The "center" is not always right...

[kentuck]

Many politicians are always playing to the so-called "center". But it is not because they are right, it is because that is where they perceive the most votes are at. In fact, they could be very wrong. Ed Rendell and Harold Ford come to mind. Beware of politicians that play the center.

[tblue]

1. Good gracious, SO RIGHT you are!

The so-called 'Center' is 1) misnamed and 2) warping the Democratic Party beyond recognition.

[markboxer]

22. I say that too

I say if you aint left you are wrong. They aint gunna get no more votes by goin center anyways if they dont do center stuff after they get elected

[DonCoquixote]

2. what happened is

The term "center" has been stolen by the right wing.

The GOP fratured into right wing and reactionary, and then used the fact Obama was black to fuel the reactionary wing into a money mine, a means to get gold from Billionaire and the pennies from churchgoers. Of course, like many things under Capitalism, people decided "i know we are getting paid to do this job, but why should we try worry about actually doing the job when we can just rig the game to pay us." So we have a bunch of polsiticans who flat out know they are not called upon to acheive ANYTHING, which is the Tea Party.

Naturally, the people who would have been Republicans in Nixon's day got left out, so along came the Clintons, offering these folks a ride on the boat. Admittedly, the Democratic boat was leaking, because Mondale, Carter and Dukakis crashed on too many time on the rocks. The deal was made, and slowly but surely, all these pushy refugees did not want to sail leftward, but wanted to take over the ship, which they did. They even made it hard to tell who was who, as Hillary, and even more so Obama, knew how to imitate leftist crew members. Many of them believed they are, but that is because FDR got jettisoned off the boat by both these new centrist types, and the old left that hated him for not going far enough.

So what we have here is priacy and hijacking, the hijacking of a center, forcing it to go to the right of FDR, and the lunatics . There is a place for the center, but only, and only, for the purpose of maintaining balance, not to SHIFT the bal;ance towards the right. When you read Huffpo, or watch a lot of MSNBC, you see the fake center try to talk reasonable, but the chuck toods and arrian Huffingtons reveal that they agree with people who hate social security, like Joe Liberman or Lynn Rothschild or Erksine Bowles. It is not centrists we have to worry about, it is the fake ones who whole purpose is to WARP the very balance and symmetry that define what a center IS. Center only work on shapes that have balance and symmetry, if you skew the shape of things to the right, you cannot have a center, because everything is set to fall rightward.

[russspeakeasy]

3. Those two test my gag reflex.

[PA Democrat]

4. Fast Eddie Rendell is not "center". He is whatever the highest bidder PAYS him

to be. Ditto for Ford.

[Glitterati]

10. You better tell him, then

because he goes on TV and brags about being a Blue Dog.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

5. Correct. They, too, fail at pragmatism. nt

[Nite Owl]

6. They have their interests in mind

never ours. They are really the old Republicans.

[gulliver]

7. It's where all the power is.

To get anywhere you have to move the center without being killed by it. The craziness the Republicans are showing is moving the center to the left. We need that to keep happening. The Republicans were desperate in this last election and had to resort to outright lying just to keep Romney viable. So they are out of moves. If they don't get something that isn't a lie arguing for their side soon, they are toast.

[quakerboy]

20. Disagree

The center has nothing to do with where the people are. Its all about where the politicians are.

The power is not in the center. The power is in finding where the voters are, and managing to find the right way to communicate the message that you are with them.

[gulliver]

24. Disagree

The center is entirely about where the people are. The politicians and the people interact to produce it, but in a democracy, all that matters is where the votes are. Like it or not, our democracy is currently distributed along a left/right axis, and there is a voting center, the one that ends up defining the power. It happens to be a little leftward right now.

I happen to believe that the people's hearts and minds are generally left of center. But because of Republican lying and a general tendency among the people to be somewhat ill-informed, self-doubting, emotional, fearul, selfish, etc., we end up with a voting center that is only slightly to the left.

That voting center doesn't respond very well to persuasion. The Republicans have successfully created a rhetorical environment in which "Washington" is the bad guy and every politician is considered to be a liar and on the corporate payroll. Many on our side are susceptible to that very same self-defeating mental virus.

