand plans to reform the Democrats, re-educate the red states, prove the election was stolen, and carp about the coming proto-fascism, yet they aren't interested in testing those ideas in the real world with real arguments.

If they, in fact, are not the looney left, then you are right and there is an opportunity for a new party which will engage the Republicans.

I am new to the centrist view. I don't claim to be one, but as I read posts and comments here I must ask a question. Is Centrism represented by Teddy Rooselvelt? It seems to me, as an ignorant outsider who is trying to catch up, that TR was a hawk, but a staunch environmentalist. He also understood that all wealth should not be held forever by a few individuals and their heirs. TR's view was that the individual can overcome most anything, but that the government must be able to lend a hand and protect the weak. He also believed that the economy must be allowed to flourish with little government interference (with the exception of trusts). He believed in competition. Does this sound familiar? I just finished a very good two part biography of TR and some of the themes sounded like what I see here.
Just trying to learn.

Well said, Rick.

The Democrats' biggest problem is that one faction (the doctrinal left-liberal faction, DLL for short) wants to control all the dialogue. As I've often noted, both parties are really coalition parties, not ideological parties, regardless of the campaign-season rhetoric. The DLL's want to steer the DNC firmly into the ideological-purity mold. If they succeed, they guarantee minority status for the party. They are shunning coalition building in favor of doctrinal rigidity.

21%, 34%, 45%. Those are the numbers that count. The nation's electorate self-identifies as 21% liberal, 34% conservative, and 45% moderate. Neither side can win national elections, or control of either branch of Congress, without the moderates. Because conservatives outnumber liberals, they don't need to split off as many of the moderates, and can therefore campaign from the right and still win. The DNC approach has been to try to boost the number of liberals, to let them campaign from the left--and it's failed. Repeatedly.

National elections and control of Congress are won on the middle ground. The Dems have tried to move the entire electoral balance to the left by being more intensely and evangelically fundamentalist liberal, thereby hoping to shift the middle ground enough to put that 1% over midpoint into their territory through conversion of the centrist heathens. It hasn't worked, and the attempts are (IMHO) actually pushing the trend in the other direction--a self-defeating strategy. The farther to the left they move, the more intense and doctrinal about it they are, the more of the middle they exclude for not being True Believers in DLLism, the farther to the right the conservatives can go and still win the required portion of the middle ground.

They have tried to bring the mountain to Mohammed, and failed. Praying harder and with greater zeal has not moved the mountain. It is time for Mohammed to go to the mountain.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Very nice post, Rick.

As for your question, edudude, yes, I think TR is quite an icon with a lot of moderates, particularly moderate Republicans. He's McCain's favorite president, isn't he?

edudude, I like your TR reference. Would you cite the work you're reading?

Rick, I'm not familiar with BOP. I have visited some left sites, though.

Dems need to subdue their fringe, state clearly where they stand on a few key issues, and connect with the people. They can connect with the people through language, tone, and visuals.

I don't advocate moving to the right.

There are a few commercials running right now where a group of people see a problem and discuss it to death until someone comes along and corrects it with one gesture.

The Dems see clearly what they need to do. If it's abhorrent to them, they'll continue to pay the price.

Jaime,

Kerry only lost by 3%, so if it were simply a matter of the presidential race, I would agree with you.

But in order to take back Congress, Democrats do, I believe, most to the right a few degrees. Those southern Democratic Senate seats are gone, probably for a generation. They need to be competitive in the Midwest and Plains states, however. I don't think they can manage that just with repackaging. They need a new and improved formulation.

The House, too, is becoming a tougher nut to crack. They're 30 seats down now. I don't have the answer, but I'm certain that "staying the course" won't do it.

Before I found CC, I was visting the DNC blog. This was when people were just starting to pay attention to the candidates, and many new visitors were coming to the site raising many legitimate questions about John Kerry and why the Dems felt he warranted support. I didn't get the sense that they were trying to be argumentative, they just wanted to know in order to help them with their decision-making process.

