The "political center" doesn't exist.

[ClassWarrior]

According to George Lakoff:

Understanding whom we are talking to — and whom we want to talk to — is crucial before progressives begin to articulate what it is they have to say and how best to say it. This is true for progressive candidates as well as activists and activist groups. The real challenge in this area is twofold: First, we want to activate our base while reaching swing voters at the same time; second, we want to do so without having to lie, distort, mislead, or pretend to be something we aren’t.

The pressure to dissemble comes from certain commonplace myths about swing voters and the “center.” So for starters, let’s put to rest the notion of the political or ideological “center” — it doesn’t exist. Instead, what we have are biconceptuals — of many kinds.

When it comes to progressive and conservative worldviews, we are all biconceptuals. You may live by progressive values in most areas of your life, but if you see Rambo movies and understand them, you have a passive conservative worldview allowing you to make sense of them. Or you may be a conservative, but if you appreciated The Cosby Show, you were using a passive progressive worldview. Movies and television aside, what we are really interested in are active biconceptuals — people who use one moral system in one area and the other moral system in another area of their political thinking.

Biconceptualism makes sense from the perspective of the brain and the mechanism of neural computation. The progressive and conservative worldviews are mutually exclusive. But in a human brain, both can exist side by side, each neurally inhibiting the other and structuring different areas of experience. It is hardly unnatural — or unusual — to be fiscally conservative and socially progressive, or to support a liberal domestic policy and a conservative foreign policy, or to have a conservative view of the market and a progressive view of civil liberties...

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints/ThinkingPoints_Chapter2.pdf/view?searchterm=myth%20of%20the%20center
(Sorry it's a PDF...)

Therefore, anyone who attempts to appeal to "the center" is chasing phantoms.

NGU.

[dmallind]

1. ...or they're chasing "biconceptuals"

I don;t think they care (or should care) what they are chasing since it's votes that matter, and there are plenty of centrist - oh sorry vbiconceptualist - votes out there.

[Richardo]

2. I agree - it's just a question of semantics.

They just created a new name.

One person's centrist is another person's biconceptualist.

[ClassWarrior]

3. It would help to read the article before posting...

...otherwise you end up making idiotic comments like this.

NGU.

[Richardo]

6. Got all I needed from what you posted.

[ClassWarrior]

7. Progressives shouldn't care what people think, because all that matters is votes?

:crazy:

Where does one begin with a wrongheaded bit of pretzel logic like that??

NGU.

[dmallind]

11. Ermmm...no

...it means that politicians are perfectly valid and correct in chasing votes of those who can and do use both "conservative models" and "progressive models" of decision making - and clearly the way to do it is persuade themn that one is either more frequent or more significant than the other. Reagan convinced blue collar workers their social conservtaism was more important than their pocketbook and their support of personal liberties. We lost. Dean engineered a 50 state strategy to convince lower income and "trickled down" social conservatives that their pocketr book and personal liberties were more important. We won. Both were trying to persuade these "biconceptuals" or centrists, or swing voters or whatever you call them, and both worked to some extent.

Therefore my point is it doesn't matter what you call people in this bloc, but you damn well better get them to vote for you or you lose.

[ClassWarrior]

14. You're saying exactly what the article said.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. If so, mea culpa.

NGU.

[dmallind]

17. Well in some ways yep - my issue was with the implication

that political centrists are non existent and not worth chasing. They certainly do, regardless of label, and certainly are. What is the difference between someone who can "biconceptually" endorse both right of center and left of center opinions dependeing on the issue and how ity is sold, and "centrists"? It only proves centrists a "phantom" if an idea of a centrist posited was something like "someone who stakes out a point between two extremes as close to median as possible regardless of the issue". That's not a definition I'd support - a centrist is just someone who does not always fall down on the right or left side as an automatic reaction. Call them whatever you want, but there are people who are susceptible to both somewhat progressive and somewhat conservative opinions, and we need amore of them to vote our way than the other.

[ClassWarrior]

19. The point of the article is understanding what makes one...

..."a centrist." And, as you say, it's not a clear position somewhere in the middle of a continuous spectrum. It's a matter of holding a complex set of opposing, but stongly-held, positions in a variety of areas. But if you read into the article, Lakoff also makes a compelling case that there is seldom a center or "moderate" position on any given issue. Look at the death penalty. When you boil it down, you're either for or against. Food for thought...

NGU.

[dmallind]

20. In that case perhpas right, but most often not

Look at fiscal policy or foreign policy - it's very easy to be in the middle there. Even the hotbutton social issues have some moderate or compromise position from abortion (OK to age of viability but afterwards illegal and punishable) to gay marriage (that whole silly "civil union" thing). Centrists on the RKBA issue may be OK with personal gun ownership but believe we need licenses, insurance and registration.

Sometimes positions between the two partisan true believer stances are examples of a more nuanced and pragmatic approach than is often seen in either extreme - taxation is the best I can think of here.

Sometimes they are examples of a hapless attempt at compromise that stand up to no scrutiny whatsoever (see civil unions).

Sometimes they are simply a third way which is not really "in the middle" as far as imagining points on a spectrum, but simply another way of looking at a given issue. Ross Perot for example was not "in between" Dems and Reps on NAFTA - but off to one side.

