Centerfield

How can we encourage the leaders of the DLC, RMSP, Its My Party Too, and other leading moderate political groups to collaborate?

They could collectively and visibly stand behind the reform of congressional rules, redistricting, open primaries, and moderate candidates who value bi-partisanship.

These group could swing the election of many major moderate candidates.

They could cooperate on building a database of moderate leaning voters that would rival the data collected by the Ds and Rs.

We could have a national Centrist PAC that supports moderates in either party by allowing them to avoid pandering to extremists.

I urge John Avlon to lead the way. The support will be overwhelming and world changing.

Posted by: Paul at January 20, 2006 06:38 PM

I found this response to the post at TMV to be thought + discussion-provoking

I get the suspicion that most self-described "moderates" are, generally speaking, liberal. They usually have one pet issue where they disagree with liberal orthodoxy - the war, or fiscal conservatism, or guns, or some other such issue - so they can avoid the odious "liberal" tag so demonized in American political culture. As a result, only 20% of Americans call themselves liberal while 33% of Americans call themselves conservative. Yet, as a liberal, I find myself in agreement with most of what the moderate blogs above have to say. That's why I suspect that most of these moderates are liberals who won't admit it.

One responder suggested its because "liberal" has a negative connotation (as opposed to "conservative") so those who hold "liberal" viewpoints are reluctant to label themselves as such and therefore may gravitate to the "moderate" label.

Posted by: c3 at January 21, 2006 12:24 PM

Moderates and liberals may seem like they're close together now because they are both in opposition to much of what is going on in conservative Washington right now. But if moderates were running Washington, there would be a lot of liberal sniping, and if by some miracle liberals were running Washington, there would be a lot of dissatisfaction among moderates.

Posted by: rickheller at January 21, 2006 05:39 PM

Heh. He thinks that all moderates are liberal-leaning because they're to the left of the "hard" right wing. If he were on the other end of the spectrum, he'd be saying that most moderates are really conservatives who just disagree with some of the wing dogma....

Posted by: Tully at January 21, 2006 06:51 PM

The important thing is that the commenter AGREES with the content. When he does, he claims it as liberal.

Our experience here shows that there's really no such trend, IMO. The partisans who don't want centrists to rise will employ a variety of arguments that seek to "bring people back home" to the loving wings.

Two thoughs on ways to follow up on whatever additional pub we've got:

1)start plans for a "carnival of centrism" that perhaps insta-pundit will be willing to plump. He's usually good at that. And the festival would of course have the value of getting various centrist blog readers to read each other and help grow the common ground mass.

2)Hash out some sensible recommendations for centrist strategies for 2008. Top of the list has to be for centrists, moderates, and independents to familiarize themselves with the rules for their state's primaries, and plan to participate in whatever way blunts the force of the nuttiest job running whose candidacy is viable. So if one slate has a fairly moderate guy running as a fair shoo-in, and the other slate is competitive, get in their and vote for the sensible guy.

But exactly what this means is going to vary. For example, at this point I expect here in MA that the more liberal viable Democratic candidate will carry the day. So unless I think ther democratic primary outcome is in doubt, I'm going to get in there and vote in the GOP primary.

Not that we matter here in MA. If we really wanted top make a difference, maybe we should move to NH. :-)

Posted by: bk at January 22, 2006 12:33 PM