Jun 12 2009
America Moves To The Center
Given my recent posts about heated rhetoric and how it plays in the country I need to bring back a recent graph showing how the conservative rhetoric drove the centrists out of the party and the Dems into power:
My guess is the screwed up Obama economic experiments, which have made the unemployment worse along with out of control deficit spending that will wreck any a chance of recover, will probably not help the GOP out, but simply shrink the pool of registered Democrats while further growing the independent movement. We can see that trend already in the chart above from Pew Research.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, we could see both parties so fringed out they only garner 20% of the electorate while the rest settle into the center.
I think it is a good thing to have a large moderate pool in politics. It keeps the right and left from going too far or becoming too complacent. However, I think most of the move away from party identity has to do with general disgust of how our politicians are behaving. I don’t know of anyone who likes the way Washington operates.
It should also be noted that as America moves to the center they are now trusting Republicans over Democrats in all but three categories:
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Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on six out of 10 key issues, including the top issue of the economy.
Health Care: Dems +10
Education: Dems +7
Social Security: Dems +6
Abortion: Even
Economy: GOP + 6
Taxes: GOP +5
Iraq: GOP +8
Nat’l Security: GOP +15
Gov’t Ethics: GOP +6
Immigration: GOP +14
http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/rasmussen_polling_on_the_issue.php
What really amazes me about most republican politicians of today is that they have forgotten about history. Ronald Reagan won his 2nd term in office in a unprecedented landside, and how was that achieved by getting the center-right to unite with him. At that time we where called a 45-45 nation with the middle deciding the election.
They also forgot Reagans 11 commandment “Thou shalt not speak ill of any other republican”.
Perhaps the bomb throwers who have wrapped them selfs as the only righteous republicans might just want to reread what history has taught us!
“Thou shalt not speak ill of any other republicanâ€.
Wish John McCain and his cronies would have followed this for the last 10 years. He may have not turned so many repubs away.
“What really amazes me about most republican politicians of today is that they have forgotten about history”
ama055131 is the problem really GOP polticians. Or is the problem that the media just interviews pundits and make them the center of the story. That is unllected people
I mean it is crazy. We have some media deabte for months about RUSH for goodness sake. I would like to actually see polticians on tv. Never do. If is pundit interviewing pundits about what other pundits said.
Alert1201 I was not a big McCain backer I perfered Rudy G but as a recall during the election it was the far right bomb throwers ie. Ingrahm, Rush, Levin ect. that where spewing that he was not far enough to the right even though his voteing record for the last 10 years has been close to 90%-95% with the Rep. party.
If you can give some examples of his bashing of other republicans that are not far right bomb throwers I would really appreciate it.
bigsusportsfan I believe both are at fault, the bread and butter issues for the gop has gotten lost in all the rhetoric that has been flying around for the last several years. We do better when we stick with issues like national defence, the economy, smaller gov’t most center-right thinkers worry about these issues and these issues where the start of the Reagan revolution which lead to his landslide election.
I consider myself a moderate in most ways. I tend to stay away from the fringes. But I have to say AJ, that the Democrats won in spite of people like Ayers and Wright and Code Pink. They were not turned off by the people on the left fringe and to be honest, I am not so sure that this is as important to them as you think it is.
I think they see through a lot of that on both sides. I am not saying that I think alienating hispanics is a good thing, but then again the left does not seem to worry about alienating people and they are just as obnoxious.
ama:
I agree. McCain won the primaries because rank and file Republicans voted for him. He was not put in there by cross overs or open primaries or anything else. He is a life long Republican and he has been badly treated by a lot of people on the right who could not and did not come up with a viable alternative.
ama055131, yes Ingrahm, Rush, Levin ect. were all bomb throwers but the centrists threw them as well. I cannot recall all the specific instances but it seemed that during the election McCain spent more time criticizing conservatives then he did Democrats. I just get tired of hearing moderates like From, Powel and little Ms McCain constantly complaining about the republican party and how messed up because of conservatives and not a word is said. Yet, let somebody like Rush criticize Powel or Frum and all He** breaks loose and people start quoting RR about how we all need to get along. I think it would be better if both sides just shut up.