We won't be on the right track until we get back the fundamentals of cooperation. That means being evidence-based, less fearful, more trusting, more forgiving. We are headed that way, despite the best efforts of Republicans to divide their opponents. We just need to do a daily gut check and remember that the way out is to eliminate Republicanism by simply looking it in the eye every time it lies.

[quakerboy]

28. Incorrect

Or maybe kinda correct. I think we are talking about different meanings.

My observation is that most of our republican citizens (barring a few true libertarians and Randians) have values that are essentially in the center when it comes to quantifiable policy. The rest of us move left from there. The actual center of the people seems to be a bit to the left. However, when you consider actual policy enacted or attempted, even our supposedly left leaning politicians are fairly far to the right. The political center is fairly far to the right.

Anyway, its not about persuasion. We need left leaning politicians to somehow get past the perception of political parties and affiliations, and make those connections at the specific policy details level, and the values behind these details. And then standing strong on those details, not selling out to the first promising money source that comes along.

[leveymg]

27. The center is wherever the money wants it to be.

The center has not moved left. The Democrats have moved right along with the long-term agenda and passing whims of Wall Street. Now, it seems to be Social Security cuts, and it has been for a long-time, but they can smell the proximity of getting that now with Obama, which is something they never could under Bush or Rmoney.

[gulliver]

29. That's exactly what Republicans would be happy to hear you say.

They actually paid a lot of money to get you to say that. You seem to have recorded their whole message. Republicans and their backers want you to think and say that the problem is all of Washington. They want you sew mistrust of the Dem message. They want you to drop the only power Progressives have, break ranks, and weaken our side.

Fortunately, so far, very few rational Progressives oblige Republicans by lapping up their well packaged propaganda. Un-elect all Republicans. That's all we have to do and we will have an FDR-style American resurgence.

Republicans are going to be powerless again soon, and the world will get a lot better. With people like Bush/Cheney, Romney, Ryan, Gingrich, Limbaugh, and that fat-headed, orange-haired numbskull on the Republican side, we can't lose.

[leveymg]

30. So, you think it's ok for Obama to propose cuts to S.S. as part of his "Grand Bargain" w/GOP?

We, as progressives, are not so helpless that our only power is to go along with bad ideas of the Democratic leadership, such as this. It runs contrary to who we are to remain silent about fundamental policy issues.

Your comment is a form of McCarthyism and a Bushism: "if you aren't with us . . ." Shame on you.

[Glitterati]

8. Both proud Blue Dog Democrats

Ed Rendell and Harold Ford are what you get when you stand for nothing, and are damned cocksure you're right.

Plenty of them right here on DU, too.

[Autumn]

9. Nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

A wise man said that and I agree, yellow stripes for the cowards in the center.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. The "center" is not always left, either.

[iandhr]

12. Well most moderates

don't want to touch Social Security

[bvar22]

13. "CENTRISM" !!! ...because it is so fucking EASY!

[font size=3]You don't have to STAND for ANYTHING,
and get to insult those who do!!![/font]

[Cleita]

14. Or to the left for that matter.

The center is a mythological no man's land. People are either for or against an issue, not in the middle of it.

[kentuck]

15. Well said, Cleita.

Thanks.

[theKed]

16. That's the second half of the game

The first half is defining where the center is - whether directly, by talking about things that are supposedly central, or indirectly, by presenting such extreme positions that the less extreme becomes center. Democrats are okay at the former and seriously suck at the latter (the tea party is an example of the latter in action).

[kentuck]

17. The center does not exist...

Because it is constantly changing. It is not a position that can be staked out.

[TimberValley]

18. To be honest, it seems that both sides believe the 'center' is moving away from them.

I get the impression from liberals that the 'center' has moved right, and I get the impression from conservatives that the 'center' has moved left.


So.........perhaps that means the 'center' still hasn't moved or changed at all?

[quakerboy]

21. Nope.

Center has move quite dramatically. Look at actual policy being passed, not momentary impressions.

[winter is coming]

19. The "center" is not always correct. But lately, it's been too damned "right". n/t

[HiPointDem]

23. they just pretend it's the center.

[bobduca]

25. The center: minimize effective regulatory policy and maximize your owner's investment

the less ideological the politician, the better suited they are to passing ready-made laws from their corporate-lobbyist owners.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. Thomas Paine