Oct 16 2006
The Endagered Centrist Democrat
One of the reasons I am not so sure of a Democrat take over is there are no centrist voices leading the Democrats. In fact, the Democrat party has been distilling itself down to its far left core for years. Gone are strong centrist Democrats John Breaux and Zell Miller. And with these more moderating voices gone so did the moderate voters. Now the party is led by Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, Conyers, Kennedy’s, etc. Even the liberal media see the problem and lament what is happening to their party. One such liberal at the WaPo let slip the problem while assessing the 2008 hopes for the party:
With Mark Warner out of the 2008 Demstakes, the chief anti-Hillary centrist is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. This is a depressing commentary on the state of the Democratic Party. Bayh may have cleared his schedule to woo Warner supporters on Thursday. But he has yet to prove himself a real contender — and he may not be a real centrist, either.
…
Bayh is not the only senator to take dictation from the steel lobby. When the sunset hearing convenes at the International Trade Commission tomorrow, the steel lobby will present a petition from Sens. Arlen Specter and Jay Rockefeller, co-signed by perhaps 10 others. But Bayh stands out because centrists like him have traditionally been pro-trade and because his sights are set on the White House. Presidential aspirants are supposed to champion the national interest, not special interests.
Sebastian Mallaby is not the most credible person to look for guidance. He suffers from some serious naive fantasies, and is basically shocked Bayh has taken a political position he disagrees with. But the general point is accurate. There are only a small fraction of Centrist Democrats left. And few are willing to take on their party to save their party, like Joe Lieberman is doing in CT. This is probably their last chance to save the party from a mortal electorial blow. And I am suspicious they can win on the issue of Mark Foley’s personal criminal behavior.
Bayh was a popular Governor here in Indiana, a state that Bush carried easily.
He has surprised me since he went to the Senate by actually going to the left. For instance he sided with the Indiana ACLU in opposing photo IDs to vote. The state even offered to pay for them and that was not good enough.
As for steel, this is the midwest and steel is important here.
Terrye’s right — Bayh was a pretty popular (and decent) governor, although his successor (his Lt. Gov.) nearly bankrupted the state of Indiana.
I voted for Bayh the second time around for governor, and both times for Senator, but you could almost mark on the calendar when his presidential aspirations first surfaced as he suddenly veered sharply to the left. The move was so sudden, it almost smacked of a gang initiation ritual. Bush handily carried Indiana in 2004, and Bayh got more votes than Bush. I’ve seen estimates that Bayh got over 800,000 Republican votes. If he has to move even farther to the left to get the Dem presidential nod in ’08, the majority of that GOP support will just evaporate. He may be a player in ’08, but I’d be surprised, no shocked, if he gets the nomination.
Zell Miller a Centrist!!!
You have to be kidding.
Gil,
All depends on who you are comparing him too.
AJStrata
Different people have their different truths, but it becomes annoying to see how one side (the Republicans) consistently takes the arrogant, preemptive approach of trying to redefine their political rivals’ terminology for them.
For one thing, it’s the Democratic party, not the â€Democrat†party. It seems that someone on the Republican National Committee must have decided that, hey, let’s call them the “DemocRAT†party so we can try to create an association with rodents in the minds of the simpletons and rubes who are the target audience for such GOP rhetoric. Then all of the dittohead bloggers and wing nut radio hosts can hammer away with this silly word game as if the future of the western world depended on it. It would be as if someone on the other side decided to rename the GOP as the “Repugnicans†in all their campaign literature. It’s inane and needlessly insulting. Aren’t you cognizant of the reasons why this game is being played, and considering how stupid it is, a little embarrassed to be doing it? Maybe we could compromise. You can pronounce the name properly, which will make us Democrats happy, and meanwhile, you can think to yourself that it’s the “Democrat-ick†party (just spell it right when you write it, please). Would that work for everyone?
For another thing, I will challenge anyone to a duel who says that Zell Miller is a centrist.
Would you call any Republican who went to the Democratic national convention and urged his fellow Republicans to vote for the opposition candidate a centrist? Of course not. This just shows how disingenuous you really are. It’s all about playing preemptive word games with you guys. I guess that’s all that’s left when you’ve betrayed all of your supposed ideals and applauded while your party oversaw the worst spate of corruption, waste and bad judgment in recent history. Would honest rhetoric, at this stage, be too much to ask for? Apparently so.
GUMBO,
That was quite funny. Sounds like every reason I left the Democrat party to become an independent. The fact Zell Miller was so repulsed by the liberals he had to break ranks is simply a sign of how repugnant the left is. Same with Lieberman. The far left is living in an echo chamber which is about to meet reality. We shall soon see who is centrist and who is fringe.
