There is a tendency to call some liberals "centrists"

[nodramamama]

I see some journalists calling the new NY state a centrist, citing guns and illegal immigration only. But there are more issues than that. She voted to redeploy troops out of Iraq within 90 days 2 years ago. She voted to extend SCHIP and has supported Medicare for all and allowing importation of drugs from overseas. The analysis by ontheissues.org, a political website, has her in the following spectrum:



A left liberal, label which I agree with after reading EVERYTHING about her history.
I like her.

http://www.ontheissues.org/NY/Kirsten_Gillibrand.htm#War_+_Peace

[TheWraith]

1. Welcome to DU, madame.

You are correct--she is indeed a liberal. People who fixate on a couple of issues forget that there's a lot of variance of opinion on those, even among liberals, but she's with us in the places where it's important.

[patrice]

2. Usually, it's Centrists, like the President, who are called Liberals. We need very much to

keep the Issues straight.

Thanks for the info, nodramamama!

[mtnsnake]

3. Thanks for this. BTW, you left the word "Senator" out of your post

after "NY State...". You can edit it if you want to include it. :)

[HereSince1628]

4. Do the 5 areas in your diagram represent the same area?

The center area seems smaller in area than the 4 outer areas. I counted whole and half squares and that count seems to confirm what my eye tells me.

As the area is not the same, the position of the borders of the areas is not correct, and consequently the dot is deeper into the liberal area than perhaps it should be.

[Jim Lane]

5. We should encourage this tendency

For example, on health care, the right-wing position is that the current system is basically fine -- leave it to the unfettered workings of the marketplace. The left-wing position is that we should have single-payer. The centrist position is to retain a prime role for the for-profit insurance companies, but to provide some government subsidies or other aid to reduce or eliminate the problem of people who are uninsured. That's a sensible division, and it shows Obama to be a centrist.

Here's an alternative and less favorable framing: The right-wing position is to abolish Medicare. The left-wing position is to reduce the number of people who lack health insurance. Therefore, the centrist position is to defend the status quo.

Whatever gets labeled as "centrist" will have a leg up in the policy debate, so we should try to get that label applied to positions that are as progressive as possible.