Centerfield

IMO, our position should be that we're not on either team right now, and are thinking about being a 3rd team.

I don't think we gain market share by promoting ourselves as primarily trying to improve the existing teams, not as our top long-term goal. I think there's a market for us among those who've become disaffected/alienated from both parties, or disenchanted with one yet constitutionally unable to stomach the other.

Moderate opportunists from each party WILL try to position themselves to co-opt centrism, and then later they'll sail away as the opportunities shift with time. I like parts of the anti-idiotarian manifesto:

WE DEFINE IDIOTARIANISM as the species of delusion within the moral community of mankind that gives aid and comfort to terrorists and tyrants operating outside it.

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left — the moral blindness that refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place than any culture in which jihad, ‘honor killings’, and female genital mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right — whether it manifests as head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a a Christian-chauvinist political agenda that echoes the religious absolutism of our enemies.

I'm registered as an Independent. I plan to register with one of the two major parties for the sole purpose of voting in one of the primaries. I think this should be encouraged in states where it is a requirement to register with one party or the other to vote in the primary. In states where it's not required, people should simply be encouraged to get out and vote in the primary elections. If you don't like either party enough to identify with it, so what? Get out and be as much of a moderating force in the primary elections as possible. Get behind sensible centrist and moderate candidates regardless of their party affiliation. If not, we can expect to continue settling for the lesser of two evils.

WHQ, an excellent suggestion and idea. Even if you don't want to identify with a party, for the moment they're what we've got, and the best way to have an impact is to vote in the primaries and encourage like-minded folks to do the same. Many people ask me why I'm still a Republican, and many also seem to think that because I'm registered Republican I have to vote that way (which, given my track record, I generally don't). One of the most important reasons is so that I can play a role in the primaries. Independents and unaffiliated voters have a key role to play in our system, and unless they get active in primaries (which in many states means registering with a party) they're shut out until it's too late. So yes, in short, I agree wholeheartedly.

What WHQ said.

My wife and I register in different parties so we can have a household vote in each primary. If there's a particularly loathsome candidate on one side, we both register to that side and vote for their opponent.

bk, let me dispel a myth or two here. I think just about every democrat I've met believes in a free market society. The difference between Republicans and Democrats I think is that in the free market, Democrats consider economic externalites and the need to mitigate those external costs (pollution, monopolistic practices, etc.) very Roosevelt of us...Teddy Roosevelt that is.
I also note that it's usually the left that through groups such as Amnesty Intl, object and work actively against genital mutilation and other practides.

as for the right, it's obvious they're not isolationists and not all of them are "Christo-facists".

That manifesto, like many others written in history, is seriously flawed.

Yes, please vote in primaries for a "moderate."
But where is the list of centrist positions?
Abortion is Always OK, Never OK or what?
America should win in Iraq, or run away, or what?
Gov't should get bigger, or get smaller, or what?

I think never, win, smaller, but after being a long time Lib, now I'm a Rep.
"Centrists" need to agree on a positive policy more than a label, and "not radical Rep" or "not moonbat Dem" isn't enough. In fact, while centrists do agree that the extremes are bad, they do NOT agree on most middle possibilities.

Tom, I think one of the great advantages (although I'm sure some see it as a problem) of centrism is that we don't all agree that abortion should be permitted or not; we don't all agree on Iraq, or taxes, or x, y, or z. What we do agree on is that good people can have honest disagreements about those issues, and that we can join around points of commonality and reach a fair, reasonable compromise without name-calling, tantrum-throwing or other histrionics. You're right that most centrists wouldn't agree on specific policy proposals in many instances. But we can rally around principles of honest government, fiscal sanity, fair elections, etc. even as we disagree on the specifics and hash out the details in a positive way.

Can't we?

Nice try Rick, but the Libertarian Party would hardly be considered "moderate" by most people's standards. They take rather firm (and inflexible) positions on virtually every issue and typically are not willing to "moderate" their positions given that they believe that 99% of what the federal government does is unconstitutional.

The Libertarian Party also wouldn't be caught dead joining forces with McCain or Lieberman. You see, Libertarians oppose both the Welfare State and the Warfare State, and while McCain and Lieberman have chided their respective political parties for fiscal recklessness on domestic issue, both Senators have been strong proponents of the Warfare State, as evidenced by their continued support for the Iraq War, which the Libertarian Party has condemned since its inception.

And, in any case, since Libertarians think you should essentially run your military and national security bureaucracies off voluntary contributions, neither McCain nor Lieberman are likely to find common ground on defense and foreign policy issues.