GUMBO,
Democrats are the opposite of principles of “Democratic”. The hypocrisy of the party label requires me to remind people that one word is a political ideaology and the other is a organization of idealogues who have little respect or deference for the political ideaology their name comes from.
The point I’m trying to make is that there’s a different between honest discussion of issues, and honest differences of opinion about political matters, and then there’s cheap sloganeering and ad hominem attacks. You may disagree with specific Democratic policies, but to imply that Democrats are literally un-democratic is just silly. I challenge you to describe any effort on the part of the Democratic party that attempts to interfere with any American’s free speech rights, voting rights, human rights . . . whatever. If you’re going to throw around cavalier accusations about being un-democratic, I’m going to have to ask you to back it up with some substance.
And to another reply that described Democrats as “repugnant,†well, that’s just name calling, isn’t it? That would be like me saying that Republicans are ugly. It may even be true in specific cases, but it seems like such a waste of time.
RE: AJSTRATA.
I am comparing Zell Miller to Rush Limbaugh.
Did you see this nut Zell on a Chris Matews show? Zell went nuts and wanted to get into a “Duel” with Chris!!! It was hilarious.
The man is a nut. And I would call him a Conservative Democrat. The kind that either goes Bannanas (Like Zell Miller) out of frustration in a Democratic party that just wants his vote, or simple changes parties.
Conservative Democrats from the South simply changed parties a long time ago. Zell just missed the boat.
Zell is no “Centrist” my friend.
For one thing, it’s the Democratic party, not the â€Democratâ€
party.
GUMBO, I thought you were trying to be humorous with this until I Googled “Democrat Party”. I had always thought that Democrat(ic)s preferred the term Democratic Party to portray themselves as something they’re not (Democratic), but, sure enough, you are correct — it is Democratic Party. I will never make that mistake again, heh.
BTW, it was Julia Roberts who said the word “Republican” falls between “repugnant” and “reptile” in the dictionary. Last time I checked, Julia was a Liberal Democrat(ic).
I challenge you to describe any effort on the part of the Democratic party that attempts to interfere with any American’s free speech rights, voting rights, human rights . . . whatever.
You’re kidding, right? I don’t think AJ has enough band width to list all the instances of Democrats doing or attempting to do the things in your challenge. During the 2004 campaign I came up with a list of 50 things I find morally repugnant and intellectually dishonest about the Democrat(ic) Party. Your challenge is a piece of cake.
What do you say AJ, Merlin, Terrye, Enforcement — do you suppose we could come up with a few (dozen) examples like, oh say the herd of lawyers Algore sent to Florida in 2000 whose sole mission was to disqualify as many military absentee ballots as possible.
How about during the 2004 election cycle when Democrat(ic)s tried to stop the publishing of the book “Unfit for Commandâ€, then threatened legal action against bookstores that sold it. They also threatened legal action against radio and TV stations that carried the Swift Vet ads, and attempted to get the FCC to stop the Sinclair Television Network airing of the Vietnam documentary “Stolen Honorâ€. One Kerry campaign staffer, Chad Clanton, even went so far as to threaten Sinclair in public, saying “they better hope we don’t winâ€. On the flip side, anti-Bush books, documentaries and news shows numbered in the dozens, one even based largely on forged military documents (a felony).
I just realized I have to be at my granddaughter’s choir concert in 30 minutes. Take over for me guys — this should be fun. Be back in a couple hours.
Um. When discussing “left” or “right” or “centrist”, it helps to talk issues.
If major positions like:
– raising the minimum wage
– rolling back the tax breaks on the Paris Hiltons of the world
– getting out of the freaking disaster that is Iraq
– moving toward universal health care
– preserving social security in its current form (not privatize it)
are “left”, and these are all salient planks in the Democratic Party platform, then:
The Democratic Party is “left”
and since EVERY ONE of those platform planks has the approval and backing of the majority of US voters, so is the American voter, who are by definition “the center”.
In which case, we need to redefine “left” as “center, and “right” as “far right”.
Sorry, guys. Calling a party that stands for all those things “left” is just playing word games. You’re deadly scared of being called out for what you actually are, which is way-out-there Right.
And most people think you’re wrong.
LOL! Whatever you wish to think, but of course Bush tax cuts covered everyone in every bracket so of course when the left has to be honest, they rapidly become the fringe!
And not everyone wants to runaway from Iraq. I want to get out of Iraq – once it is stable.
You are kidding yourself on the universal health care – how do you think liberals lost Congress.
It is funny how liberals keep pretending they are the majority when they haven’t won control of anything yet!
Too funny.
If Zell Miller is a “centrist” democrat in the OP’s warped view, please name a right-wing democrats in the last couple decades.
Gumbo:
I just turned 55 a couple of weeks ago and I bet I was a Democrat when you were born. The party left me as Reagan used to say.
