Extremists and Ideologues Don’t Like Moderates
. . . but they need to learn to live with them. I recommend reading the Washington Post article The Woman in the Middle about Democratic congresswoman Ellen Tauscher of California. A number of left wing bloggers and other activists are apparently targetting her. They would like to replace her with a more liberal democrat. Now I’m not certain about her district, although she won re-election with 68% of the vote, but in general the Democrats will need moderate support if they are going to keep a majority in congress and elect a Democratic president.
My own political journey started in the Republican party, and watching as moderates and libertarians were progressively sidelined. I never switched to the Democratic party for one reason–the Democrats behave in precisely the same way. The Democrats should take to heart the message that the New Democrat contingent grew from 47 to 60 members. Those who want to call the last election a “liberal victory” had better think twice. Considering the state of the Republican party at the time, bogged down about Iraq, and seemingly careless in leadership, it’s not surprising that the “other guys” managed to win election. What should give Democratic strategists pause is that, with the massive opposition to President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, and the Foley scandal, they didn’t win a bigger victory than they did.
Liberal activists can end up destroying their potential to accomplish good things with the majority they have won by ignoring the moderates. The majority of the country is moderate. If you continue the search for ideological purity, you will simply write yourselves out of history. Governing involves compromise. Voters and activists together need to realize that. Compromise properly acknowledged and carried out openly is not deception or promise-breaking. It’s governing. If the Democratic left wing can’t get along with someone like Tauscher, I think they’re going to have a terribly difficult time maintaining a majority, or governing.
I actually switched to the Democrats out of protest in 2003. I will probably switch to Independent soon out of protest.
With both parties unfriendly to moderates and libertarians, we are ripe for a charismatic leader to form a new majority party.
I can’t imagine who it would be, though.
I don’t know of a good candidate right now. I’m certainly ready to look at one, though. I’m moderate, but my lean is largely libertarian, so I’m out of tune with the major parties on two counts.
The US politicians should look at what has been happening here in the UK. Tony Blair’s “New Labour” has dominated the political scene here for the last ten years simply because it captured the centre ground of moderates, having decisively turned away from the left wing policies which had kept the Labour party out of government for nearly twenty years. In response the Conservatives elected a series of right wing leaders who had no chance of winning a national majority. At last under David Cameron the Conservatives are trying to recapture a centre ground now disillusioned with New Labour. With the expected new Labour leader Gordon Brown being somewhat to the left of Tony Blair, the next election is likely to be much closer.