Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters. The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.
[. . .] Since neither side has a monopoly on truth, the hard part is knowing when to look beyond traditional orthodoxies to do what works. [. . .] Contrast the collapse of a conservative president with the success of the last centrist president. Bill Clinton ran on an agenda of sensible ideas that brought America a decade of peace and prosperity. He was the only Democrat to be elected and reelected president in the past seven decades, and he left office more popular than almost any other president in recent memory.
[. . .] Democrats will need a broad, enduring majority -- and a centrist agenda that sustains it by making steady progress. [. . .] our leading presidential candidates seem to understand that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That's why they have begun putting forward smart, New Democrat plans to cap and trade carbon emissions, give more Americans the chance to earn their way through college, achieve universal health care through shared responsibility, increase national security by rebuilding our embattled military and enable all Americans who work full time to lift themselves out of poverty. [My emphasis.]
Myself, I don't fault O'Malley for spouting these platitudes. This was CW at the time in the Beltway. Of course we've been fighting this CW since the web site was created. But pols are pols and do what they do. Even when it's the wrong thing.
To his credit, O'Malley abandoned these platitudes when governing Maryland. All I'm saying is remember that a pols' job is to get elected. An activist's (and voters') job is to convince pols that they should do what the activist (and voters) think is right, and make it electorally sound.
Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley are traditional pols. They do what pols do. Bernie Sanders is of course NOT a traditional pol. He's running now and succeeding now because what he believes has become fairly mainstream Dem views. That's what makes him "authentic." Actually being authentic.
But authenticity only gets you so far, and when we look at the run of the mill pols in this race, let's not pretend that what they are saying now results from some great conversion, it's because the political winds have shifted. And that's the nature of politics.
It's what pols do.