Clearly there can be no "doctrinal centrist" who always chooses to take this centrist position, as then that person would simply be abdicating their own agency and letting a point between the extremes define their thoughts. In some cases like the death penalyty as you said there is little chance of this (although you could perhaps imagine someone who believes the DP is justified only if DNA, eyewitness and physical evidence all support a non-duress confession of a convict who wishes to be executed rather than face life). I'm not claiming to be one obviously. On some issues, both economic and social, I find myself there but on many others I'm firmly on the leftward side. On a very few I am on the rightward side, albeit not on the extreme edge of that in any that I know of (I'm fine with RKBA for example, but I don't think the idea of filling out a 4473 is akin to the Gestapo kicking down my door like some gun nuts do).

[LoZoccolo]

4. If he says so, lol. n/t

[no name no slogan]

5. "Ain't nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and dead armadillos"

-- Jim Hightower

[Desertrose]

15. That is just so perfect!

I love it...and those dead armadillos can be pretty big sometimes. Really. ick.

[Jim__]

8. How do we account for the media?

I have a lot of respect for Lakoff and agree with most of what he says. However, I am not sure how the average person/politician puts this into practice.

For instance, look at the Iraq War. I agree with the article that most Americans want to withdraw troops from Iraq. I believe most Americans are also fairly conservative when it comes to views on national security. So, if a Democratic candidate urges pulling out of Iraq, does he win because he appeals to the surface opinion of most Americans, or, does he lose because the republican candidate can surrepticiously attack him on questions of national security? My fear is that the Democrats tend to lose the argument even though most Americans agree with their position on Iraq, because their proposals can be attacked at a deeper level by Republicans.

Also, I don't believe it's enough to be honest in your proposed solutions to most problems. You must also know how to word your opinion so that it has a deep appeal; and you need the media to be accurate in their reporting of what you actually said and how you said it. The media tends to talk in republican terms. Can the democrats win this battle if the media speak republican? Can the Democrats get the media to speak Democratic?

[Nederland]

9. The Center exists, but it is fragmented

The example I like to use is of my father and my brother-in-law.

My father is a social conservative and an economic liberal. He hates the Bush tax cuts, thinks the rich are taxed too low, believes that free trade is hurting America and bemoans the loss of American jobs due to globalization. However, he is a devote evangelical, opposed to gay marriage, and very pro-life.

My brother-in-law is a classic libertarian. He believes in the free market, supports globalization and thinks that government is way too big and the rich pay too much in taxes. He is also pro-choice, pro-drug legalization, and pro-gay marriage.

Now, these two people have exactly opposite political views, but neither fits well into either party. As a result, there are both members of "the center", but will never in a million years vote for the same person.

I agree, courting "the center" is a complete waste of time.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. At least SOMEONE here gets it. nt

[dmallind]

18. Well that's an incomplete range

Many here would call me a centrist (actually many here would and have called me a closet Republican, but hey) and I am socially liberal in almost if not quite all issues and yet, while far from economically libertarian and very much of the opinion the rich can afford to pay some more taxes, am just fine with global capitalism and as free a market as is possible as long as gross abuses are regulated when needed, and safety and pollution etc are considered. The "center" IS an amorphous amalgam of divergent opinion yes you are correct, but so are the left and to a slightly lesser extent the right, or there would be no arguments at all on DU or FR. To me, centrists are those who do not automatically assume one party's or "wing"'s opinion is automatically right and one is automatically wrong, but is persuadable to both.

[Rydz777]

10. "a conservative foreign policy." I'm regularly seeing references

to "conservative foreign policy," and I'm left in doubt as to what that is supposed to mean. It probably means a neo-con foreign policy, i.e. interventionist, policemen of the world. On the other hand, people like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan who are usually tagged as conservatives (at least libertarian and paleo) espouse a non-interventionist and mind-our-own-business foreign policy.

What is termed "conservative" is often a jumble that requires "multiconceptualism" to fathom.

[Armstead]

13. K&R -- This is kind of obtuse but makes a good point

Most people don't fall into the neat fast-food political labels. We're more complicated than that. And we need to fight for progressive causes with that understanding.

[ljm2002]

16. Chasing phantoms...

...is certainly one part of the equation. In other words, making appeals based on "average" voter views, is going after people who don't exist -- in the same way that the "average" family of 1 mother, 1 father, 2 cars, 1.5 pets and 2.3 children does not exist and cannot exist. It is a fiction used to help when making quantitative analyses, nothing more.

The other part of the equation is, by tailoring one's message to the fictitious center, one neglects to appeal to the actual voters who may hold stronger views on every issue than that which the centrist candidate proposes. So they lose the more committed voters, or at least lose the chance to energize them.

However -- while what Lakoff says makes sense, it should be noted that another factor in politics these days is the ability to not piss people off. And those damned middle-of-the-road sounding speeches and positions tend not to piss anyone off too much (except people like yours truly, who are in enough of a minority as not to matter, it seems). And that does seem to be a factor in people's chances at getting elected.

Still, I wish they would take Lakoff's message to heart and really make their appeals based on their true positions, no mincing words, just the facts. I will not hold my breath, however. :-)