Talk Elections

Many on this forum have said that the Democratic party needs to move to the right. Here I outline several problems with this argument.

1. Liberals already realize that very liberal candidates generally can't win. That's why they support more moderate candidates like Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, and Paul Hackett. Of course some people confused "outspoken" with "liberal". Someone like Cindy Sheehan would probably not be a good candidate.

2. Let's look at the Socialist party of the teens and '20s. They didn't exactly do well electorally. Now look at their platform. Funny, most of that has happened without the Socialist party ever winning. That's right, by running on those issues, they entered the political discourse, and were actually later implemented by their opponents.

3. The Democratic party may be the big tent party, however lets look at Zell Miller. Hehas a 96 rating from the ACU, supports the worst President ever, and while NY is subsidizing his state said that New Yorkers don't deserve to have a commission looking into why 9/11 happened and how to prevent it in the future, because such a commission would "be encouraging the terrorists". Crazy right-wingers like George Allen and Bill Frist had more moderate ACU ratings. Clearly Zell Miller is no Democrat, and anyone who doesn't understand that isn't a Democrat either.

4. Suppose the Democratic party does as some "Democrats" suggest and move halfway between the current Democratic party and the Republican party. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this would quickly move the country to the right, and encourage the Republican party to move even further right

5. What would happen to the liberals if they were completely abandoned as opposed to the current mostly abandoned? They would stop voting Democrat, they would either stay home or vote 3rd party. They would stop giving money to, volunteering their time for, and arguing in support of the Democratic party.

6. What would be the message that swing voters get? If the Democratic party were to move to the right, and like many "Democrats" on this forum spend more time criticizing the powerless left than the hard-right that runs this country, people would notice that even the Democratic party seems to think that conservative ideas are better than liberal ideas. The Republican ideology would win. However, the Democratic party would still be chasing the Republican party, and people would realize this and vote for the Republican party over the Republican lite party.

7. What is it that "centrists" have to offer America? They seemed to all be behind the Iraq war? Thanks to them, Bush was able to invade a country for no good reason, hurting the war against Al Qaeda, hurting our credibility worldwide, and blowing several hundred billion dollars. I, like most voters, want real leadership, not someone who just follows ideas of Bush.

8. The Democratic party has the public on its side on quite a lot of issues. 88% support raising the federal minimum wage. 65% support Roe v. Wade, and so on. On health care, many Democrats don't even seem to be in the majority here:
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The Democratic party's problems are not where they are on the issues, but on getting their message out through the hostile media controlled by the right-wingers. The media would rather talk about anything besides the important issues. Bush went down in flames both times amoung people who said that the issues were the most important.

9. I leave you with a poll. NBC March 31st to April 3rd, 2005.

"Which of the following roles would you like to see the Democrats in Congress play? (A) Work in a bipartisan way with Republicans to help pass President Bush's legislative priorities so that we do not have gridlock. OR, (B) Provide a balance to make sure that President Bush and the Republicans do not go too far in pushing their agenda."

63% choose option B, stand up for what is right. Only 30% choose option A, help pass Bush plan.

http://www.pollingreport.com/congress.htm

Added another point.

this is actually a decent argument by jfern.  Good post, and I hope more quality ones to come.

I haven't had a chance to read much of this, but it looks well-thought out and interesting.  I'm marking it for when I get home.

It does have a couple of flaws, but much of it is true.

Zell Miller has become a pretty crazy rightwinger, although he was very different just ten years ago apparently; and he said Dean was a "more moderate" (read: liberal) ... which is objectively spot-on.

Well done, JFern.  I give you credit on this one.  As far as phony centrism, the proper solution is to redefine what the Democratic party is.  Get rid of the "big tent" concept and establish what your core views are, and make sure your politicians match those views.  This will, of course, shock the party initially, but it will shake out all the true centrists and moderates out of the Democratic party, leaving it with it's liberal core. 

The cast-offs can finally form a true moderate party, and pull into it some of the centrist/moderate Republicans, providing a better representation of what America really is.  We could end up with the Republicans, Democrats, and the Populists, with the Constitution, Libertarian, Green, Reform, and other parties gaining more political recognition and strength with the reduction in the domination by the two existing parties.

Now THAT I would love to see.  :)

Dean talks like a liberal but governed as a moderate.

Note that I am not saying that the Democratic party must become ideologically pure.



Zell Miller is no moderate, he had a 96 ACU rating in 2004, placing him to the right of Allen and Frist.

