Originally Posted By cmpaley <a href="http://davidmorrison.typepad.com/sed_contra/2006/02/rise_of_the_pol.html#more" target="_blank">http://davidmorrison.typepad.c om/sed_contra/2006/02/rise_of_the_pol.html#more</a> David Morrison, author of Beyond Gay, a book written by a convert to the Catholic Church about his struggle with same-sex attractions, wrote an excellent entry in his blog that I'd like to share. ===================== The Rise of the Political Center? Participants in one of the Meet The Pundits (but don't throw tomatoes) shows this weekend commented on the now indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who has been lately lamenting that President Bush appears unable to remember, Abramoff says, meeting him some 12 times and making small talk with him about his kids. To the extent the talking heads were accurate about Abramoff lamentations, his discomfort appears disingenuous. Surely a Washington player as seasoned as Abramoff recognizes that he is experiencing the Washington equivalent of being forced onto an ice flow and cut loose, left to float down the Potomac to the sea by way of the Chesapeake Bay. The members of both the Democratic and Republican tribes have spoken. He is the weakest link. But he also may be a sign or a portent of opportunity. As God by His inexplicable will allowed Pharaoh and the Egyptians to suffer the plague of frogs, perhaps He has allowed Washington to suffer the plague of lobbyists, like locusts on the public purse. But what might he portend? Perhaps the rise, Phoenix like, of an centrist American political movement, an upsurge among Americans who are simultaneously unwilling to outlaw abortion but who are on board with the notion of reasonable restraints like parental consent laws and who favor steps to make the procedure less necessary such as more support for unwed and abandoned mothers; people who don't support same sex marriage but who don't want to see people who self-identify as gay humiliated in the streets; people who favor a role for the federal government in keeping roads and transportation systems up to date and in good repair but who can't see the sense in building bridges to nowhere. In short, the American center. A silent centrist majority which is ever more rapidly abandoned by political parties steadily which are themselves held ever more tightly hostage by their political fringes. The clues for this centrist body can be seen in the poll numbers which, post Abramoff, Katrina, the Iraq war and other perceived ills, show increasing numbers of Americans unhappy with the Republicans but also not flocking to join the Democrats either. Its almost as though people from all over the nation are asking "isn't there anybody better?" Analysts discussing American alternative political efforts most often withhold their judgment that such movements are credible unless and until they can mount a nationwide political campaign for president. But surely this puts the cart far before the horse. Declaring a political effort is not credible until it makes a sustained campaign for president is a bit like saying a given magician must be a dud unless she can pull a mastodon out of her shoe. Tip O'Neill had it right. All politics, particularly American politics, are local and it makes more sense for any new political efforts to start locally, people gathered together to elect representatives to the local and state government who reflect fundamentally centrist views and grow only gradually to have a statewide impact on federal elections and them perhaps a regional impact and only then perhaps to have an impact on the national stage. As his ice flow slides beneath Memorial Bridge or as federal agents escort him to federal prison, Abramoff might yet take some comfort from having, inadvertantly, been a catalyst for a social and political upheaval in which the center extremes back into the political wilderness and begins to claim the seats of power for itself.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Its almost as though people from all over the nation are asking "isn't there anybody better?"<< I think many people do ask that every election. It's why I voted 'none of the above' in '04 -- it was a choice between worse and worser. This time my mantra is "No incumbents!"
Originally Posted By friendofdd >>>This time my mantra is "No incumbents!"<<< I agree with this, but, sadly, most voters who want to *throw the rascals out*, tend to make an exception for their own rascal. Thus, it becomes: you throw your rascal out, mine is ok. Wouldn't it be great if Mass. voters suddenly remembered that their drunkard senator waited until the next day to tell reporters his car was at the bottom of the bay, with a body in it, decided to throw him out? I imagine the Veep borrowed his pattern.
