The 'Center' Always Holds... Media advise Dems to move to the right once more

[G_j]

The 'Center' Always Holds... Media advise Dems to move to the right once more

http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/the-center-always-holds/



With the Democrats suffering substantial losses in the 2014 midterm elections, it is likely that the advice from pundits and political journalists will be the same as it always is: Move to the right.

This has been the counsel almost any time that Democrats lose at the polls (Extra!, 9/92, 1/95, 1/11), rooted in the assumption that when the party veers too far leftward, the public reacts.

The advice is already coming in; USA Today (11/4/14), for instance, used an interview with a former adviser to Ronald Reagan to recommend that Barack Obama deliver a "mea culpa" speech along the lines of Reagan's 1987 Iran/Contra address. There's still time, the paper notes, for Obama to "score progress on big issues" if he "launches a concerted effort to build bridges with congressional Republicans."

More outreach to the GOP is in order, say the pundits--but it's more than that. The news site Business Insider (11/5/14) quoted a "Democratic insider" as saying that "the president has 60 days to clean house, regrow his spine, and lay out an aggressive, centrist agenda. If he fails at any of those, he might as well just start writing his memoir."
Obama and Biden in the presidential limo (photo: Pete Souza/White House)

In the parallel universe inhabited by the New York Times, "Democrats largely abandoned the more centrist, line-blurring approach of Bill Clinton to motivate an ascendant bloc of liberal voters." (photo: Pete Souza/White House)
Where to find a model for this kind of "aggressive, centrist agenda"? Many accounts are offering the Clinton years as a recipe for success. As the New York Times (11/5/14) reported:

The Obama years have in effect represented a political trade-off: Democrats largely abandoned the more centrist, line-blurring approach of Bill Clinton to motivate an ascendant bloc of liberal voters. That strategy twice secured the presidency, but in the two midterm races it meant sacrificing the culturally conservative districts and states that had ensured Democratic congressional majorities.

While it's dubious to say that the Obama-era Democratic Party ever really abandoned Clinton-style "centrism" (FAIR Media Advisory, 1/27/11), this conventional wisdom about the Clinton presidency misses some crucial facts. As FAIR founder Jeff Cohen observed (L.A. Times, 4/9/00), Clinton's ideological positioning didn't do much to help the party:

When Clinton entered the White House, his party dominated the U.S. Senate, 57-43; the US House, 258-176; the country's governorships, 30-18, and a large majority of state legislatures. Today, Republicans control the Senate, 55-45; the House, 222-211; governorships, 30-18, and almost half of state legislatures.
One of the more intriguing findings from the 2014 exit polls is that voters overwhelmingly think the economic system favors the wealthy; 63 percent of respondents said so, up from 56 in 2012.

This would suggest that a more vigorous brand of economic populism--often derided as divisive or polarizing--would resonate with voters. Instead, though, various reports suggest the White House seek common ground with Republicans on trade policies--presumably corporate-friendly deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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[Chemisse]

1. Rather than move to the right or left, or make any move at all,

Dems need to at least state where they are!

How can this election be a referendum on the positions of the Democrats, when nobody actually mentioned their positions when they ran??

[Eleanors38]

2. "motivate an ascendant bloc of liberal voters?" Really.

As if anyone is writing on how those ascendant ones motivated to the polls. I know I almost had a Big O trying to vote my liberalism, seeing all that appeal thrown my way.