"Centrists" need to agree on a positive policy more than a label, and "not radical Rep" or "not moonbat Dem" isn't enough. In fact, while centrists do agree that the extremes are bad, they do NOT agree on most middle possibilities.

You're right that most centrists wouldn't agree on specific policy proposals in many instances. But we can rally around principles of honest government, fiscal sanity, fair elections, etc. even as we disagree on the specifics and hash out the details in a positive way.

Sounds like the campaign promises that piss me off so much. They sound nice, but EXACTLY what are you going to do sir??? The devil is in the details. We want the pudding!

I'm not railing against public discourse. But when it becomes the ends rather than the means, give me a radical solution instead.

Marcus, the manifesto doesn't mention either party. And it's written in such a way that fair-minded interpreters can easily understand it to condemn whoever among whichever wing might condone the negative practices described. There are people on the far left who condone a pretty strong cultural relativsm wherein one is counseled not to judge or condemn any given culture's traditional practices. And there are people on the right who fit that description. I think the problem you have here is that you're reading that manifesto as saying "the following shoe fits all those on the left" or on the right. But what I interpret it to mean is, if the following shoe fits a given person, then that person is an idiotarian.

Nowhere does the manifesto reject either liberals or conservatives as a group, it only describes whatever subset of that group is worthy of rejection. I really can't see how you could miss this if you read it with a fair and open mind. But then, you appear here reliably with a chip on your shoulder and rabbit ears for any criticism of any part of the left.

Libertarians? IMO, the libertarian party is composed of zealots with a zealous and usually absurd platform. I don't even consider them to be representative of any functional political practice that values liberty. At least 4 out of 5 of the people I interact with on blogs who express some sympathy for libertarianism also explicitly disavow any association with the party. I think there's a core of libertarian centrists who are independent moderates for whom civil liberty is viewed as a core value.

You're right that most centrists wouldn't agree on specific policy proposals in many instances. But we can rally around principles of honest government, fiscal sanity, fair elections, etc. even as we disagree on the specifics and hash out the details in a positive way.

Mmm, how true that is is really a matter of degree. We might not get to exact perfect agreement between all of us, but I think we very often sketch the outlines of the right ballpark to play the game in.

For example, on SS, most of us think that solvency and predictability are more important priorities than the exact nature of the reformed plan. IOW, we want a program that we can pay for, and we want one that makes sure people can get their basic needs met when they are old and infirm.

On abortion, we're with the body of people who wants abortion to be as rare as possible, favors some reasonable restrictions, but leaves some substantial amount of autonomy with the pregnant woman and other directly interested parties (parents and father).

I object to the equating of reasonable compromise with being "wishy-washy." Difficult problems are solved by balancing interests and priorities. The underlying dynamic of many of the sociopolitical conflicts we face is that both sides have valid insight, yet both refuse to acknowledge the other side's insights.

We've got far too many people who are too persuaded by the notion that better is the enemy of best. Better is better than stalemate.

I would suggest that whatever non-platform we have as centrists makes us more cohesive than the two fractious parties that now dominate American politics. Are centrists and moderates really that hard to identify?

My suggestion. Project outward (i.e. regular press releases) and focus on centrist actions not necessarily strictly "centrist candidates". What do I mean? We've seen the arguments here as to who is "really as centrist". To me we've have less arguing when we've focused on a centrist action or stance. A recent example would be Joe Leiberman's stance regarding the War in Iraq or McCain's stance on torture or.... Now how we as an organization (If we can be called that) can agree that "that was one there" is another question. We tend to be too "person focused". Am I making sense?

I object to the equating of reasonable compromise with being "wishy-washy." Difficult problems are solved by balancing interests and priorities. The underlying dynamic of many of the sociopolitical conflicts we face is that both sides have valid insight, yet both refuse to acknowledge the other side's insights.

Brian,
As I said, I'm not against public discourse, tolerance, or looking at both sides of an issue. But at some point the rubber has to meet the road. If a problem can be solved by reaching a middle ground, great. Most of the time I'd say the middle way doesn't offer the "best" solution though. The design a horse by committee syndrome.

Compromise is good. Good is better than bad. Better is better. No reason to not set your sights on best to begin with though. Trying to solve problems by compromise alone is not going to come up with many working solutions to the big problems we face

Don't confuse the willingness to compromise when appropriate with the desire to compromise under any circumstances. Compromise isn't the be-all end-all in political problem solving, it's just something that seems to be lacking these days.