GOP Should Run Against The Center not to it
Nov 3rd, 2009 by David Anderson
So says Michael Barone in a recent column.
Move to the center. That’s the advice Republicans are getting from quarters friendly and otherwise. It seems to make a certain amount of sense. If opinion is arrayed along a single-dimension, left-to-right spectrum and clustered in the middle in a bell-curve pattern, then a party on the right needs only to move a few steps toward the center or just beyond to convert itself from minority to majority status.
But the world is a lot more complicated than that. Opinion is not arrayed on a single dimension, but flies all over the place in two or three or even four dimensions (which is to say it changes over time). New issues crop up, and old issues appear in a different light. Success in politics often comes not from readjusting one’s stand to conform with current opinion, but in redefining what is at stake and reframing issues so that you have majorities on your side.
So I think Republicans today should be less interested in moving toward the center and more interested in running against the center. Here I mean a different “center” — not a midpoint on an opinion spectrum, but rather the centralized government institutions being created and strengthened every day. This is a center that is taking over functions fulfilled in a decentralized way by private individuals, firms and markets.
No wonder Barone is one of the foremost political experts. The New York 23 and the 06 and 08 elections show that the GOP can not win by being Democrat light. It is not what the voters want. They want real choices. It is not a choice between M & M’s with or without nuts. It is a choice between their candy and a real steak dinner. That is why I think Frank is on to something. It is more complicated than conservative v. moderate. It is about individual soverignty within a community versus a community ruling over the individual. For Republicans to be successful they can not offer a blander version of liberalism. We have to offer a bold vision of liberty and community. If we do not, voters will find someone who will. We are beginning to see that in NJ and NY. The two party bipoly is not a given. The GOP may expand by pruning the dead branchs and growing again. It needs to welcome the tea party types not to coop them, but as the next wave of political reality. It is a return to Americanism. It will happen with or without us. I am with it.
yet you would give your vote to the GOP and Castle even if a Conservative where running in a 3rd party against him?
If the GOP should win in NJ and VA, they should not take it as an affirmation of their beliefs, but rather the discontent voters are having with both parties. Remeber that VA had a Repub in there and lost to a Democrat, not because they believed in those principles, but because they were unhappy with the direction they were leading us. This is why the number of independents is growing and they are looking to new blood. People do not want their individual liberties infringed upon, and you may be seeing the result.
David, I actually agree that the party needs to establish an identity to the right-of-center, much as the Democratic Party does to the left-of-center. What I don’t agree with is this come-to-the-party, but be-seen-not-heard bull shit that you flout about. You are either in the party and have a voice THAT MATTERS or you aren’t. Make up your mind.
I am more focused on a primary. If someone continues to get organized, that may not be an issue.
I admit that I voted for Peggy Schmitt L and Tina/Felicia of the Constitution Party instead of the Congressman as a protest, but those years I knew he would win anyway so I could be a purist. Even then I kept my vote to myself so I wouldn’t tell you if I did. I would let you make your case. That is all I promise.
These people are playing for keeps. I may have two chances at the most to save the country I love. I can’t throw one of them away. If control of the U. S. senate is in the balance, I could not be responsible for keeping people like Leahy, Boxer, and Harkin in charge of committees. The most important vote is for organization. Then come the issue votes. I can get 55% vs. 10% of what I want from Mr. Castle and stop the worst abuses.
Okay, Smitty what you wrote makes sense. (for the first time all week–but a lot of sense) I think that is the balance I am trying to find. I am not sure exactly where that is so join me on my journey.
“If control of the U. S. senate is in the balance, I could not be responsible for keeping people like Leahy, Boxer, and Harkin in charge of committees. The most important vote is for organization. Then come the issue votes. I can get 55% vs. 10% of what I want from Mr. Castle and stop the worst abuses.” – David
That’s not YOUR job to control the Senate David. It’s your JOB to vote on principle. That’s not an ideological line damnit. I say the same thing to my liberal boss and I KNOW she is a Socialist. She should vote for a Socialist. I’m fine with that and she does that and I love her for it because at least she’s HONEST.
