WP, Dionne: Bush/Rove strategy has frightened center into arms of Democrats

[DeepModem Mom]

Rising Radical Center
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A19

HANCOCK, Mich. -- President Bush's six-year effort to create an enduring Republican majority based on a right-leaning coalition is on the verge of collapse. The way he tried to create it could have the unintended consequence of opening the way for an alternative majority.

This incipient Democratic alliance, while tilting slightly leftward, would plant its foundations firmly in the middle of the road, because its success depends on overwhelming support from moderate voters. That's why a Democratic victory in November -- defined as taking one or both houses of Congress -- would have effects far beyond a single election year.

The Democrats' dependence on moderate voters and moderate candidates belies Republican claims that a Democratic victory would bring radically liberal politics to Washington. In fact, the first imperative of Democratic congressional leaders, if their party is successful, will be finding policies, ideas and rhetoric to allow the party's progressives and moderates to get along and govern effectively together.

The strategy pursued by Bush and Karl Rove has frightened most of the political center into the arms of Democrats. Bush and Rove sought victory by building large turnouts among conservatives and cajoling just enough moderates the Republicans' way. But this approach created what may prove to be a fatal political disconnect: Adventurous policies designed to create enthusiasm on the right turned off a large number of less ideological voters.

The Democrats' lead in the polls can be thus explained by two factors: the energy of a passionate phalanx of voters desperate to use this election to rebuke Bush, and the disenchantment of moderates fed up with the failures of Bush's governing style and ideology, notably in Iraq....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301034.html?nav=hcmodule

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. The Money Shot:

"the energy of a passionate phalanx of voters desperate to use this election to rebuke Bush"

That's right, Dems. Joe Lieberman was simply the warning shot. We are your constituency, more so than the mushy middle that sells it's idealogical ass and its vote like a Lincoln Tunnel Whore, only with less thought and consideration for consequences.

We can do it again, too.

[Chipper Chat]

3. Hmmm. Why does your post bring to mind the "gang of 14?"

Also, I can no longer feel the same reverence for the Lincoln Tunnel. I had no idea.

[pnwmom]

5. Do you want to end up with as little power as the radical right?

That's where you're heading, with that attitude.

[wake.up.america]

2. There are those who rebuke Bush because they feel he is not conservative....

enough - the "religious" right

[longship]

4. My Gawd... Dateline: Hancock, MI.

What is Dionne doing way up there? That's on the Keweenau Penninsula which juts out into Lake Superior in the U.P. That's a helluva place to find a DC insider.

The only things you'll find there is a bunch of Finlanders who talk funny, eh?
And it's not even St. Urho's day. What's the world comin' to.
:evilgrin:

[wyldwolf]

6. this has been building since at least 2002...

... when Democrat Phil Bredesen, a New Jersey-born businessman who had served as mayor of Nashville, won Tennessee’s governorship after framing himself as a cultural conservative and economic reformer. Democrat Tim Kaine, in turn, won the governorship of Virginia running as a “sensible centrist,” taking the place of another moderate Democrat, Mark Warner.

From "Political Center Rears Its Head"

For years, voters have complained about the strident, partisan atmosphere in the nation’s capital, where compromise and cooperation have become dirty words.

Moderates have had a rough time, shunted aside by ideological radicals who scorn any middle way as hopelessly outdated. But this fall, the center is actually holding in lots of states. The prime example of this is Kansas, which has earned a poor reputation in recent years for extremist Republican politics.

Things got so bad the situation inspired a popular book, “What’s The Matter with Kansas?” by Thomas Frank.

Nine former prominent Republicans are running there for office as Democrats, saying they are fed up with the GOP. Paul Morrison is running for attorney general against Republican Phil Kline, who has demanded the names of abortion clinic patients and fought to defend teaching standards that question evolution. And Mark Parkinson, a former chairman of the Kansas GOP, is running for lieutenant governor alongside the centrist Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius.

Elsewhere, there are the two Nelsons - Democratic senators in conservative states once listed as among their party’s most endangered incumbents but now considered safe. Bill Nelson of Florida is miles ahead of Republican Katherine Harris, who as secretary of state was so blatantly biased toward George W. Bush during the 2000 balloting fiasco that moderates, independents and Democrats are still outraged. Ben Nelson of Nebraska votes with his GOP colleagues more often than any other Democratic senator, which blunts rival Pete Ricketts’ efforts to brand Nelson as an “ineffective” Democrat in a GOP-controlled political environment.

In Virginia, Sen. George Allen, a standard-issue right-wing Republican, is in a dead heat with former Republican James Webb, now a moderate Democrat.

In Pennsylvania, right-wing firebrand Sen. Rick Santorum has already been written off by the GOP, outdistanced by a moderate Democrat, Bob Casey. Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio also appears to be toast.

Many factors play into this rejection scenario, but the trend clearly is toward moderates this year. The public is weary of extremist rhetoric and marginal cultural issues... Moderates have a discouraging record of failing to get out their voters. It is the hard right and the hard left who are usually motivated to support their heroes. But this year the intensity factor is with the "mushy middle," which is where the majority of us instinctively belong.

Former President Bill Clinton is out there trying to reinforce that mood, talking up the joys of “the dynamic center” where political discourse contributes to the common good.

Philosophically, he makes great sense.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4525449