Centerfield

I've said it often enough, but Hillary Clinton, whether or not she is actually a centrist, is one smart and able and experienced politician. If she believes the party must move back towards the middle, the party should listen.

The next few months will be very informative for party-watchers. The Roberts confirmation process will let us know which Democratic Senators are "free agents," and which are firmly beholden to the party SIGs. We've seen the question lately regarding whether the party is a branch of the SIG's, or vice versa. We'll get some clues from confirmation process.

Big Labor is going through a divorce this week, partly over the issue of mindless Democratic Party support. Some of them feel very strongly that the AFL/CIO leadership has led them down the path of "taxation" without representation, concentrating union resources on national politics instead of on member issues. And they're right. Not a good sign for the Democrats, when one of their big pillars fractures.

The struggle between the DLC faction and the MoveOn.org faction will likewise tell us much. Frankly I wish the Democratic Party the best of luck in regrouping around core principles towards the middle. A two-party system without a strong and vital opposition is not a two-party system. It's a monopoly. We need a weighty counter-balance to any ruling party, no matter which party it may be at the time.

Well, that depends...(say I, in my wishy washy left of center way). If they're just going to adopt a pallid "me tooism", i.e. more tax cuts only smaller, more program cuts only shallower, more unilateralism only less belligerent, etc. etc., then they will ultimately lose more support than they gain, and leave themselves open to another Ralph Nader (God forbid) who'll peel off the more leftist voters and leave everybody stranded in the wilderness again.

Granted, one can argue that the Nader voters voted the way they did for many reasons (they didn't like Gore's personality, they disapproved of Clinton's behavior, they thought W was a weak candidate, they didn't think their votes would matter, etc.), but the Dems are more prone to these kind of fractures than the GOP. If the DLC leans too far to the right, then we end up with one small leftist party out of power, one moderate party out of power, and one rightwing party with all the power.

As Harry Truman put it "The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties."

It seems odd to me that Hillary would ask for a "ceasefire" among the various Democratic factions...and then have the magazine of the DLC, "Blueprint"...go after the more liberal factions of the party.

(sigh)