I’ll tell you I LOVED Bill Clinton because he was completely full of shit and he NEVER pretended not to be. Everytime he lied he had a shit eating grin on his face like a class clown picking on the teacher. He was everntually held in check by Newt (don’t get me started on that guy either) but even when Clinton was unchained he was a breath of fresh air.
The Obama administration is hiding everything they are doing and have been for some time. It’s the fact that most of America and indeed most of his voters wouldn’t have voted for Obama if they knew then what they know now.
The fact is that most of America (including me by the way) is somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum. My views are scattered throughout the left and right of the spectrum. I think what we’re missing here in this discussion of moderates/purists is that there is a loss of identity with both parties.
The GOP was essentially the party of the Founders. People can dispute that all they want but really if you follow the divisions and splits MOST of the Founders would fall in the group of men who founded the Republican Party. Jefferson and Hamilton are among the exceptions although compared to todays parties Jefferesonian-Democrats would have been right of both of the major political parties.
The Democrat Party was essentially the bigger government wing of the founders (people like Hamilton who during the Convention suggested we setup a Monarchy with a ruling class). The fact that we had one party at the time who was grounded on one side and the other grounded ont he other it kept the balance that existed during the forming years of our nation.
We started with the Founding Fathers. No parties, just individual platforms. Then some parties began to form but they were small and often localized. Eventually power was consolidate to a two party syste, but really up until the 1860′s power was never really consolidated by party. The reason was that the President and Vice President were as likely to be rivals politically as they were to be friends. Differences of opinions, moderates, purists , progressives, conservatives are what this nation was built on. The 3 headed eagle is the representation of America.
The 3 heads of government (branches)
The two wings (left and right)
and the body (America as it leans generally in one direction or another) rooted in freedom and individual liberty by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
We’ve lost it today so what we see in this debate is a loss of the idea of a political moderate because what we have is the Democrat Party being largely under Socialist/Marxist ideological control and the GOP being largely infected by Corporate interests.
The parties have left the nation. Most of America is right of BOTH parties because most of America wants less government than either of the parties are willing to concede to. These days being a moderate means you’re just right of Karl Marx which causes a deep divide between people like myself who idolize the founders. There is such a divide between where the majority of the country stands (close to the founders) and where the parties stand (close to Marx) that we often attack one another without really understanding it. It’s time to stop worrying about the parties and deciding if you stand with the Founders on a particular issue or if you stand with Marx. If you’re in the middle that’s fine.
It’s not the moderate that is the problem, it’s the location of the parties in the political spectrum.
People like Teddy Roosevelt came along in the early 1900′s and those progressives shifted the Republican Party to the left. In turn the Democrats shifted further left.
Neither party is anywhere CLOSE to the founders and neither party is anywhere close to the founders. Teddy Roosevelt by all rights should be considered a Democrat, left of center. Unfortunately the political establishment has done what Jefferson, Monroe, Franklin and Washington told us they would do and moved the “center” along with the parties.
That’s why either the parties must realign, which means the GOP must fill its ranks with Conservatives and yank the party back to where it belongs OR the GOP should dissolve and allow its members to choose a new “conservative” party or join the Democrats. Todays GOP is Democrat lite and you see the evidence of that in New York’s 23rd District right now. You can SEE people there voting on principle and realigning with or without the parties.
You can SEE people there voting on principle and realigning with or without the parties. EvanQ
True, that is my warning to the GOP. I see the same thing, you welcome it and I am concerned by it, but it must come.
Teddy Roosevelt by all rights should be considered a Democrat…
Ungh. TR brough sanity to an otherwise engourging pig of a party at the time. The corporate whores were running the show. Careful, I am a pro-business mind, but what was happening then in the time of monopolies, oligopilies and thrifts was outright criminal. He was the sorely needed gut-check. He also didn’t take marching orders from anyone other than those he served. Party bosses tell him what to do? No, don’t think so. He restored sanity that Taft couldn’t undo fast enough. How did Taft get Roosevelt to support his presidential bid, though? Cons and lies, that’s how. So, which is the honorable path? Roosevelt or Taft?