Screw pandering to the center!!!!! When did that last work?

thoughts?

the pendulum has swung. anyone who doesn't realize what side they are one now is uninformed beyond belief. that said, when the Dems try to tact "center" lately, they end up trying to appease repukes, or at the very least not offend them.

than any other dem in history. most americans are moderates.

They won, but thanks to BBV, did not take the WH.

Being "uninformed beyond belief" is a relative term and in the eye of the beholder. Most people are polite enough to keep that sentiment to themselves considering how subjective it is.

sorry but "pandering" to the center is the only way to win a national election.

Big Dawg was a centrist but his charisma was off the scale, and he was a good centrist prez. That said, now faced with extreme RW peeps you still wanna pander to the ppl too uninformed to vote? we need to energize the base... there's more of us than them

history on the promise of sweeping changes and keeping America out of war in Asia.

The centrist strategy was also tried in 1980, 1984 and 1988 without a whole lot of success and with an ever declining Democratic Party.

For instance in 1984 Vice President Mondale who had a background as an old-fashioned New Dealer ran on a campaign to actually increase military spending and keep most of Reagan's tax and spending cuts in place.

1994, 2000, 2002, 2004, touche

Clinton pandered to the left from a conservative/centrist position.

from the left, but it seems to work really well from the right. People in the "center" seem to fear that they might not be "patriotic" enough if they don't support wars and security leaks (from Republicans, but not Democrats or journalists).

they run HARD RW evils bastards and paint a moderate face...

liberals like Kerry or Gore try to appeal to the undecided "centrists" and ge tarred. whereas, energizing the base is key. if ppl aren't fed up enough with the GOP now, count em out forever! They should need no convincing at this point.

they run HARD RW evils bastards and paint a moderate face...

liberals like Kerry or Gore try to appeal to the undecided "centrists" and ge tarred. whereas, energizing the base is key. if ppl aren't fed up enough with the GOP now, count em out forever! They should need no convincing at this point.

so the burden of proof lies with you. Why do you believe "pandering to the center" a negative, and why has it not been a good idea in recent elections? More importantly, why should an appeal to the center not be a part of any comprehensive electoral strategy?

You're the one with the strongly held opinion. Let's hear your defense for it.

I think the political idea of the "center" has shifted to the right for political reasons. Plenty of Dems voted for this illegal war for fear of alienating "the middle" out of being "unpatriotic" (anyone other than Murtha and Edwards apologize?) even thought the actual center all says this war was wrong. They are using the failed tactic of trying not to piss republicans off.

Dean, for example, is a true example of a centrist. But a lot of establishment dems act like he's a batshit loony Che supporter.

Refusing to support censure is an example.

after 911. Bush was at 80% approval and the Dems were cowed. They went along with Bush because public opinion was with Bush. It had nothing to do with "moving to the right." It had everything to do with intimidation.

People were afraid and they believed (wrongly) that Bush would keep them safe. The Democrats had no leverage; the Republicans held all the power.

Now that Bush's poll numbers are diving chances for the Democrats look a little better. The situation could change and the Dems can't afford to slip up and make stupid political moves.

Rightly or wrongly Feingold didn't get his fellow senators behind him before he made his announcement about censure. Just because some Senators didn't jump on the censure bandwagon doesn't make them "weak" or ineffectual. They were doing what they though was politically strategic.

If the Democrats take back the Senate and the House they will be in a stronger position to start impeachment proceedings against Bush.

worked in 2000. In 2004,Kerry ran as a liberal, but seemed more conservative next to the anti-war, no defense candidates.
How about this question, how long has it been since a liberal candidate, other than Kerry, came close to winning or did win the Presidency?

let's say to the left of Clinton or Gore?

Other than Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich in 2004 what other candidates for the nomination advocated all-around liberal policies and could reasonably be called something other than centrist?

election without any exceptions whatsoever. I realize there are some revisionist who have tried to re-write history.

I won't say the centrist strategy has never worked in specific given election cycles, but at the cost of an ever declining party, an ever rightward drifting range of discussion and the undermining of relevant democracy itself.

Does anyone in their right mind believe that the Republican Party went from being a seemingly permanent centrist minority party to dominating every branch of government because they are so centrist?
_____________________________________

And what is the center anyway?:

recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News

http://alternet.org/story/29788

1. 65 percent say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.
2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of self described "social conservatives").
3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.
4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.
6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.
7. 69 percent agree that corporate off-shoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe off shoring is good because "it keeps costs down."
8. 69 percent believe America is on the wrong track, with only 26 percent saying it's headed in the right dire

Borrowed from:
LynnTheDem

a super-majority of Americans are liberal in all but name
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/alterman
Public opinion polls show that the majority of Americans embrace liberal rather than conservative positions...
http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2002-04-16-liberal.shtml
The vast majority of Americans are looking for more social support, not less...
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/borosage-r.html

http://people.umass.edu/mmorgan/commstudy.html

Some more polls:

http://www.democracycorps.com/reports/analyses/Democracy_Corps_May_2005_Graphs.pdf

http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/US/healthcare031020_poll.html

http://www.cdi.org/polling/5-foreign-aid.cfm

thank to flpoljunkie for providing this Mike Luckovich cartoon:

more eloquently than I can at this moment :)

1. She will probably lose decisively. Although I hope I am wrong and would certainly support her in the general election; but not the primary.

2. We will be hearing for the next 30+ years that she was the candidate of the "left" and that she lost because she was just soooooooo liberal. And this is another example of how the liberals and the left screwed up the Democratic Party.

Running for "the Center" is always the nature of politics ultimately. You want to get more votes that the other guy or gal. So you craft yourself to appeal to the majority. That can be done by challengiung conventional wisdom, but it succeeds only if you can make your challenges a new conventional wisdom.

But the contemporary idea of appealing to the "center" is a buncha bullshit. It's a phony bit of salesmanship used by the elite to put straightjacket on "acceptable" political positions.

In reality, the center is always shifting. It is never static. And it differs on different issues. The same person might be in the "center" on one issue, be on the right on anotehr issue and be very liberal or progressive on another issue.

The "center" also depends on how an issue is defined. An issue that is branded as "fringe" at one point becaomes the "center" eventually.

Look at civil rights. Not very long ago it was just assumed that African Americans had to live within certain limits. Even good liberals accepted those limits, even if they felt they were unfair. That was just "they way things are" and the thought that it could be changed was beyond the comprehension of most people. It required years of demonstrations, hard political infighting and other aggressive action to shift the "center" towards greater equality.

Today, the notion that Corporations and a deignated Elite have an inherent right to determine our values and policies is an equally outrageous bit of nonsense that is considered "conventional wisdom" and just the "way things are."

The phony "centrists" claim that challenging the will of corporations and the elite is a "fringe" position that cannot appeal to "the center." But if you look at what the majority of people really believe instinctivelythat America should be dominated by Oligarchs is a buncha hooey. Just like civil rights used to be, the idea of economic justice and democracy is a widespread desire that is bubbling below the surface.