Dean had a fairly moderate record as governor of Vermont, including an A rating from the NRA. His health care plan was less expensive than most or all of his Democratic primary rivals. He turned deficits into surpluses, even though Vermont is the sole state that isn't required to balance its budget. Just because the media tries to paint him a certain way doesn't mean that its true.

jfern is, as usual, completely correct.  However, alas, liberalism is having difficulty ascending to electoral success because of :
1) hatred of gays, blacks, and women, (aka religion) and
2) irrational xenophobic nationalism (aka the 'war on terror'). 
I see no way of overcoming these two monumental stupidities in the average american drone/voter.

Agreed, MODU. ^_^

Dean was quite moderate as governor.  Endorsed by the NRA everytime he ran for re-election, balanced the budget every year he was governor, cut taxes, etc...  He didnt shift 'hard left' utill he ran for president.

As do I.

I really have to take a look at the times that either party moved to the edges, 1964 and 1972.  Not good models.

Some good points there, JFern.

Obviously, though, the Roe v Wade question is misguided because few people actually know what the ruling does.  Only about 15% actually support complete legalization of abortion.

Yes, but we wouldn't vote for a party that did not support complete legalization of abortion.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzz..... what a bore, liberalism is taking a rather extended nap in our country for a looong time, time to see that and either support pretty faced "moderates" or stay on your kook fringe and achieve nothing for a long time

And if there is a declared Socialist in the Senate in 2006 and we've got someone to the left of Clinton as POTUS in 2008? =)

Who and Who and what does your little lsd trip get done in office with Legislatures held by conservatives?  =)

Socialist in the Senate:  Bernie Sanders
Liberal in the Whitehouse:  Russ Feingold (as my personal favorite example =)

Oh and the Dems will have an actual majority in the house and an effective majority in the senate in 2006 and an actual majority in the senate in 2008.

That's true but we (I'll use to refer to my wing of the Democratic party from here on) also have to make concessions.  In a perfectly balanced electorate, a Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman may elicit a challenge from the left and throw an election to the Republicans.  Instead, we compromise on types such as John Kerry or the ones listed above (although I probably wouldn't include Feingold).


That's a point but you realize forming a splinter party would probably give a minimum of 10-20 years of Republican control.  Additionally, I don't think a majority of the country would ever come to support your ideology the way that it eventually did in the 1930s (I don't mean in an insulting way.


Agreed.  Zell Miller is not a Democrat and doesn't even come close to our ideology.


I disagree.  Let's take a look at Bill Clinton.  I think you and I agree he's from my wing of the Democratic party.  In the 2000 election, Bush campaigned as a moderate and won.  The reason the Republican party has been able to move to the right and win elections is because of 9/11 not due to Clinton's rightward-Democratic leanings.


But would that by counteracted by the 11% of Democrats who voted for Bush and the moderate independents more likely to vote Democratic?


Speaking as one of the "Democrats" you mention, I post about an even number of liberal and conservative ideas.  My liberal posts generally go unnoticed while my conservative ones are blasted and made more public by the likes of yourself, Progress and opebo (not picking on you guys).


I personally opposed the Iraq War from the onset unlike liberals Hillary Clinton, Byron Dorgan, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.


The reason that minimum wage isn't an issue is that the Republicans have been able to adopt a more moderate platform and not call for the repeal of the minimum wage (the opposite of what you're proposing the Democrats do).  On abortion, pro-life activists are much more vocal than pro-choice ones which helps the Republicans overcome that deficit.


That question is a bit loaded.  Of course no Democrat (except maybe Zell Miller) wants to see all of Bush's priorites passed, as option A replies, that's why we're not Republicans.

Well-thought out points though, jfern.

Ben Nelson will easily win his primary. Connecticut can do a lot better than Joe Lieberman.


I didn't suggest starting a splinter problem, I was just pointing out that short-term winning elections isn't everything, and would hurt you in the long term if you sacrificed bringing up the issues that needed to be brought up.


OK



Clinton's charisma helped quite a bit. Also, he was originally more liberal, but party disunity in Congress stopped his health care plan, and lost us Congress.



A lot of those "Democrats" are just DINOs. Some fraction of Republicans voted for Kerry too. Sometimes people are just slow at changing their voter ID.

You're right, I have noticed you making some good posts that I didn't respond to.

How is Reid a liberal? Or some of those others. Either Dorgan is a liberal who wins in North Dakota, or he's not a liberal.


88% support raising the minimum wage. They didn't ask how many wanted to get rid of it. Obviously it was less than 12%.  I'd hardly call the most extreme subgroup of 12% of the population the moderate position.

