Why phony "centrism" is bad for the Democratic party

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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

[Keystone Phil]

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.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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)

[Keystone Phil]

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?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.

[Reignman]

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

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Great job being centrist, Democrats!

[ingemann]

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).