David Sirota: In search of the American 'center'

[jgraz]

In search of the American 'center'

David Sirota, Creators Syndicate
Friday, July 18, 2008

In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to "the center" - because usually that means he is drifting away from it.

Over the last month, the Democratic presidential nominee has backed a measure to permit warrantless wiretapping and protect telecom companies when they violate customers' privacy; sent conflicting signals about whether he will reform the NAFTA trade model; and threatened to revise his timetable for ending the war in Iraq. Universally, reporters have billed this dance as a move to the middle. As the Associated Press claimed in a typical description, Obama's shifts are designed "to appeal to the center of the electorate."

However, empirical data prove "the center of the electorate" is exactly the opposite:

• Polls by Quinnipiac University and the Mellman Group found majorities support warrant requirements for wiretaps and oppose immunity for companies that released private consumer information without such warrants.


• Surveys by Fortune magazine, CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that most Americans oppose NAFTA-style trade policies.


• For years, major polls have consistently shown Americans want a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. As just one of many examples, five separate USA Today surveys since 2007 have shown majorities want the president to "set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq."

So, the undebatable evidence tells us precisely where the center of public opinion is. Yet when a presidential candidate moves away from the center, we are told he is moving toward it. What gives?

<snip>

In this brave new world, language is sculpted to skew the "center," intimidating the majority from demanding concrete change for fear of looking like lunatics. It is a slickly packaged process of marginalization and demoralization - one with an underlying goal: keeping the real lunatics running the asylum.


More at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/EDFM11R4V2.DTL

[jgraz]

1. kick

[ihavenobias]

2. K & R for the idea that the "center" is not "right of center" as many think it is n/t

[NorthCarolina]

8. I think most of us "regular" folks have known that to be the case

but the MSM, the conservative DLC and Blue Dog Dems, and of course the GOP would like us all to "believe" otherwise.

[Zodiak]

3. Sirota, as usual, is correct

I noticed that there was no poll data given for the FISA debate....funny because normally the media takes great delight in telling us netroot bloggers that we are out of touch when it comes to security issues. When I looked it up, the Mellman group was the only poll, and it showed a majority of Americans as against this wiretapping bill's provisions. So I knew the move was not a move to the "center", but to the right wing. I think that Obama's inevitability as a nominee has opened the doors for the same "advisors" who always counsel moving to the right and losing elections to come in and start divorcing Obama from his base.

This is why Nader's candidacy hurt Gore in 2000 and Kerry inspired few in 2004. Moving to the "center" causes attrition from the left, where the "boots on the ground" come from.

The center in exactly where Obama was in the primary. It is a big reason why he took off like a bat out of hell. Moving afield from that is foolish, but thankfully things are so desperate and the alternative so odious that these moves largely have not hurt in the polls. But they did not help, either.

[Runcible Spoon]

5. here's fingers crossed he purges anything remotely tied to Chicago School.

prolly ain't gonna happen :cry:

[Runcible Spoon]

4. it's what some of us have been saying forever.

thanks for the link. KnR.

[laststeamtrain]

6. K & R--Exactly. n/t

[iconicgnom]

7. K&R. The D's can only claim leadership if they speak forcefully enough to define the terms

of debate. They don't do this well, so terms like "compromise" and "middle" continue to be defined exclusively by a right-wing neocon vision of what is important, of what is on the table.

Sigh. Unfortunately, it appears that the D's have bought into the vocabulary of the "war on terra" 100%.

[depakid]

9. Most people (including most Dems) have been propagandized so long

and been reinforced so often with conventional "wisdom" contrary to the facts, that it's become second nature to them.

A look at the actual data on the subject reveals that Sirota (and others like him) have been talking sense:

The Progressive Majority:
Why a Conservative America is a Myth

http://mediamatters.org/progmaj/report

[BzaDem]

10. ugh not this again