Are both parties pulling too far from the center?

[DearAbby]

After the November elections, the country could be more divided than ever

WASHINGTON - At Democratic Party headquarters they’ve launched a “Palin’s Primary” website. The idea is to track the most “divisive” and “bloody” Republican 2010 House races — contests which find established GOP candidates being challenged from the farther right.

At Republican headquarters, meanwhile, they’re talking-up Democratic Senate primaries in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Colorado, where moderates are facing contenders from the farther left.

Barack Obama’s presidency — and the GOP’s rejectionist response to it — are stretching politics apart like salt water taffy. With all the pulling power at the edges, the middle is getting thin. Over the next couple of months, we’ll get early evidence about whether the center still exists at all.

More:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36648441/ns/politics-decision_2010/?ocid=twitter

[unpossibles]

1. seriously?

I'd say Obama's fairly Centrist and the Right is just plain crazy.

[frylock]

9. obama is a centrist..

the problem is where the center has migrated.


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[MannyGoldstein]

16. 91% Top Tax Rate Under Republican President Eisenhower

And Republicans owned both houses of Congress then.

Obama is a insane wing nut by those standards.

(And he's a raging corporatist by any standard.)

[frylock]

19. word

[villager]

2. So GE/NBC would have us believe the Democrats are in any way "leftist?"

What would they do if they saw -- or heard of rumors of -- an actual left-leaning politician, or enacted policy?

[Fumesucker]

3. Yes, they are both too far to the right..

We need a seriously left wing party in the USA..

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. +1,000,000

[DearAbby]

7. I hear that

Both parties have gone so far right, it's hard to tell where is the center.

[Blue Meany]

14. Well, let's suppose the center is the "common interest" of

Americans, that is, what is fair and is in the interests of the majority, without trampling the rights of minorities. Niether party even comes close to this at the national level. By this standard, FDR was centrist or slightly left, while LBJ was centrist or slightly to the right. Everyone president since then has been to the right.

[Lerkfish]

4. nope, both parties are pulling rightward at amazing velocities.

its a false meme to claim Democrats are becoming too left of center as a way to somehow justify GOP pulling into batshit crazyland.

[piratefish08]

5. they better be. the center is static. change is good.

[Individualist]

8. Both are too far right.

[Rex]

10. Another, 'please equate the left with the right' propaganda bullshit puff peice.

Sorry, but liberals are on the side of TRUTH. Something Repukes avoid like sunlight and rain, lies must make more money or are just easier to deal with when all you have are lies.

Repukes = party of lies, violence and racism.

Liberals = party of progressive ideas, anti-war and tolerance.

Anyone tells you otherwise, they are doing damage control for Repuke/Tea Baggers.

[Tailormyst]

11. Are you fucking kidding me?

On what planet is are the Democrats moving left and not right? I'd REALLY like to know.

[LeftishBrit]

12. By the standards of any other country, even the UK, the Dems are CERTAINLY not pulling too far left

of centre!

(Some of them may be much too far RIGHT of centre! But perhaps that's the only way they can get elected in some areas.)

As for the Republicans, most of them already landed in far-right-lunacy-land some time ago. I have for some time said that the First Law of Republican Politics is that however right-wing a Republican politician is, they can still lose a primary to someone further to the right. One can but hope that these Flat-Earthers will fall off the right-hand edge of the world.

[gratuitous]

13. More false equivalency nonsense from MSNBC

The choices seem to be "do something" and "do nothing." I'm not sure what the "center" of two mutually exclusive choices would be. Do sort of nothing? Do sort of something? If you're going to jump the Grand Canyon, it has to happen in one jump, not a series of jumps.

[kentuck]

15. Nobody knows where the center is??

Once the response to the right becomes in perfect balance, I guess??

[ljm2002]

17. What a crock!

No, both parties continue to pull too far to the right.

There has been no movement back to the center in the Democratic Party. If there were, it would be decried by the media hacks as a "move to the left". Well, yeah: that's exactly what we need, is for the Democratic Party to move hard left. If they continue to do that for oh, say, the next 20-30 years, then maybe they'll get near enough to the center that continued movement left can be described as a "move to the left".

Gad I hate our media these days.

[marmar]

18. As Bill Maher says: The Democrats have moved to the right.....

..... and the Republicans have moved into a mental hospital.

[Romulox]

20. Obama has moved an already triangulated Democratic Party further to the right.

Barack Obama is politically similar to George H.W. Bush--demographic issues notwithstanding, his temperament would've made him a liberal Republican a generation ago.

[TransitJohn]

21. Yes, both to the right. n/t

n/t