it's astounding to me how scared shitless people are about being on the left. we never had a left to begin with, but the bias is such that anything smelling of light republicanism is considered "centrist".

WTF

I'm with you Lisa. It is incredible how right wing our media is. We liberals needs to take a line from James Brown's "shout it out!! I'm a, liberal, and I'm proud!!" Joe Klein is a fence sitter and as well as is Time magazine, so the cover and article doesn't surprise me.

Those covers show how the conservatives are trying to take our victory away from us by casting it as a "centerist" mandate, when in fact it was a progressive mandate. Suddenly the great progressive victory, if you read columnists like george will and william f. buckley, is really a conservative victory, a rejection of neo-conservatives in favor of real conservatives. This just shows that if you run on the center you leave yourself wide open to get co-opted by both sides. The only way to get a true mandate is by not only winning, but being very clear about which side of the ideological spectrum you are on.

This is a message primary voters need to keep in mind for 2008. We can go republican lite, tow the center line, and have the conservatives steal our victory away once we achieve it, or we can show the courage of our convictions and run as unmistakably progressive/liberal.

But maybe what happened was that the moderates and independents simply saw what was happening in the world and became more progressive. Maybe these results were NOT simply the public deciding that the democrats appeared to be thebetter "centrists" at the moment than the republicans. I don't like this media spin I'm seeing. When did it become bad to be ideological? When did the only acceptable place to be become the center where you can be non-commital and cynical about both sides? If thats the attitude, whats the point of being involved in politics? If this, as the media is portraying it, wasn't a victory for the left, than we (as in the left)have more work to do. If the democrats win elections by becoming "republican lite", then we really aren't winning at all.

Ideology means having ideas. Your brand of politics would never have created something like the New Deal, because bold initiatives don't get carved out of broad consensus. They get created by the few who have the courage to see things differently and be on the cutting edge of change. Jefferson had no consensus on the Lousiana Purchase. Congress and most of the politicians were against it. But he didn't take a centrist approach, he had a vision and acted like a leader. Same with FDR and the New Deal.

Increasingly what we have in this country now are centrist politicians, lawmakers who don't take chances and don't follow through on their convictions, because they want to stand in the middle of the room and not offend anybody so they get re-elected. What you get out of that are mediocre politicians, mediocre lawmakers and mediocre government. What we need are lawmakers who have a vision and who have the guts to follow that vision. Having a vision means having ideas. It means NOT standing in the center of the room and trying to offend as few people as possible. It means knowing you're right and not caring how many people you offend, because at the end of the day they'll know your right too.

TO: R WALLNER/NY.
I have seen too many people who are so convinced that they are right/correct, when in fact ( in my estimation) they are so wrong it isn't even funny. Inflexibility is probably the biggest curse of those who are rigidly ideological. I am a moderate when all my positions are taken collectively. Sometimes I am on the left (especially on economic issues), sometimes I am on the right (on many social issues), most times I am in the middle. I suspect that many many people function likewise. It has to do with judgement and critical thinking, not fealty to a position on an imaginary spectrum that pompous intellectual elites think is so superior(and in the USA context, this goes for both sides).
BTW is there really a "left" in this country? There are very few people that I have encountered in my 33 years living here, that I can truly say meet my definition of what a leftist is.

I don't know why I bother posting here, since Bouldin says everything I would.

Of course, I've never been an R. Ick.

Heh

Bouldin defines centrists as those who craft legislation that will "satisfy and appeal to a majority of voters"

The problem is that the great ideas, the great vision and bold leadership, don't often come from the masses, they usually come from the enlightened few. By your definition, LBJ should not have pushed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as a great many people in this country did not want it. Was LBJ supposed to not legislate school integration, and require things like forced busing and affirmative action, until a majority of this country actually wanted it? Or was he supposed to take a bold step and do what he knew was right regardless of how many people wanted it? Truman got death threats when he ordered the military integrated. The majority of the country was opposed to that at the time. Was he supposed to NOT order the integrate the military because doing so would not "satisfy and appeal to a majority of voters"?

I argue again that what we have in this country now are a lot of mediocre legislators, lawmakers without vision or much integrity, because of this tendency to elect only those who can stand in the middle of a room and not offend anyone. If you want greatness in your lawmakers, you want people elected who believe so strongly in themselves and their visions that they won't compromise themselves to be popular.

And I'm not saying politicians need adhere strictly to one doctrine, I'm saying there is nothing wrong with having a guiding philosophy, and adhering to that philosophy and not compromising it this way and that way just to get the approval of the masses.

In fact Bouldin you are hypocritical, because on the one hand you bash liberals and ideologues and claim fear of anyone not centrist, and on the other hand you supported Chris Owens in the CD 11th race. In no way, shape, or form is Chris Owens a moderate. Chris is very liberal, he's more liberal than I am, he is extremely progressive and has a strong ideological bent in that direction. Chris was the most liberal of all the candidates in that race. Yassky was more of a centrist.

So what I'm starting to understand is that you don't care if liberal ideologues are in the congress, as long as they are in their places, voting rights act'ed into certain districts so that other districts can stay safely centrist and moderate. I bet you wouldn't have supported Chris Owens if he was running in a different district. Say a white district upstate against a moderate. But in a liberal district, where the other candidates aren't by and large much less liberal, and certainly aren't centrist, you feel *safe* supporting him. I supported Chris too but the difference is I'd have supported cloning him and getting him elected into every district in this country. You wouldn't. For you, someone very liberal like Chris is fine to represent the 11th CD, but for the majority of congress, or for president, he won't do, it has to be someone like John Edwards. Am I right>?