|
[Previous entry: "There's No "War on Terror""] [Blog Home] [Next entry: "It's Not About Foley"]
10/12/2006 Entry:
How to Vote for a Moderate
The political pundits tell us that there is a tremendous chasm between those politicians who would take us to the extreme right and those politicians who would take us to the extreme left. Therefore, they say, it is best to vote for moderates who are in the center. Not true. Conservatives have dragged our government so far to the extreme right that the so-called center is occupied by conservatives, not moderates.
Who is a Moderate?
The following diagram compares the political environment in the U.S. during the FDR Era with the political environment today during the BUSH II Era.
Back in FDR's time, the center of gravity of the Democratic Party (D) was Liberal; the center of gravity of the Republican Party (R) was Conservative. There was an overlap where the Moderates lived.
Since then there has been a Republican onslaught with articles, books, commentators, unethical political operatives, radio personalities, TV productions and think tanks lampooning and demonizing liberals. They stamped the media as being "liberal," as though it were a dirty word. They even went so far as to call liberals traitors.
Republicans worked so hard that they dragged the center of gravity of the Republican Party (R) from the Conservative point and closer to the Radical Right. In this environment, the center of the Democratic Party (D) was pulled from the Liberal point and closer to the Moderate position.
So today, if you want to vote for a Moderate you must vote for a Democratic candidate.
Vote for Party, Not Candidate
Some say that in order to reach moderation you should vote all incumbents out. None of the incumbents have performed too well. So it seems like a good idea to get rid of all of them. This logic may be OK when choosing a governor or other state official. But it is flawed, when choosing a member of the House or the Senate, because it assumes that an individual can act independently of his or her party.
Both the House and Senate are run by the party that has a majority. The majority party makes all the important decisions: It sets the agenda, writes major bills, runs the public bullhorn, disregards as much as possible the minority party, and gets party members to conform to the goals of its leaders. Leaders have the power to make "independent" members get in line.
So again, if you want to vote for a Moderate lawmaker you must vote for a Democratic candidate.
A vote for a Republican lawmaker is a vote for extremism of the Right. A vote for a Democratic lawmaker is a vote for moderation.
Comment here.
|
