May 11 2008
WSJ Agrees 2008 Is The Year Of The Centrist
Hyper partisanship is out. The American people, who largely do not obsess about politics, is fed up with those who do obsess to the point there is no answer they will accept on any issue – except the answer of the extremes. The liberals tasted this in 2006 with the Ned Lamont (far left) and Joe Lieberman (centrist) senate race, which pitted what many on the left deemed a turncoat (Lieberman) against a one of those leftists who demanded purity to the cause (Lamont). While Lamont took the primary, Lieberman easily took a three way general election race with over 50% of the vote. The people of CT spoke loud and clear in 2006 – stay out of the fringes.
The same thing happened to the GOP as the democrats put out an army of moderate, conservative democrats to take out ‘true conservative’ veterans across the country. Those Republicans who survived were devout centrists, traitors to many on the far right. And recently there have been a string of defeats for incumbents on the right in special elections this year, as once staunchly GOP districts and seats go to centrist democrats:
Republicans face tough odds, yes. But that’s because they’ve yet to prove they’ve learned a lesson, as they demonstrated again with Mr. Jenkins.
By the lazy standards of the GOP, Mr. Jenkins should’ve been a cinch to win a Baton Rouge district in Republican hands for 34 years, and that President Bush won with 59% in 2004. Their candidate was a rock-solid social conservative who, in 28 statehouse years, had never voted for a tax increase, and who wanted to erect a U.S.-Mexico wall.
Yet Mr. Jenkins was also a divisive firebrand. He was infamous for carrying around plastic fetuses, to demonstrate his opposition to abortion. He’d previously landed in a weird entanglement with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. This history made even conservatives fidgety, and crowded out anything Mr. Jenkins had to say on issues.
Another Amnesty Hypochondriac bit the dust – the one issue that lingered in 2006 and the GOP dared America to consider in the voting booth. Legislation was held up by Dennis Hastert and company in the House as they went on a tour to sell America for the 2006 election. Haster lost his job as Speaker of The House and the GOP lost his seat to another Amnesty Hypochondriac far right candidate in another special election.
All those GOP presidential candidates that were tied to the Amnesty Hypochondriac movement, which torpedoed another chance at reform under the current democrat led Congress, failed miserably this year. Is it any surprise that the one man on the GOP side who openly supported the Iraq war and comprehensive immigration reform is the GOP nominee to be President? This is not all coincidence folks.
And now this week has another Amnesty Hypochondriac in danger of losing a solid GOP seat in a special election:
Since 1994, Republican Roger Wicker has been reelected to his House seat with between 63 and 79 percent of the vote.
But with Wicker appointed to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott, who retired, Republicans are having difficulty unifying behind Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb in the northwest corner of the 1st District.
I went to the Greg Davis campaign website
Taxes and Spending
Make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Bury the death tax. Restrain spending.National Security
Support our armed forces by insuring they have the manpower and equipment to fight and win.Illegal Immigration
Protect the border. Enforce our immigration laws. Require proof of U.S. citizenship to obtain taxpayer-funded benefits.Mississippi Values
Defend our values. Support the Second Amendment. Stand up for the unborn.Business
Advocating policies that strengthen our economy by focusing on lower taxes, a simpler tax code, fewer regulations, and less government red tape.
Emphasis mine. So how could a candidate that mirrors McCain on just about all the issues except one be in trouble in a GOP district that has voted right by huge margins since 1994? Simple – something stinks and is causing the candidate problems. It is not making the Bush tax cuts permanent, that is for sure. It is not maintaining Mississippi values. Doubt it was because Davis stands for a strong economy and low taxes. Davis and McCain are the same on a strong national defense. There is only one area these two diverge, which has to be the one area that turns voters on in the case of McCain, or turns voters off in the case of Davis.
The WSJ notes today what I said last week, and that is 2008 is the year of the centrists:
In the wake of Tuesday’s primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana, it appears more likely than ever that the two presidential candidates this fall will be Sen. Barack Obama for the Democrats and Sen. John McCain for the Republicans. They happen to be the two most surprisingly successful candidates of the year, and both got ahead largely by arguing they have unique abilities to bring people together in Washington.
Change may be stirring in other areas that have contributed to gridlock. Voters are pulling politicians toward the middle of the ideological spectrum by registering as independents and calling for centrist solutions. A new cast of political players — some young, most little-known to the nation — is emerging to show that there are ways to transcend gridlock by reaching across the aisle.