Remember Sam Nunn? Tip O’Neil? Guys like that don’t exist an any numbers in the Democratic party but once upon a time they were the heart and soul of the party.
BTW, there is only one reason why Democrats are fighting photo ID to vote, it makes it harder to cheat.
AJSTRATA.
Puting aside the obvious fact that we had no business in Iraq in the first place, and that all the people that warned Bush, and the Neo-Cons, and the Republican Right not to invade were right. And forgetting the fact that the same people that were right, are now the ones beeing attacked (again) by the people that were WRONG, and that should not have any credibility left (In the real world that is how it works)…….. I would tell you the following;
We all want to get out of Iraq once is stable. Problem is that Iraq is not only not getting stable, is getting worst. Therefore we need something better than “Stay the Course” or you are “Cutting and Running” ….. Last I checked we can do more things than that… That is if we can use our brains for other things than creating idiotic slogans.
Apparently Bush is not willing so far to change….. So the course is to stay the course until there is no course to stay on, or until he bails out of Dodge, and lives some other poor bastard with the problem.
Oh, sorry, Spook. “Undemocratic†means official policies and actions that actually have a concrete effect, not loose talk over some wing-nut publication or smear campaign that nobody ever acted on. Gosh, so some Democrat said “They better hope that we don’t win.†That must have been so scary for those poor brave Republican patriots. Did they have to raise the homeland security threat level? Did Dick Cheney go hide in his bunker?
I’m not the one using terms like “undemocratic†to describe the GOP, even though things like warrantless wiretaps and imprisoning and torturing people while denying them legal representation might well be described as such. As far as campaign rhetoric goes, both parties waste our time posturing over silly symbolic issues, largely to avoid having to make difficult decisions about more serious problems. Talking tough about flag-burning amendments is a lot easier than fixing MediCare, after all. But I just find the GOP tendency to play semantic games about who is liberal and who is centrist to be as disingenuous as it is silly. I don’t think most of you even believe your own rhetoric much of the time; but like good dittoheads you can’t seem to keep repeating it over and over anyway.
Sorry, but it’s too early to tell. You have no evidence as to how many centrist Democrats there are because they’re not a monolith. Barack Obama and Ned Lamont, both may be examples of new Democrats; so may Casey in Pennsylvania. It’s more easy to say there are no more centrist Republicans left because the Bush monolith has run them over with a steamroller; remember Jeffers left the Party and Snowe is in limberland. So it’s too early to tell, and if you’re just saying that there are no centrist Democrats just to give them a black eye, I’d reply that we need to put the Democrats into the majority for a while; they may turn out to be as right-wing and warped as the existing Republican Party; but we have to see what they will do. Otherwise, we will get an emboldened Bush: more debt, more government, more wars, more killings, more lack of strategy, more mistakes, more corruption, more hypocrisy.
Gumbo, give it up. These folks are simply not going to listen to you, or any other voices challenging their beliefs. They either honestly believe right-wingers like Zell Miller are “centrists” because they themselves are so far to the right, or they’re so dedicated to their calculated lies that they’re simply never admit the truth.
I understand the temptation to talk back to these folks- they spew such patently absurd nonsense that it’s hard not to express your incredulity. But their minds are as tightly shut as their eyes, so give it up as a waste of time. Instead, volunteer to man phone banks for Democrats, get out the sane vote instead of arguing with these irredeemable extremists.
Gil,
“we had no business in Iraq”-
Humanitarian reasons
Iraq/al Qaeda connections
WMD programs
Regular shooting at our planes in no-fly zone…………
You live in an MSM bubble.
GUMBO,
“Cheney go hide in his bunker?” -Stupid and gratuitous comment.
“fixing MediCare” – Bush tried with the only approach that can work, a market approach. The Dems can’t understand free markets.
“warrantless wiretaps” is a Dem word game.
We listened to the craven Left during Viet Nam and their advice cost 3 million unnecessary lives.
The Left never changes its stripes.
Macker, aren’t you embarrassed to pass off such long-discredited misinformation? You claim that Iraq had WMD programs? That they had links to al Qaeda? It’s more word games. I’m sure by “WMD programs†you mean that Saddam wished he had the wherewithal to actually build WMDs, which he didn’t. There were no WMDs and no development of WMDs. All of that had been dismantled under the Clinton administration. There was nothing left by the time Bush invaded. Absolutely nothing, and you know it. There were no links to al Qaeda, either. That’s simply a lie.
You go on to say that Democrats can’t understand free markets? The Clinton presidency featured people like Robert Reich (another Rhodes scholar like Clinton) and Robert Rubin, who are well respected economists who presided over one of the most prosperous eras in U.S. history. So, more BS from you.
Like I said, I don’t think even you guys believe this crap. You pretend to believe it because you think that advancing your side’s propaganda helps you win. It’s all posturing and noise-making, without a scrap of honesty.