Centerfield

You don't see the ejection of Schwarz as a negative? Do you know anything about Tim Wahlberg? He is as far right as you can get on just about everything. He is a Christofascist if there ever was one.

Posted by: Elrod at August 9, 2006 12:47 AM

The use of the term "christofascist" essentially disqualifies anything else you say in your post from being taken seriously.

Posted by: Simon at August 9, 2006 12:51 AM

McKinney was beaten by a liberal Democrat, so I don't get that one. And yes, Lamont winning helps Republicans, and that is what I said. I am sorry Simon, I suppose it depends on your perspective as a centrist, but I agree with Schwarz on affirmative action, and McCain/Feingold, and disagree on spending. Furthermore, I don't get your logic. If all voters had voted in his congressional district, rather than Republican primary voters, he more than likely would have won. How does nominating a narrow ideologue with views that represent less than a third of the electorate help Republicans? Joe Schwarz is the kind of Republican Bush tried to sell the American people on at the National convention. There is a reason for that. I see how it may be better for your own interests on the issues, but it certainly is not the right message for an inclusive party. I guess it's a matter of centrism over partisanship. I prefer centrism.

Posted by: Mathew at August 9, 2006 12:55 AM

Mathew:
Re McKinney, McKinney is very liberal and is also totally batshit insane; her opponent is merely very liberal. That's not a hard choice. As regards Schwartz, I'm ambivalent on the matter. I disagree with him quite strongly on some matters; I fully imagine that I will disagree with Wahlberg on other matters.

Posted by: Simon at August 9, 2006 01:01 AM

The use of the term "christofascist" essentially disqualifies anything else you say in your post from being taken seriously.

Well, Ok. But your use of that sentence makes you look like you're trying really hard to evade making any statement about the merits of Schwarz being replaced by Tim Wahlberg.

Do you think he's an improvement over Schwarz? If you do, then defend him. If you don't, then concede that your spin is hyperbole. Schwarz losing may not by itself be "troublesome,' but such a loss must in fact be viewed as troublesome if his replacement is undesirable, yes?

And your reasoning has another huge flaw. It can't true BOTH that the best outcome in CN is for Lieberman to crush Lamont as an independent and that centrists do themselves no favors by staying out of the primaries. Consider the CN centrist who wants to vote for Lieberman. He or she retains that option today because Lieberman is running as an independent in the general election. This is evidence that if centrists continue to desert the primaries, they may well become irrelevant. We're not there, and it's an uphill climb.

But the developments in Connecticut quite clearly suggest that there could indeed be merit to staying away from the primaries in some cases. Let the wingnuts from each party elect nominate their favorite lapdog, and then in the general election, the everyday people can elect an independent. At the current time, you have the luxury of desribing such an outcome as an extraordinary or isolated incident. But if fed-up moderates continue to desert the polarizing parties, the likelihood of such outcomes rises.

It's not curently out of the realm of possibilityt that come the 20087 prez primaries, one party or the other rejects a relative moderate (perhaps a McCain or a Clinton) and that this person decided to run as an independent with Lieberman. I wrote in McCain-Lieberman in 2004, and I'd be absolutely stoked to vote for them in 2008 by checking off a box instead.

Posted by: bk at August 9, 2006 09:22 AM

And your reasoning has another huge flaw. It can't true BOTH that the best outcome in CN is for Lieberman to crush Lamont as an independent and that centrists do themselves no favors by staying out of the primaries.

That depends on what (and for whom) "the best outcome" is. Whatever else may have happened yesterday, both parties moved perceptibly further from the middle, which does not benefit centrists and/or moderates.

Moreover, while the GOP moved a little to the right, the Democrats moved a little to the left; my reasoning only has a flaw if you assume (falsely) that movement from the center in either direction is equally and symmetrically bad. And I don't hold to that. I'll take a moderate Republican over a moderate Democrat any day, and I'll certainly take a strong conservative over a strong liberal, but I won't necessarily take a moderate Democrat over a strong conservative. This isn't a symmetrical game. Sure, I have areas of policy on which I strongly disagree with the GOP party line, some of which happen to match up with the Democratic party's line. And as a matter of pure expediency, I think compromise can often be a virtue, a fortiori when it's an area on which I don't have a strong opinion either way but it means a lot to the other side that we go one way not the other. Ergo, I'm a moderate. But that doesn't mean I think that all ideas are equal (they are not), and at root, underlying all the matters of policy, I think my worldview is the correct one. (Of course, if I went further and said that not only my underlying worldview, but the policy positions built on it are also correct, Brian, I'd just be following your fine example. Like your "moderate" position on abortion, I would have carefully examined the evidence, come to some conclusions I consider to be reasonable - and thus non-negotiable - and if you want to compromise, that's very laudable, and you can ajust your views to match my very, very reasonable positions.)

It is getting harder to be a moderate, of course, because the people on the other side willing to compromise are disappearing, and the policy views - so far as democrats posses such anachronisms in this day and age - are getting more and more antithetical. That essentially pushes moderates like me to the right.