…
Sens. McCain and Obama explicitly base their appeals to voters on the premise that they can reach out both to independent voters who are affiliated with neither party, and to politicians of the opposite party. A precedent for such a governing style recently has been set: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York have led the way, each succeeding largely by detaching themselves from their Republican party and governing as independents.
Voters are pushing the system in precisely this direction: The share of the public registered as neither Democrat nor Republican, but rather as independent, has exploded in recent years. In New Hampshire this year, more than four in 10 registered voters didn’t declare any party affiliation, up from just more than two in 10 in 1992. In California, independent voters are the fastest-growing segment of those who have registered; almost a quarter of the registered voters there now are either independent or affiliated with neither major party.
The article basically notes you can chase the money at the fringes or the votes in the middle, who decide who will win. Lamont and Lieberman will not be the only example of how money will not by votes the center decides to not give. Insult the middle, like the GOP did when it want after “RINOs” and Traitors and the inpure and you end up on the losing side of the aisle. The left is not any better, they just happened to be the only option to the defunct status quo in 2006. They seem hell bent on becoming the next status quo to be removed in 2008, but only if the GOP makes up with the moderates they chased away over illegal immigration. Until the mea culpas start showing up, the voters will stay away.
LOL! Bikerken,
All I did was point out the disaster the hypochondriacs brought on themselves. If you think I am crying they destroyed themselves you are seriously delusional.
I welcome their implosion. I welcome their mass losses at the polls. I am not crying – I am cheering!
I am about has happy now as I was when Buchanan and David Duke bolted the GOP. This is all good news. I don’t need no tissues, pass the champagne!
AJ, what makes you think a guest-worker program will solve our illegal immigration issues? And why would the same laws that worked since the beginning of our country’s founding suddenly not work now? Didn’t you just tell us recently that this administration has deported over 1.6 million illegals? Sounds like the curret laws work just fine.
LOL! The guest worker program makes sure any immigrants are licensed to work here and cannot gain citizenship. And yes, the borders are deporting new illegals – but the Amnesty Hypochondriacs imploded over the long term aliens here already, not those turned back at the border under Bush (well before the comprehensive immigration reform package showed up in 2007 – the end of catch and release was in 2006).
Therefore, since the borders ARE being closed and few if any new illegals are making it across our border the time is now ripe for comprehensive reform.
But let’s cut to the chase here. The far right turned on their one time allies and made the political opponents. In politics you have your allies and your opponents. When you want to carry the day you maximize your allies and marginalize your opponents. Welcome to the margins.
I predicted back in 2006 this would be the result of the purists. I was hopeful it could be avoided, and I was too optimistic the GOP would survive the implosion. Thus I underestimated the 2006 blow out. But since then my predictions have sadly come true.
And with the far right dug in and still calling centrist traitors and all other sorts of names because they want opponents and not allies, the battle is on for who garners the larger pool of the electorate and who carries the day!
There was never going to be a perfect solution to immigration. But there will always be opportunities for major progress for those willing to create governing coalitions. And coalitions are not built on purity tests.
McCain is the nominee and Tancredo is a sad footnote to history. This is over. Whether people face up to it or not is irrelevant. There is a new centrist coalition forming an alliance, and their opponents are those on the fringe who destroyed the old alliances in a fit of purity. This is just the way politics is played, and won.
Sounds to me, AJ, that all you’ve done is take illegals and make them legal! If a guest worker program allows foreigners to come here, live here, work here, and not become citizens, just how is that different from “illegal immigration”? And not only that, but it gives yet another incentive for more foreigners to come here. How does this stem the tide of immigration and how does it reward those immigrants who achieved citizenship legally? All you want to do is add yet another cork into the leaking wall.
And if the borders are being closed, and fewer illegals are coming across, why would THAT be the time for reform? You’ve just admitted that enforcing existing law works and therefore, no need for reform.
On to the next paragraph. You’ve got this one completely ass-backwards. “Marginalizing” your allies is what the centrists have done. They’ve opted for a new ally in an open border leftist movement. In fact, you’ve stated this “marginalization” of the right on many occaisionas.
And your prediction cannot be proven true until McCain wins in a landslide. Then we can all agree that the nation has rejected the “fringes” as you call them. You certainly can’t claim victory already with both Democrat party candidates being on that fringe and McCain having not even been elected yet.