As for your example with abortion, there's a number of factors
1. Media tends to be pro-Republican
2. The Republicans are powerful and are on message
3. The Democrats aren't so good at unity and being on message



Thank you.

Speaking of phony centrism, Killary needs to drop the act.  She's not fooling anyone.

Good point.  She is in reality right-leaning.

Lay off the crack, Opie.

To say that Cindy Sheehan would probably not be a good candidate is an understatement . Dean, Feingold and Hackett are, arguably, moderate . However, Dean can be his own worst enemy in that he allows those on the Right to demonise him. I'd gladly support Feingold or Hackett


Zell was a good governor, who seemed to lose his way in the Senate. He's too conservative for my tastes. Could I ever support him after he blowed sunshine where the sun don't shine (i.e. up  Bush's backside)? Yes, if he was ever running against the likes of Saxby Chambliss


The task facing the Democrats in 2008 is to select a "ticket", who can consolidate the liberal base as well as reaching out to sufficient enough moderates and moderate conservatives to coast them to victory. As things stand, an ideologically polarising election (i.e. liberal Democrat vs conservative Republican) favours the GOP. As to if as the Democrats move right and the GOP further right, I don't know but I would think there is a point at which the GOP would be too rightwing for most Americans to stomach. If polls are to be believed, the US does not have a conservative majority. Democrats need to use that to their advantage


Well, if they do that they reap what they sow ::). Continued GOP dominance in the White House and on Capitol Hill. I don't suffer self-defeatism


I have, and will, continue to criticise the left of the Democratic Party. I'm a populist, I hold moderate economically left-of-center ideals and I'm mildly center-right, as a whole (but by no means exclusively), on social issues. I don't think any one could ever accuse me of being Republican-lite. I'm every bit a strongly Democratic partisan. I'm also a 'Defense Democrat' in the 'Scoop' Jackson tradition


Yes, I support the Iraq War and I'd so again. Bush, however, has made a cackhanded job of it - it was to be expected ::) - and it's good to see defense Democrats, like Evan Bayh, criticising him up on it. It's a shame Lieberman isn't. Personally, I'd like the Democratic Party outhawk the GOP and return to its once proud past. By fecklelssly abandoning, a 'Trumanite' defense policy Democrats allowed an inferior-calibre of GOP presidents to realise the great man's vision


That it does especially when it comes to a wide range of domestic issues (such as the economy, education and healthcare) and it should be using these to its electoral advantage. However, I seriously doubt that 65% support Roe vs Wade. I'd guess a majority support abortion with restrictions. As for the media, those on the Right would claim that the media is by-and-large hostile to Bush! The biggest policy challenge facing the Democrats is to convince the electorate that they are credible on the GOP's trump issues - defense and national security. Furthermore, they somehow need to counter the increasing saliency of hot-botton social issues, which Karl Rove has exploited to great effect


The Democrats need to come up with their own legislative agenda and sell those ideas to the American electorate. On some issues, bi-partisanship can be a good thing (for a start, any Democratic Senator or Representative is dependent on it to further their own pet, and often admirable, pieces of legislation); I agree, however, that Democrats (as the opposition party)should provide a balance to ensure that the execesses of the Bush agenda is thwarted wherever possible. That said, the Democrats shouldn't be obstructionist just for the sake of it and must come up with better alternatives to what Bush and the GOP are proposing

You've made some good points Jfern :), but you and I are never going to agree 100% down the line. A move to the 'center' could, if applied successfully, render the Republicans the minority but the Democrats must address their weaknesses (perceived or real) in order for that to happen. If they don't, then they can look forward to enjoying minority status on the Beltway for the foreseable future - and, if that happens, the Democratic Party will acheive very little, if anything at all, at the federal level

Dave

I was referring to the national electorate, not individual states.  Certianly I wouldn't expect the left to challenge Nelson in NE the same way I wouldn't expect moderate Democrats to mount a challenge to Ted Kennedy.


I understand your point but I think it would take a major national event (something on par with the Great Depression) for a majority of Americans to accept your ideology.


But by the time Clinton left office in 2000, I think Republicans and Democrats alike saw him as more of a centrist.


That's true some old-style "Southern Democrats" do exist, but Bush won 93% of Republicans, where as Kerry won 89% of Democrats.  Something needs to be changed there for a Democrat to win.