Let the wingnuts from each party elect nominate their favorite lapdog, and then in the general election, the everyday people can elect an independent.

Won't happen. Conceivably, a new party will form and displace one or the other of the two major parties, but unless or until we go totally mad about adopt proportional representation (which thankfully seems highly unlikely) there will never be a sustained period - a decade or two - where there are more or less than two major parties. I see that as one of the most positive features of the American system, even if one of those parties is currently in the process of going "batshit insane" and the other - mine - has some serious problems. Posted by: Simon at August 9, 2006 11:03 AM

Brian: Let the wingnuts from each party elect nominate their favorite lapdog, and then in the general election, the everyday people can elect an independent.

Simon: Won't happen.

OK so you are predicting that Lieberman is going to lose in November? That's what I'm hearing. Care to place a wager?

Oh, and BTW, despite your baiting, I'm not going in for a rematch on abortion. I whipped you soundly last time, your revisionsist accounts notwithstanding. Live with it. If you are looking for something to put in your pipe and smoke, try this. I'm comfortable on the solid ground of maintaining this:data that show the current real-world circumstances of when abortions generally occur in America are much more of a compromise position than one in which a council of pro-life judges makes such decisions. You said it, and I'll keep reminding you unless you care to retract it.

Posted by: bk at August 9, 2006 12:26 PM

That's so absurd that it's laughable. You demonstrated the complete venality of your position, your own refusal to compromise once you've made up your mind (which makes a mockery of your vaunted "centrism"), and for extra bonus points, revealed Unity '08 as nothing but a pro-choice sham. How you justify that to yourself - a delusion that you somehow "won" - is your business.

Re Lieberman, he may well win in the fall, but he will win because he is Lieberman and who he is running against, not because he is an independent. You can't seriously expect to generalize to the rest of the country from the CT Senate race.

Posted by: Simon at August 9, 2006 01:27 PM

Simon, I know almost nothing about Unity08 and am not even affiliated with it. This fact is sufficient to demonstrate how silly your statement above is. Nuf said.

if Lieberman wins in the fall, an independent will have beaten the chosen lapdogs of the parties. If this happens, we will have an instance which 100% fits the description of something I said could happen, and which you said wouldn't happen. Obviously, this would make me right, and you wrong.

The fact that you are able to explain away such an outcome by quibbling about WHY it happened is neither here nor there. If it happens, then we will know FOR CERTAIN that it CAN happen, because it DID happen. Surely even you are a big enough man to concede the simple inescapability of that logic?

After all, it's an awfully, awfully, awfully tiny and almost miniscule point that I'm trying to get you to concede, which is that it CAN happen.

:-) If you concede it now, maybe I won't have to entitle my November Lieberman victory post "It can happen" and taunt you a second time, KA-KNEE-GIT! :-)

Posted by: bk at August 9, 2006 02:09 PM

After all, it's an awfully, awfully, awfully tiny and almost miniscule point that I'm trying to get you to concede, which is that it CAN happen.

Conceded, readily. In unique, rare and exceptional circumstances, it is possible for independents or third-parties to win seats in Congress. That much was already clear; if Lieberman wins, he will not be the first, nor even the only member of Congress elected as an indedendent (which, clearly, excludes Jeffords). What is not possible is to generalize from the exception to create a rule. Posted by: Simon at August 9, 2006 03:02 PM

Read an analysis that discusses the political strategy ramifications of the Lamont win and how the Democratic position on Iraq will be a key to success in November...here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Posted by: Daniel DiRito at August 9, 2006 03:52 PM

Right. If such instances began to occur more often, closer together, that might auger a trend. Review what I said, especially the highlighted portion::

Let the wingnuts from each party elect nominate their favorite lapdog, and then in the general election, the everyday people can elect an independent. At the current time, you have the luxury of describing such an outcome as an extraordinary or isolated incident. But if fed-up moderates continue to desert the polarizing parties, the likelihood of such outcomes rises.

I already acknowledged that it doesn't happen often. And I don't see where you refute the part about " if fed-up moderates continue to desert the polarizing parties, the likelihood of such outcomes rises..."

Suppose the percent of Americans who are m democrats/republicans trends 33/28....31/26....29/22....24/19. Were this to happen, is it your thesis that the dominace of the democrats and the republicans inside the two-party system would endure without substantive changes?

Posted by: bk at August 9, 2006 04:06 PM

It would take more than each party nominating a wingnut lapdog for an independent centrist to have a chance. It would also require one of those wingnut lapdogs to be a complete nobody, like Alan Schlesinger, to effectively turn the race into a two-way contest between the independent and the somebody wingnut.

Posted by: Scott Smith at August 9, 2006 05:56 PM

Scott, you are either too young or have a short memory if you can't recall what Perot's numbers were before he bailed and then re-entered.

Who said anything about a 2-way contest anyway? I'm talking about a 3-way contest.

Posted by: bk at August 10, 2006 09:25 AM