You are trying waaaaaaaay to hard to back up your theory and clearly, you are having trouble even convincing yourself or we ouldn’t have to hear about it everydy….but anyway…on to your next paragraph…
And your continuing efforts to keep the “centrist traitors” claim in the limelight only tells me that it is yourself and fellow centrists who don’t want the conservatives in your corner rather than vice versa. The “marginalized” comments attest to that.
On to your next paragraph:
Just because you have no perfect solutions to any problem doesn’t man the rest of us don’t. And it’s certainly no reason to throw in the towel and forfeit your country’s future.
And finally, your last paragraph:
McCain is the nominee because you bought into the media shine on him. He was their hand-picked opponent for the radical left, and you ate it up. And not only did you eat it up, you find it necessary to defend his selection by blaming your old boogy-man, conservatives. Sad. We are well aware he is the candidate. Parroting it over and over again hardly makes your point, it only serves to show you have no evidence to back up your position. It’s a shame you would put your reputation on the line for such a meaningless position.
75, no one is rejecting conservatism in the whole. You know that!
What is being challenged is the hard edges of that conservatism. The country is a center-right country. That is a fact. But I guess we could argue over what the definition of being a conservative is. But why?
We agree on many more things than we disagree. Should we not focus on what we agree on and work hard to get our candidate elected?
AJ is right.
The way I am compromising, and moving to the center, is supporting a withdrawal from Iraq. I am also willing to let go some of my conservative social values, such as, right to life…
What are you going to compromise on as you move to the center?
Immigration?
Talk about denial.
The reason the repubs are in the minority and are going to be smaller still, barring a miracle, is their complete abject failure to exhibit any kind of fiscal responsibility since they were in the majority 1994-2006. Theirs is the bridge to nowhere. Their pathetic Trott like arrogance, especially since Bush came in office has left the American people more comfortable with the notion that avowed Socialists will be more responsible with the public purse than all these faux fiscal repubs. The republican party has been a national disgrace in fiscal matters, whether left, right or center.
The reason McCain has risen to the top is he is one of only a few repubs left who have stood for fiscal prudence.
But don’t take my word for the cause of repubs disappearing, McCain and several others have constantly said that they are the minority now because of the historic opportunity they blew by being pigs at the trough–and for no other reason. Myself and others, here and at many other sites, warned in 2005 what was coming. It still is going to get worse because the current repub congress and senate show no signs of changing their behavior.
If we are lucky we will have McCain as President–as for the congress and senate they are gone for a long time, their just rewards.
Sorry, klimt, the center doesn’t agree with you on that! Those beliefs belong to democrats.
And from your post, with no disrespect intended, that is a perfect example of all or nothing thinking, imho.
Ive, what makes you think conservatives won’t work towards getting “our candidate” elected? I know of no conservatives who would actually vote for the Democrat instead. Ann Couter may say she will but you and I know damned well she won’t…and neither will any conservatives. So I really don’t see what AJ is trying to accomplish by harping on his own hatreds and biases.
As for conservatism in general, if you are conservative and moving to the center, you are moving leftward. If you are a leftist and moving to the center, you are moving to the right. It doesn’t take a genius to see which direction is the correct one.
IveHadIt…
No, you are wrong. 6 out 10 Americans want troops home within a year! (see Rasmussen)
You are a Iraq War hypochondriac.
I’ve sacrificed two values to move to the center… both of which are very popular. What values are you going to forsake?
Klimt,
I’ll play along. I offer history as my “compromise”. In order to “compromise” with my centrist rulers I will ignore the kowledge that Ronald Reagan was our most conservative, successful, unifying, and most lopsidedly elected president and that Nixon, Ford, Bush Sr., and Bob Dole were our greatest presidents. Hell, I’ll even throw in a couple of freebies…that higher tax and spend policy will promote a healthier economy and that Mexican immigrants should receive a special one-up provision on other prospective immigrants because they are more numerous. There…I’ve compromised. AJ should be happy.
75,
And that is why the far right is now on the sidelines – no one should take them seriously anymore.
Klimt, you and I both know about those polls.
Show me a poll that doesn’t say Americans want to win in Iraq! 🙂
Patrick nailed it. The reason conservatives are sinking is because of their move to the center. They are not offering anything different than the dems. They are not governing like conservatives. Had they stood by those principles, they would still be in the majority today.