Centerfield

"When the Democratic Party forms a firing squad we form a circle."
- Morris Udall

As true now as ever.

Isn't this the same argument John Edwards made during his run for the President ('the two Americas')?

If it didn't work in 2004 for Edwards, it will work four years later for another candidate? Someone should wake this guy; he must have slept through the last election.

EG,

Good point about Edwards, though we didn't hear much about him on the campaign trail in the fall election. Supposedly, he was campaigning in the rural areas which don't get much TV coverage. Doesn't sound like he lit a prarie fire with his populism, does it?

Since when has "populism" ever been anything more than a prescription to gather the support of a riled-up minority far short of what you need to get elected, while the majority retreats in horror?

I recognize populism as it has manifested itself historically. But I sure don't know what either "economic populism" or "cultural populism" is supposed to mean in the current day context. I know it's supposed have that flavor of being in touch with the common salt-of-the -earth American instead of the insider elite, but my sense is that it's really just a bunch of BS without much of a true organizing principle that relates to governing.

I'm not going to let ANYONE hijack centrism, whether it's a political opportunist or a liberal who wants a more sheltering jacket. The message for the people trying to hijack it is that they are wasting their time if they think they can use it to reposition themselves and their policies if those policies are NOT centrist. They're better working with an undefined term, and trying to craft policies that attract both liberals and conservatives by avoiding empty rhetoric and digging honestly into the details of sensible policy options. Find out what moderate liberals and conservatives who talk honestly to each other talk about, and what they agree on. Get them to vote for you. Now you're a centrist.

Rick, you're right that there's a culture war going on, but its the partisans that are fighting it. The partisans on both wings are trying to drag more of us into it every day. Well, I'm not picking sides, and I'm not fighting in it. If their's anything populist about centrism, it's rejection of BOTH horns of the bull.

I really think that's the message with popular appeal that regular people will respond to...look at this horse's arse over here on the left, and look at this one over here on the right.

It's the unmarried marriage counselor problem - how would he know what centrists want?

I listened to David Sirota in the interview. I didn't understand what he was specifically advocating, and wondered if even he knew what he was specifically advocating. Seemed like mostly vague buzzwords and tired talking points. The odd specific tidbits are not substantive enough to move a party or campaign. Weak.

I'm left depressed that this discussion isn't instead revolving around the contributions of the other person interviewed, Peter Beinart from The New Republic. Wow! His ideas would really revolutionize the credibility and reach of the party. Badly needed strong messages and actions, many genuinely liberal, though not the particular ones popular among todays activists. His ideas wouldn't just help the Democrat party, they'd help the country and the world. I guess that sounds wildly overenthusiastic, but I'm left wanting to hear more.

Was sad but predictable to hear a fellow guest so dismissive of him. Then again that's probably how the party leadership would also react.

A big fat hint about the real roots of the current cultural populism and the "moral values" animus of the red states can be found in this New York Times column by David Brooks.

The New Red-Diaper Babies

A more detailed examination can be found in Steve Sailer's article in The American Conservative.

The Wall Street Journal has been talking about the "Roe Effect" for years. This all points directly at an obvious demographic factor that must be taken into account if the Dems are ever going to find their way out of the wilderness.

Or they can just continue to ignore it. The GOP won't object.

Sirota is completely full of crap, or at least that's the central thesis expressed here:

http://www.gregsopinion.com/archives/005332.html

It gets better ...

Sirota attempts a clarification:
http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/12/debunking-centrism.html

I'm still in a fighting mood:
http://www.gregsopinion.com/archives/005335.html

Susan, I think we talked about Beinart at length in a previous thread. predictably, many of the regular centrists here agreed with much of what he said, and just as predictably, a sampling of "stick to our liberal guns" democrats were unaccepting of his views.

I thought Brooks' last statement: "People who have enough kids for a basketball team are too busy to fight a culture war." was contradictory. Because earlier in the piece he says the same people are waging a jihad against what they see as an immoral or vulgar culture. But then, I don't think much of Brooks' writing or thinking anyway.

I'm one of those folks who put my kids first. We drive an old minivan but have lots of money in the college fund. We bought our house with the primary thought being, can we raise our family here? We both are disgusted by the coarsining pop culture. We rarely go out. We spend as much time and money as we can on our kids; piano, violin, sports, summer camps. Evenings are always consumed with homework and practicing. The list is endless. But we don't let them play video games or watch R movies or go to kid's houses where that stuff goes on.

And we still don't vote for the GOP. I guess Brooks would just call us outlying data points.

Matthew Yglesias goes after Sirota here.

People with enough kids to field a basketball team are fighting the culture wars every day, at a very personal level, one-on-one with their children. Yeah, Brooks doesn't do a great job of it. He's mostly commenting on Sailer's article anyway. Sailer points out that voters with kids are more likely to vote Republican in national elections, and they're also more likely to be clustered in "red" states. The "natalist" phenomena isn't new, it's just mostly ignored because there's no safe way for politicians to bash families raising kids, only play to them.

I'm with you, Tim. Kids first. My "new" car is an '89 Suburban with a third of a million miles on it. I'm about to retire it for a 10 year old minivan, mostly because the rust has reached unmanageable levels. It could run for another 100K no problem (I'm a fair mechanic) but the body will fall off before then. My other car is an '84 Jeep Cherokee with 250K miles that I got for free and rebuilt. I left an intense high-travel con$ulting career to be around my kids, because there are definintely some things money can't buy and Mastercard is no good for. We're very careful about what they're exposed to, and where. Our spare cash goes into college funds and retirement accounts, and our annual vacation is driving to visit the grandparents. Our summer outings are camping locally and such.