Reid might not have been a good example since he's really only swung to the left since he became Minority Leader (do you think he would have voted against Roberts if he weren't Minority Leader?).  Dorgan has a lifetime ACU rating of 18 and if you look at his voting record he is fairly liberal.  I know you hate this point, but he did appear in Fahrenheit 9/11 something I wouldn't expect a centrist to do.


I misread your statistic on minimum wage, but if I remember correctly the Republicans did try some half-assed attempt at raising the minimum wage (I think it was Santorum IIRC) so Republicans can at least say the "tried".  As for your abortion points, I'm not sure I necessarily agree with #1, they just seem to be pro-John McCain but in some cases the only Democrats who are going to win are pro-life ones (take a look at Tim Holden, Gene Taylor or Collin Peterson's districts).  The same holds true for Republicans though.

I couldn't agree more TC.  We now have an anti-freedom Religious Party and the party that, well, at least isn't extremely right wing or extremely religious.  It stands for nothing except that it isn't the problem. 

On the bright side, though, life is so horrifically bad for the majority of americans now, and rapidly getting worse, that one can only hope even the stupid ones will begin to understand who is doing it to them.

You should take that show on the road, funny man.

Go form your own party then, split the vote so the Republicans can win. Great idea! ;D

Bump - it seems that the ""centrists" know they can't win this argument, and so have to resort to stupid opinion polls like this one.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=40784.msg905198#msg905198

I would like to see the Democrats move slightly to the center, especially on social issues, but overall I think the party really needs to redefine its image rather than change its positions. Point out how and why Democratic positions are better for the country rather than just getting into name-calling and being the party that is against everything. Have a positive agenda for what would be done if/when we win control and then implement it.

I agree that "phony" centrism would be bad, but the ability to reach out to the middle certainly is a postive thing for any politician. You have to articulate your ideology in an effort to move the country in your direction rather than being completely reactive to the electorate, but at the same time, you have to have your finger on the nation's political pulse and have a realistic view of what you can and can't get accomplished, and be willing to compromise where appropriate and necessary.

The dems need to move right on economics and left on social views. Also drop support for enforcement of victimless crime laws/the war on drugs but support a draconian response to non-victimless crimes.

Come on Frodo, surely you can intelligently debate this instead of calling me JFraud.

Frodo hasn't posted here, and no one has called you JFraud.

Ah, I think you mean that everyone is calling him Jfern.

I also do agree that, overall, Dr. Dean was a moderate.

Thanks. :)

Why is phony "extremism" good for the Democratic party?

I generally agree with this. Dean, Feingold, etc. really aren't that liberal, although they are portrayed this way. Unfortunately, perception is reality in politics.


Very true, and I agree that on many key issues Democrats need to stand up for principle, and that even in defeat principles can still be advanced.


I agree that Miller has gone pretty far right; he used to be a great Governor. ACU ratings aren't everything of course, but he clearly was a DINO by the end of his term, in that he really didn't support the Democrats on anything that I can see. I don't use that term lightly, but I think here it applies.


I'm not so sure I agree with this. I think that the American people affect where the parties are politically a lot more than the parties affect the political views of the people. Although there is some truth to this, the cause/effect relationship is mostly the opposite in my opinion.


True, and obviously Dems don't want to lose their current base. The trick is to get more moderates to vote for us without losing the base; that's the difficult balancing act any party faces. Clinton was an excellent example of someone who was able to do this quite well, and I think that's the model we should follow.


Well, again, I'm not sure I agree. To a certain extent, yes; obviously good arguments can persuade people to change their views. A very charismatic liberal candidate certainly could win, although a liberal starts out at a disadvantage compared to a moderate. It's not like a liberal couldn't win, but they have more obstacles to overcome.

On this I agree in the sense that centrism often is assosciated with spinelessness and not showing leadership; however, centrism most certainly does not have to be this way by any means and there are lots of very principled centrist politicians like Clinton. Again, follow that Clinton model, I say.


I agree that the Dems do a poor job of stressing the issues that people agree with us on; we too often let the Republicans set the agenda nationally. I think that Democrats as a rule tend to be more passive people while Republicans are more likely to be more aggressive and thus the GOP has a tendency to be more likely to steer the national debate and control which issues get more or less importance in the campaign.

Paul Krugman nails it here:



http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/opinion/16krugman.html

Has it occured to you that it's not because you're liberal, but because you're an arse to everyone that disagrees with you?

Say what?

That seems like a fairly straightforward English sentence to me.

More like a fairly garbled, if grammatically correct, English sentence.  It took me two or three passes before I understood it.

Here's a translation: "Has it occured to you that that poll was created not because you're liberal, but because you're an arse to everyone that disagrees with you?"

