Politics: Defining The Middle

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:14:47 AM EST
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My old saw is

Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.

Stoller points to an LATimes article that demonstrates too many "anonymous" Dem strategists do not understand this central pointt:

Phil and Sue Waters helped organize their suburban Denver megachurch to campaign for an anti-gay-marriage referendum on last year's state ballot. But even these core GOP voters are feeling less excited about pitching in for the party's candidates in 2008. . . . "I'm still a Republican, but I'm very close to being an independent," said Phil Waters. "I'm closer to the middle than I used to be because of the way the Republicans have screwed things up."

Now what would a political consultant garner from this? Here's what the "anonymous" ones in the LATimes article "discovered:"

Democratic analysts say the 2006 election underscored the importance of downplaying partisanship and campaigning to the middle.

Idiots. Downplaying partisanship in AN ELECTION!! But of course this has ALWAYS been their advice no matter if Dems win or lose. Instead of recognizing that this is a great opportunity to redefine Democrat ideals as centrist and Republicans ideologues as extremist, these "anonymous" Dem strategists want to blur distinctions. Another LATimes story demonstrates just how stupid an idea this is:

RAYMORE, MO. -- Talk about a nasty divorce. In an announcement last month that left Missouri politicos agape, state Sen. Chris Koster, a rising Republican star and chairman of the Senate's GOP caucus, abruptly declared himself a Democrat.
Not only did Koster join the marginalized minority party in Missouri, but he did so with a thundering speech that lambasted his former colleagues as ignoring the needs of their constituents and slavishly following the dictates of "religious extremists."

The former prosecutor denounced several Republican positions he had once supported, such as steep cuts in Medicaid coverage and subsidized family-planning programs.

But Koster reserved his harshest criticism for GOP efforts to overturn a voter-approved constitutional amendment that protects embryonic stem-cell research in Missouri.
"The Republican desire is to criminalize early-stage stem-cell research in our state," Koster said in a speech he repeated three times as he hopscotched across the state. "Go to Boston for your Nobel Prize; come to Missouri for your leg irons. And the Missouri Republican Party not only tolerates this lunacy, but embraces it," Koster said.

But blurring distinctions is the ticket say "anonymous" Dem strategists. Is there any doubt that "anopnymous" Dem strategists are easily the dumbest people on Earth?

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Politics: Defining The Middle | 26 comments (26 topical)

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So it takes a Republican state Senator (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:17:43 AM EST

to teach us about the politics of contrast?

Also a PA state rep.

They'll never learn (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:19:02 AM EST

these "anonymous" Dem strategists.


These guys try to copy the Bill Clinton formula (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:24:10 AM EST

But they forget two things:

1) Bill Clinton is special, and he could sell sun to the gods;

and

2) What made sense as a political strategy in 1996 probably doesn't today.


Clinton did not blur the distinctions (none / 0) (#6)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:25:54 AM EST

He SAID he was the Center. People don't get it.


Well, that's the advanced class ;-) (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:28:33 AM EST

: Send them all to (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:40:23 AM EST

Anonymous School.

Please (5.00 / 2) (#11)
by Dadler on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 12:51:09 PM EST

Bill Clinton was/is a huge blur. From his bullsh*t welfare reform to his cowardly stance on gays in the military, to his luck in being president during one of the biggest financial illusions in American memory, and on and on.

For all his strengths, Clinton, like almost every pol in America these days, entirely lacked an imagination.

He corporatized the Democratic party like no one else before him. That has hurt the party more than any dipsh*t pundit or strategist. It was during the Clinton years that the differences between Dem and Repub became fewer and fewer.

Bush is the worst president in history, Clinton the single most disappointing.


I'll second that (1.00 / 1) (#23)
by aahpat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 09:47:45 PM EST

Clinton inspired me to quit the Democratic Party and become an Independent. His world record prison population of mostly poor urban minorities set the state for all democrats coming after him to campaign more to the right because he had done so much damage to the electoral viability of urban poor and minorities.