We vote for candidates, not parties, and pay very close attention to local politics. What they're doing where you live will affect your lives (and your children's lives) more immediately and profoundly than national politics, and you can make a real difference being active locally.

As I've pointed out before, many (most?) state and local Democratic parties in the red states seem to understand this demographic, but have been largely left to wither as far as the national party is concerned. There is a serious disconnect between the national and local red-state Dem parties. Because they can't deliver electoral votes they get terribly slighted, when they should be the primary focus of any real base-building efforts. Yes, that means I believe they need a 50-state strategy, not a 19-state one, and it needs to be a long-term strategy.

Tim, I'm not a parent but I know many. You have my sympathies. I work at a place where we have a lot of reflexively liberal uncompromising defenders of free speech that simply have no way to wrap their heada around the challenges that parents face. They are entirely unwilling to accept anything that might represent gving parents a toolbox if it means anyone can't say whatever they want wherever and whenever they want to...

Good for you for not giving in to a coarsened culture that promotes moral relativism and a host of undesirable values. I know many parents who have given in, and to some extent you have to come to terms with the wider world, but I for one understand how hypocritical it is for single urban liberals to on the one hand expect parental accountability but at the same time suppor other things that place parent in the position of being under virtual cultural siege. And I'n not even talking about anything that's explicitly religious. I'm talking about helping kids develop an attention span, intellectual curiosity, understanding the virtue of work and discipline, and seeing the value of treating others as worthwhile. And preventing them from becoming sexualized too soon, desensitized to violence, adopting an overly greedy selfish consumerist mentality, and thinking it's OK to have a win at all costs attitude.

Tully:

I'd like that 89 Suburban if it didn't have any rust, but then you wouldn't want to get rid of it.

I served 2 years on my neighborhood PTO, does that count?

I used to vote the candidate, but for years have voted democrat because it does no good to put a moderate republican in there who will just be steamrolled by the leadership, and that goes for Iowa as well as the U.S. But I'm pretty disappointed and will probably look at more 3rd party candidates in the future. If the dems lose guys like me they're in trouble.

BK:

We have compromised plenty with our kids, unfortunately. It's impossible not to. They need more exercise and less TV. Unfortunately, more exercise means swim team, gymnastics team etc. (which costs $) because nobody just runs the neighborhood anymore. Sometimes they get grumpy when I tell them they have to come with me to walk the dog.

Tim,

Yep, if it wasn't rusting out I'd drive it until it died of terminal engine failure. I keep hoping to find one with a perfect body and interior but a shot engine &/or tranny, and just do a swap. No such luck. After two years of hoping I'm almost ready to blow taps on it.

I served 2 years on my neighborhood PTO, does that count?

It does indeed. Though I really understand the need to take a breather after a few years of it. Am there, doing that.

If you don't vote for moderate Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) how can you ever get enough of them in office to have the moderates be the leadership? I vote for "best candidate" moderates anyway, I just don't vote 'em by party.

Yeah, i notice that one of the big things that seems to have been lost is the pick-up game. I'm only 40, not exactly ancient. When i was a kid from like age 10 or 12 on up, i always worked the phones with my buddies to get something going after school, even if all we could muster was 2 on 2. It was always game on for us, whether it was stickball, street hockey, hoops, or touch football.

Now it seems like it's all organized shuttle service games or shuffling off to play team halo in the darkened cellar. Stay strong.

I used to vote the candidate, but for years have voted democrat because it does no good to put a moderate republican in there who will just be steamrolled by the leadership...

McCain of AZ (if you consider him a moderate) hasn't been steamrolled. Dominici of NM keeps plugging away on financial issues

I believe economic populism can easily meld with cultural populism. The trick is to emphasize greed and corruption and not sound like class warfare.

Just read the Sirota piece (yeah I didn't read it before). I didn't realize how evil Evan Bayh and John Breaux were. Thank God we have folks like Mr Sirota looking out for us.

Of course, the funniest thing is watching those on the farther reaches of the left and the right defining centrism to suit themselves (can anyone say "straw man?") and then whining about it.

For the most part, I think parents are the same whether liberal or conservative. You will find very few liberal parents who take the reflexive approach that anything goes. In fact, I know people who changed their mind about Tipper Gore once they had kids. The fact is, it's not liberals per se that are primarily responsible for the coarsended culture (although I think the 60s counterculture has contributed), it's people who market this stuff. Many of these are conservatives (e.g., Rupert Murdoch)or are at least staunch defenders of the free market anything goes approach. Gangsta rap is marketed by mainstream companies, and while the executives might be liberal, their motive is money, not politics. Even the NBA-which is essentially a corporation-essentially has tried to market street culture and we see where that has led.

True, Hollywood liberals do tend to advocate absolute free speech when their product is criticized, but how much of that is liberal principle and much is plain economic self-interest? I don't think ABC did the Terrell Owens-Nicollette Sheridan "towel" promo because they were trying to uphold some principle--it was about marketing and money, pure and simple.

"The fact is, it's not liberals per se that are primarily responsible for the coarsended culture (although I think the 60s counterculture has contributed), it's people who market this stuff".

Yes, I entirely agree. As a parent, I feel that children -- and the needs of parents -- just don't get much attention by either liberals or conservatives.

I remember when I was a kid, there were neighborhood schools. And so all the kids in a neighborhood knew each other, and played with each other, got exercise, had long-term connections with each other. Now -- for reasons that are partly the fault of liberals, and partly the fault of conservatives -- that's no longer true here. But nobody really seems to care.

"just as predictably, a sampling of "stick to our liberal guns" democrats were unaccepting of his views"

As someone who considers herself fairly liberal (at least on some social issues), and who probably qualifies as a 'mainstream democratic defender' as someone put it previously, and who knew people in the towers, I find Beinart's writing to be sometimes pretty offensive in many ways.