LOL

Uh, if anything, he is correct. Moderates helped take the House and the Senate for the Dems last year.

Yeah, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester are so moderate. Hell, that's why almost every Democrat elected ran as supportive of the war and Bush's policies.

Yeah but Senator Webb is rather moderate and him being a moderate mattered. That's why you have the Senate. Take a look at the House, too.

By the way, running against the war doesn't necessarily make one a liberal.

Webb may have been seen as a moderate at the time, but he sure as hell hasn't acted or voted like a moderate since taking office.

What about my Rep Tim Walz who recently said in a speech that Bush is too preoccupied with fighting terrorism? Of course that's not what he literally meant, it's just the media taking his remarks out of context and distorting it, but it's certainly not the type of thing you'd expect a "moderate" to say.

The point was running and winning as a moderate, not how they end up acting. Seeing Webb as a middle of the road kind of guy allowed him to win that seat.


Again, how you are perceived during an election and how you act afterwards are two different things. The subject was winning elections.

Walz also campaigned as a liberal. So did Patrick Murphy and basically every seat that we picked up in the Northeast.

Pat Murphy didn't campaign as a liberal and even if he did, that's not the point. He won because he was a young Iraq vet and his supporters will tell you the same. Just as I started worrying that we might not get that seat back, I learned that the Dems are very worried about losing it (one prominent activist is already conceding the seat).

Anyway, you picked up a good deal of those seats by campaigning as liberals but not "basically every seat." You certainly didn't get PA 4 or 10 because your candidates ran as liberals. Same with PA 8. That leaves you with a handful of other pickups in the NE and even with those pickups, you needed moderates in the rest of the country to win the majority that you now have.

OK, here's every House pickup:

AZ-5: Mitchell - moderate
AZ-8: Giffords - liberal
CA-11: McNerney - liberal
CO-7: Perlmutter - liberal
CT-2: Courtney - liberal
CT-5: Chris Murphy - liberal
FL-16: Mahoney - moderate
FL-22: Klein - liberal
IN-2: Donnelly - moderate
IN-8: Ellsworth - moderate
IN-9: Hill - moderate
IA-1: Braley - liberal
IA-2: Loebsack - liberal
KS-2: Boyda - liberal
KY-3: Yarmuth - liberal
MN-1: Walz - liberal
NH-1: Shea-Porter - liberal
NH-2: Hodes - liberal
NY-19: Hall - liberal
NY-20: Gillibrand - liberal
NY-24: Arcuri - moderate
NC-11: Schuler - moderate
OH-18: Space - liberal
PA-4: Altmire - moderate (although I noticed in his ads it said "Melissa Hart votes with George Bush and Rick Santorum 98% of the time)
PA-7: Sestak - liberal
PA-8: Pat Murphy - liberal (you said so yourself Phil you couldn't think of anything he was conservative on)
PA-10: Carney - moderate
TX-22: Lampson - moderate
TX-23: Rodriguez - liberal
WI-8: Kagen - liberal

That's 20 liberals, which by itself was enough to flip the House.

And in the Senate, the only really moderate Democrat elected was McCaskill (Casey sure as hell isn't moderate on economic issues)

You may think those people are liberal and most of them probably are but the point was that they campaigned on issues that didn't stress a left-right divide. They did not win by stressing their liberal stances.

I understand that I said Murphy isn't moderate on a thing (which is only partially true - he did vote against the budget because of tax hikes) but he didn't stress ideology. Why do you think he went to the Blue Dogs?

What you say is partially true. It's true that outside of a handful of districts, the candidates didn't say "vote for me because I'm a liberal". However campaigning against the war IS a left wing issue and most of the issues they covered (even the moderate ones) were.

However if we can win a true liberal majority regardless of how campaigning is done, and elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, it's safe to say that "liberalism is taking a rather extended nap in our country for a looong time" is hardly true.

Great job being centrist, Democrats!

INteresting thread personal I think the issue matters more than some meta-aspect whether you're centrist or leftist. Raising the minimum wage and supporting SSM are both "leftist", but do you think these two issue gain support from the same voters? The voter segment may overlap sometimes, but it's not the same.

As I see it, the democrats pushing for more left issue, do it on areas which are primary focus on social issue, like minority rights. These doesn't necessary mean anything good for White bluecollar workers, they don't gain any  benefit with a immigration reform or affirmative action, in fact the former directly hurt them (by increasing the supply of low skilled workers), while the other indirectly hurt them (by using tax money on other groups).