The Clinton's much vaunted "middle class" is nothing but a buzz phrase for suburban and rural white. Both Clionton's pander to the divisive and sectarian 'family values' while turning themselves and the Democratic Party away from traditional constitutional values of human rights, civil liberties and social justice.

The Clinton's are the Jim Crow Dixie-crats of today. The Democratic Party today is more like the Dixie-crat Democratic Party of 1970 than it has ever been.


: I don't see how you could possibly (none / 0) (#24)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 10:03:08 PM EST

justify saying that. There are almost no Dixicrats left--they're Republicans now.

I think you need to rethink on this (none / 0) (#13)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 12:57:28 PM EST

Clinton was the "Centrist" President who -

RAISED taxes on the wealthy (38.5% top bracket).

LOWERED taxes for the poor (EITC)

Defended Affirmative Action.

Formalized allowing gays in the military

Defended social security FIRST against the Gingrich planned giveaway of tax breaks for the wealthy.

Could he have done more? Perhaps. I seriously doubt it.

The point is THAT was then, this is now.

The MIDDLE is over to the LEFT now.


All of that could be true (none / 0) (#15)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 01:18:30 PM EST

and in the face of the Gingrich revolution, I would still be right.


Let us add to his bullsh*t list, (none / 0) (#26)
by dkmich on Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 04:40:15 AM EST

media consolidation and NAFTA. Bill Clinton missed the middle by a -mile- million or two. The real middle is and needs to be defined based on economics, not on how people feel about gays, guns and god. The majority of people in this country are working poor, middle class, and working two parent professionals in the suburbs and cities trying to build a better life for themselves and their kids. They are too busy to really care about who is gay. So Bill Clinton catered to religious bigots and raised taxes on the working two parent professionals while never touching a dime of corporate welfare and helping Rupert Murdock to consolidate his fortunes. Please, no more revisionist Clinton history or Clinton's in the WH for that matter.


Thoughtful post (none / 0) (#3)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:20:30 AM EST

You sure they guy is a pol?


: heh (none / 0) (#5)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 11:25:20 AM EST

Yup.

Koster completely understands (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by Maryb2004 on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 03:34:39 PM EST

the politics of contrast. Common wisdom in Missouri is that Koster switched parties specifically so he could to run in the Democratic primary for Attorney General because Catherine Hanaway, the current US Attorney for the Eastern District of MO, will be running in the Republican Primary. She's a complete wingnut. It is unlikely he could have beaten her in the Republican primary running as a moderate Republican. There aren't enough moderate Republicans left in the state.

It remains to be seen if the long time Democrats running for AG will be able to use the politics of contrast during the primary to block his move or if enough people are frightened of Hanaway (perhaps rightfully frightened) that they are willing to nominate someone with very few Democratic credentials.

: Thanks for the background (none / 0) (#18)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 03:38:11 PM EST

And extremely interesting that a Republican knows how to negatively bramd other Republicans but Dems are clueless.
thanks.

Centrist is really right, but left is always evil (5.00 / 2) (#20)
by aahpat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 04:05:22 PM EST

I tend to dispute the characterization of Democratic pundits as centrist or the middle. Their policy initiatives, for the most part, are usually the same as the GOP. No, I think they successfully misrepresent themselves are the middle for two reasons. 1. they know that they would alienate too many core Democrats if they were honest about themselves. and 2. by defining themselves as the middle they can demonize anyone who is in the middle or on the left as left or extreme left. This has the effect of shoving these real middle and left Democrats toward the right as they try to become compatible with the self-mischaracterized "middle" that is really the right-wing of the Democratic Party.

For three dozen years the right wing has been relentless in both the dominance parties in recasting themselves as the middle and everyone to the left of them as extreme left. America's moderates, liberals and left have done nothing to counter this distortion of the American body politic.

Hall, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are cast as "liberals". This is absurd.