These people were called "trolls," "repugs," etc. right out of the gate, I mean literally after their first post! There was no interest in legitimate discussion or education. It was all about volume, rhetoric, and Bush-bashing. There were actually people on that blog trying to control speech because, "the other side could be spying on what we're saying, so have a little f****** discipline!" A little too freaky for me, and *not* what I thought the Democratic party was about--that's why I left that blog in a hurry. :-)

Ok, so after all that rambling, my point is, I don't think you can really expect to have a productive discussion with those individuals on either the hard left or the hard right. They are too wedded to rhetoric and ideology. They *firmly* believe their positions are the *only* way, and they just aren't open to honest discussion and debate. You cannot *be* a moderate, because then you aren't a *true* memeber of the party--you're "other," and most probably a sympathizer or saboteur sent by the opposing party to single-handedly bring down the One True Party. It's ridiculous. If they can't change with the times, the democratic process will keep them where they belong--on the fringes of society. That's their choice.

Agree with the first comment; these people are idiots. I admire you for being willing to endure the abuse. The funny part was that Shaula began the child abuse comparison, but then warned commenters not to be too inflammatory or insensitive. How do these people make a living?

Amy, I think you hit the nail on the head with reference to both parties and goes a long way to explain why there are so many more moderates these days.

It's my opinion that the next two years are going to be very interesting. If the political situation continues to move in the direction I see it going, the Dems are going to remain as they are, the Repubs are going to overreach with their "mandate" and there is going to be a very real opportunity beginning in 2006 for Moderates to move in and gain some control in Congress -- if they can be smart about it.

I think that is what we should be thinking about and planning for.

Take note: Senator Byah was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly last night. He didn't rule out making a run in 2008, i.e., he's already testing the waters.

I have a favorable impression of Byah, but it's just an impression. Can anyone educate me?

Totally agree, Heather.

Marc, there's an existing dicussion (perhaps inappropriately) about Bayh on this thread.

Rick, I say let the Democrats go. If they pull harder to the left while the Republicans pull harder to the right, it's not like tug of war: the Republicans do not move back to the middle; the rope breaks. A vacuum is created in the center. Voters will not long suffer an utter absence of rational choice on the ballot. This has a number of implications. I'm ruminating over them.

Went over and read the BOP thread. Heh. I see the spirit of the Inquisition lives. (For the flip side of the record, visit the Freepers.)

So, Rick and Marc, welcome to the Heretic's Club! We don't have our own clubhouse yet, but we do throw great parties with lots of beer and good food, and all those respectful of respectful others are invited. (Work real hard and you can even advance to apostate!)

We don't care if you've been excommunicated by one of the more dogmatic churches. You already know our requirements, we're the Universalist Unitarians of politics....

Tully,

"Universalist Unitarians of Politics" is a GREAT phrase! We are also pro-tolerance and anti-utopian (of either kind, left or right). People who are tolerant can't be utopian.

Rick,

I just added my name to yours at the DLC. Should centrists stage a massive invasion of the DLC?

Rick,

If you watch the Dems and listen to them they do not stay the course. That's the problem. For the purposes of communicating with the American people, they must speak with one voice and publicly rebuke their fringe. They need to make the conversation about them: Dems believe in this. Dems find this behavior unacceptable. Dems were seen supporting this positive image. That's it. Nothing nuanced, no shades of grey, no one gets off script. Reduce the volume, negativity, and bashing. This discipline is paramount from the local level on up.

Moving to the right will not make them look any more credible to the American people. They will look like and be right-light. Why choose a substitute when they already have the real thing?

Tully, you are so funny! I'm glad you post here! :-)

Actually, I suspect that the right would be at least be willing to engage heretics at least for the purpose of winning them over. At the least, they would probably not try to drive away people on the same side. The lefties don't seem to have any desire to win over moderates. They are not there for debate; it's like a Bolshevik cell.

Tully,

Uh, where are those great parties? I didn't get that e-mail yet!

They don't need to move to the right, Jamie. That's a spatial illusion fostered by the single-axis conceptual "map" of politics as left-center-right. What they need to do is move more towards the center. (Of course I would say this, being a centrist...)

See this comment thread here from last November for some alternate views of the political spectrum. My entry down the page with multi-axis model links.

Actually, I suspect that the right would be at least be willing to engage heretics at least for the purpose of winning them over.

Do we have any spies we can send out? Someone go try it and see what happens. This message will self-destruct. :-)

OK, Marc, I confess that they've been virtual parties so far, and we throw them right here. But virtual beer and food are just so economical, and you never have to call a cab....

The Republicans do engage the heretics, Marc. That's why they're winning. They just don't want to engage them any more than needed to win. But moderates outnumber both conservatives and liberals. Since we know that the conservatives and liberals won't unite to stave off the moderates, isn't it obvious that to win you have to engage a significant number of moderates, whichever side you lean to? (Well, obvious to us anyway.) If the Democrats engage enough extra moderates to win consistently, the GOP has to move back towards the center as well to fight on that middle ground. This is a good thing! Beats the heck out of the tug o' war of the extremes anyway.

