If Centrists Are Wrong, They're No Answer

[phantom power]

...it's a mistake to think that the politicians who have shown the most inclination to play nice with the other side are better people than the partisans, or that they'd be better leaders, or that they'd produce better policies. The problem in Washington isn't that there aren't enough Joe Liebermans or Bob Kerreys. And there's a reason that people who pay attention to politics do not like Chuck Hagel or Lamar Alexander or Ben Nelson. The best you can say for these folks is that they (very rarely) say something true that other politicians are unwilling to concede.

...

It's unclear how Ben Nelson, Chuck Hagel, or Lamar Alexanders' aversion to tax increases make them any different from the radical Republicans who traded a budget surplus for a $15 trillion debt.

I'm not saying the Democrats are right about everything, but the middle ground between the GOP and the Dems is already a dangerously delusional place that has been proven wrong about just about everything.

Perhaps most depressingly, that middle ground determines all legislative outcomes, which means you don't really need a Lierberman-Hagel ticket to wind up with the outcomes they desire. It still matters a great deal who controls the White House and Congress, but that's mainly for non-legislative reasons or because controlling the congressional calendar can limit the damage done by the other side. If President Lieberman and Vice-President Hagel had sat down to do health care reform in 2009. they probably would have produced something indistinguishable from the Affordable Care Act. That's not to take credit away from President Obama and Vice-President Biden, it's just to make clear that the "centrists" in Congress exercise effective veto power already. They don't need more power.

I'd be more interested in a campaign to ask why we still have a House of Lords, and why our House of Lords requires 60% to do anything. Without that little snag, we wouldn't need the parties to cooperate.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/1/16/95850/7494

[xchrom]

1. i have a generalized aversion to Centrists.

i think they are more responsible for the diminution of democracy in this country than just about anybody else.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. I think Gertrude Stein was speaking of Centrism when she said:

There is no there there.

[T S Justly]

3. Hell, even true centrists should be pissed at Obama ...

His policies more closely resemble the hard right's.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I believe that's because the "centrists" or "center"

isn't what the corporate media promotes them to be,



if this graph were anymore top heavy it would fall over on the right hand side.



Thanks for the thread, phantom power.

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Given the blatant, well recorded political drift, consistent centrists stand for nothing.

They are celebrating being in the middle car of a moving train, not standing on any kind of terra firma. If you stand for anything you are going to find yourself in a minority or a fringe some times, and be considered moderate other times. That's just how it is.

[pampango]

7. DU OP: Has anyone else noticed that Conservatives are killing the word Moderate?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002174049

Something liberals and conservatives can agree on? Moderates/centrists are bad.