Hillary has Rupert Murdoch hosting her fund-raisers. Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton
Conservative Media Mogul To Host Fundraiser For Liberal N.Y. Senator

Obama, on his official senate web site, proudly proclaims his cosponsorship of the 2005 Meth Act that has had the real effect of giving the meth business over to Mexican gangs that have exploded onto America's streets with casual carnage these past two years.Barack Obama: A Stereotype of Conventional Wisdom

America has been pushed so far to the right that it simply does not know what right and left are anymore.

And the reason the pundits today universally advocate for bi-partisanship is because they know that any loyal opposition that organizes in America today will organize against them. Their bi-partisanship is a pre-emptive effort to demonize and marginalize any and all opposition to the right-wing in America.

: Sorry about the typos (none / 0) (#21)
by aahpat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 04:10:06 PM EST

"No, I think they successfully misrepresent themselves are"
Should be: No, I think they successfully misrepresent themselves as...
"Hall, Barack Obama and..."
Should be Hell, Barack Obama and...

Dem strategists are the dumbest people on earth... (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by lespool on Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 12:10:30 AM EST

--- They're either that or republicans.

thugs have defined middle at 20 (none / 0) (#9)
by seabos84 on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 12:14:11 PM EST

degrees off of zero --

think of a straight line
0 degrees is on the far right
90 degrees is in the middle
180 degrees is far left

the thugs have defined 'middle' to be almost far right, and

amoung the Dems, there are morons / political incompetents / sell outs who debate 'middle' on the fascist's terms.

there is 1 problem with the current 'middle'.

here is REALITY of 'the middle'. I'd say most people HATE both parties,
therefore they are 'independent' or some other label, but, when it comes to voting it comes down to who do they hate least when they vote. they aren't weighing different proposals, pros and cons ... who do they hate the most = who they won't vote for.

finally ... over 80% ? 90% ? of us don't want granny and gramps starving in the street so spreadsheet jockies got yachts OR their theiving bosses got yachts OR their crooked retirement managers got yachts OR
want your priest / rabbi / preacher / guru in his doctor's office OR her kid's classroom ...

we the middle peee-ons ain't even being close to being served by either party, and the 'anonymous' scum at the head of the Dem party who are too happy living large making excuses shoudl all be flushed.

rmm.

There is no middle ground (none / 0) (#10)
by Che's Lounge on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 12:49:39 PM EST

Just as there is no middle class. You are either for outright revamping of our economic structure, or you are an enabler of the corporate elite. But if you are for the former, we first must remove the elitist enablers from our government and the labor unions. We are being privatized right out of existence.

: Pretty sure (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 12:53:41 PM EST

that if you put it that way, I am with FDR and the lattter.
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be preaching Marxism-Lenism. Am I wrong?

: Sure sounds like Marxism to me (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by andgarden on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 01:17:39 PM EST

not my personal philosophy.

Was is 2006 or 1906? (none / 0) (#16)
by koshembos on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 02:10:27 PM EST

The elections in 2006 was won because of Iraq and the total unending corruption of the Republicans. The reason the Democratic pundit say otherwise is not only that they are idiots (some are and some aren't) but also because they belong to the establishment. They make money from the establishment, they see their future from the same source. For these guys bipartisanship is the establishment.

Peter Fenn, Democratic consultant and Hillary's advisor, makes money from Democrats but also from strike breakers (a good enough reason not to vote for Hillary). He may not be very wise but he succeeds due to being on both side of the continental divide.

NYT report on Hillary Clinton's (none / 0) (#19)
by oculus on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 03:55:16 PM EST

"new" campaign stump speech does not even mention Iraq. Really disappointing.

NTY re Clinton's new speech

No way (none / 0) (#22)
by chemoelectric on Mon Sep 03, 2007 at 08:53:43 PM EST

The dumbest people on Earth are the members of whatever class I was ever in, or at least that's what my teachers always claimed.