Thanks, Amy. I'll be here all week. (rimshot)

I'm actively subverting both camps at the local level, Amy. The trick is getting those agents up the ladder to the state and national levels....

Thanks for the axis reference, Tully. It's an interesting view of politics.

What amazes me are people who criticize the GOP for not accepting any dissent think that anyone that disagrees with them are neurotic. I mean, these people literally cannot countenance and disagreement, even from people who basically agree. They criticize others on teh left who don't stick to the holy script. It's radical sectarianism at its finest.

I watched a DLC "evaluation session" last night on C-SPAN. I got a pretty good feeling from it for two reasons: (1) cool, rational human beings seemed to be prevailing over the weeping and gnashing of teeth among the Internet Armchair Political Analysts; and (2) there didn't seem to be a rush to "just do something! anything!"

Bill Clinton should be a starting point for where the Democratic Party wants to go. And, for heaven's sake, George Bush should NOT be a starting point for figuring out the direction of the Party.

I wasn't a big supporter of Kerry, but I perked up when I saw his campaign bringing on some of Clinton's economic advisors. As a social liberal and an economic conservative, it wouldn't take much for me to switch from an independent to a Democrat if the Democratic Party got with economic realities and talked about new ways for dealing with them.

It's too easy to fall back on the status quo of labor protectionism rather than figuring out how best to equip Americans to FACE (not avoid) worldwide labor competition. Clinton understood the bigger picture of economic change and chose to work with it in order to strike a balance between capital and labor. Of course, Bush has set us back in favor of capital, but the answer is not to swing all the way to the other side by protecting labor and penalizing capital.

At any rate, my general feeling is (as an independent) that social liberalism should be retained ... but it should be tempered with smarter language and rhetoric (appealing to values and a sense of rightness/fairness). But, economic liberalism could afford to become more Clintonian, attracting more white collar workers that are not sure about the "class arguments" still being used by some Dems.

The Democrats have already tried moving to the right. It doesn't work and it's a major mistake.

Yes we lost some senate seats...but look who we lost to..Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint.

If those two reprehensible clowns represent the mainstream of Oklahoma and South Carolina respectively, I'd rather stand my moral ground.

I blogged about this today too, btw:

http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2004/11/now_that_ive_es.html

Hey Jamie-
Both of the TR books are by Edmund Morris.
The first is "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt." It covers birth until his Vice Presidency. The second is "Thoedore Rex." Both are very well written and great examples of exhaustive research. If TR represents Centrism then these are a must read. If he doesn't, then it's a good read anyway. Enjoy!

Thank you, edudude. I look forward to it.

Regarding Oklahoma, Coburn is a psycho, and Carson is quite conservative, more conservative than I am certainly. So why did Coburn win? Pure tribalism. The national Dems are so far out of step with Oklahoma that the label Dem erases the actual candidates record.

As one of the 55 million who voted for Kerry, I think I can accurately say that many of them do not consider themselves to be liberal. Moderate Democratic candidates are getting killed, however, by their association with liberals.

With the loss of centrist Democrats in Congress (the southern Senators, Charlie Stenholm) the average rating of Democrats will shift to the left even if every elected Democrat keeps to his/her own status quo. Therefore, Dems need to shift to the center just to stay in the same place they were in 2004.

I just got a copy of Theodore Rex at
a used bookstore last weekend. It
starts encouragingly.

I read another TR bio, by a buddy of his
(admittedly rather one-sided), which labeled his
politics as something like, the kind of politics
that is not extreme, but by no means undecided,
either.

Regarding Oklahoma, Coburn is a psycho, and Carson is quite conservative, more conservative than I am certainly. So why did Coburn win? Pure tribalism. The national Dems are so far out of step with Oklahoma that the label Dem erases the actual candidates record.

All too true. Oklahoma is fifty miles from where I sit, but the Dem label killed Carson this year. Had it not been a Presidential election year, he could have (and would have) won easily on merits. As it was, Michael Moore and MoveOn.org and John Kerry sank him like a stone.

Oklahoma went 66/34 for Bush. You don't much redder than that! Yet 28 out of 48 Oklahoma state senators are Democrats. Democrats also control the House in Oklahoma.

How can such a thing possibly be?