The essential centrist

[AUYellowDog]

Sorry, I've got to defend them. This is politics, which is all about getting votes. When electing someone, you must get 50% + 1 votes to win. Ideological purists do not get that much. In primaries candidates run to the base, and in generals, they run to the center. Assuming party base is 40% (which they are realistically), you've got to pull 11% + 1 votes. In this case, electoral votes. The job of ideological purists is bring issues to light. Do you think Kusinich really is trying to win? No, he's trying to bring issues to the forefront.

In 2004 I was a huge Edwards supporter. However, he is moving so far to the left in primaries, I'm begining to fear that he has no chance at the general. The job of a centrist is to lean one way or another. Change in government is best when gradual. A left leaning centrist will drift that way, and a right leaning centrist will drift that way (or in the case of our current administration, pretend to be a centrist, then bolt for the right immediately after inauguration day).

All in all, ideologues bring issues to the attention of centrist candidates. Centrists get elected to office, ideologues (such as an alleged Mass. liberal), don't.

Brandon

[redqueen]

1. People with cronies on the SCOTUS get elected to POTUS.

;)

I'm voting Kucinich in the primaries, and there's absolutely nothing anyone can say that will dissuade me from doing so.

[ryanmuegge]

2. Well, what's "far left" now was "far right" before Reagen.

Meaning, the mainstream leftists (Edwards) would have been right-wing extremists in the late 60s and 50s. Really, Edwards is not going that far to the right. The Reagen/Bush/Gingrich/Rove/economic royalist PR machine has just done such a good job of depicting class consciousness in a negative way and making it extreme.

Of course, this excludes social issues like gay marriage, aborition, which do not really mean anything anyway.

[AUYellowDog]

5. I actually like most of what Edwards has to say

But you can't get elected saying "I'm going to raise taxes on people with incomes over 200,000" because they will cut the sound byte off after the word taxes.

[Czolgosz]

3. The current (p)Resident was not a centrist, but Gore was; Dole was an unsuccessful centrist; Bush

ran as a centrist in 92' and lost; Reagan was twice elected and neither time did he run as a centrist, but he beat centrist Carter in '80; Ford was an unsuccessful centrist . . . .

Here is a thoughtful article reaching a position contrary to your conclusion: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11435

[wyldwolf]

6. Clinton was a centrist and won twice. Carter was centrist in '76

Bush in '88. Truman, kennedy, LBJ...

http://www.amazon.com/Independent-Nation-Centrism-American-Politics/dp/1400050243/sr=8-1/qid=1172251337/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-2781304-1102839?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Czolgosz]

8. Clinton won twice as a centrist, but both times he ran against centrists. Same with Carter.

But when we have had a centrist run against an opponent who did not run as a centrist, it seems like you have to go back to Johnson to find a centrist who beat a non-centrist.


John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira wrote an excellent piece discussing this issue for the American Prospect in an article called "The Politics of Definition." Here's a link: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11435

[wyldwolf]

9. variables at play

Al Gore was a centrist and did "beat" GW Bush. In 1980, Carter was on the tail end of an unsuccesful presidency, parts of which were his doing and parts which were not.

But, turning it around, examine the successes of candidates left of center against idealogues or centrists. Humphrey (founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Americans for Democratic Action) lost to Nixon, McGovern lost to Nixon, Mondale lost to Reagan. Dukakis lost to Bush. Kerry (centrist or "progressive," depending on who you ask) lost to Bush.

I've read the link you provided. However, I've also read volumes of books on the subject.

[Radical Activist]

4. Bush is no centrist.

Republicans have won by turning out their base and making their conservatism appeal to moderates without becoming moderate. We tried being centrists in the last two elections and it didn't work. Clinton couldn't even win a majority of the popular vote.
There's more than one way to skin a cat and there's more than one way to win a national election.

[thethinker]

7. You need to get out more

and talk to people that voted for Reagan and Bush. Listen to them. There is a huge cross over vote from the republicans. They will be voting for whom ever promises to end this war and get them some single-payer health care. The mid-term election showed us this.

Things change, and they change rapidly. This idea that candidates from the center win is yesterday's news. It may have never been true. It was more of a way of explaining things than actual fact. Corporate money explains this better than people wanting a centrist candidate.

This is not the same world it was 6 years ago. The republicans and independents know this as well as we do. People don't give a damn who is center, left or right. They want the insane war ended, they want health care, they want immigration under control, they want out sourcing of jobs stopped, etc.

The republican's can no longer control their base with silly issues that really don't matter.