When Centrism Is Good

by digby

As people who read this blog know, I've been disappointed, considering his great gift for rhetoric, that Barack hasn't taken a more creative approach to appealing to the middle (the reasons for which he might need to do that, I've also written about at length.) So one might expect me to be apoplectic about this article in today's LA Times which says that the election will be fought on "centrist" terms because both Obama and McCain have moved to the center. My first reaction to that was sour, I'll admit. Years of listening to the Republicans pound their chests, wearing the word "conservative" like they were the 1928 Yankees, has been pretty hard to take. We'd all like to see the progressive label be applied and used with similar pride. But that isn't the way these things work. You usually have to reposition the issue agenda to a safe middle position first before people can feel comfortable adopting the whole identity. (Success goes a long way toward doing that.)

It's good for us when positions that have been considered left wing ideas are characterized as centrist. It signals that the public, or at least those Very Important Gasbags who write the political narrative in the country, have decided that on some issues, anyway, what was once considered left wing heresy is now mainstream. (And conversely what was once considered mainstream is now relegated to the right wing.) In this list (which, granted, is quite pathetic in terms of substance) the LA Times is signaling that it believes that non-proliferation, global warming, stem cell research and comprehensive immigration reform are safe middle of the road positions. Even on the war, they seem to be admitting that 100 years in Iraq and the whole "victory" concept is an extreme right wing position.

The bad news, of course, is that spying on Americans without a warrant is also considered a reasonable mainstream position as are faith based solutions to social problems (and I grant I may be in a minority here in finding that problematic) expanding the death penalty and NAFTA. Very depressing. And the list doesn't include anything on the economy, energy, the broader war on terror or health care, which will be hugely important in this election so this only goes so far. But then, the Democrats need some issues to contrast with McCain, and three out of four of those would certainly seem to lean our way.

Only four years ago it was considered completely mainstream, centrist thinking to oppose stem cell research, reject nuclear proliferation schemes, and deny global warming. These things were at best, considered debatable. Now, they are nice centrist issues we can all agree upon. La! The great consensus has been achieved! David Broder and Cokie Roberts can take a vacation from their vigil protecting the country from the radical left wing extremists who insist that killing the planet with nuclear war and climate change isn't a good idea.

I realize that these are baby steps, and it avoids many of the big issues on which the pundits still insist that Democrats are extreme, but these are areas where Barack can very comfortably emphasize his "centrist" bonafides without having to repudiate his base of followers. I would guess there are many more that will fall into this category, perhaps even health care (although it is in grave danger of being derailed by "fiscal responsibility.") I hope he begins to emphasize those common sense positions and create a new paradigm, replete with its own dog whistles and subtext. I think that's where the independent voter riches lie.

As Perlstein has often described it, turning the country around politically is like turning an aircraft carrier. It's hard to stop the forward momentum and it's even harder to turn the weighty thing all the way around. But I think we may have stopped the forward momentum. Finally. And now we have to turn this sucker.


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