... I miss it.  As a committed democrat, I can easily see all the problems with the republican party.  When I look at my own party, it bothers me to see we are mirroring the problems in the GOP.  Each party has given over politics to the absolutist wing on any given issue -- the people so enamourated with the absolute correctness of their own analysis of things that they are blind to any nuance and they are unwilling to compramise on any issue.  This "playing to the base" happens on both sides.  The GOP talks to the religious right, the pro-life people,  and the social and fiscal conservatives.  The Dems talk to the unions, the Bush Haters,  and the pro-choice people.  Nobody notices that most of the people in the US are in the middle.  

I want to vote for a "fuck all you nutters!  Get out of the political process and go back to muttering to yourself."  candidate.  Pressure group and money politics are preverting politics.  Get the interest group $$$ out of the process and keep the nuts off the airwaves.  That includes the nutters I agree with.  

Harry

Perhaps the best example of a "political center" is the attempts at 3rd parties... and as far as extremes go, the Civil War was pretty far out there.....  

Me, I would just settle if we could get the PC verbage to be gone... we cannot even laugh at ourselves anymore... any position, no matter the motive is INSTANTLY linked to some extremest view by the opposing side... for instance... and here is where Mr. Spock will now chime in and label me a bigot, a honky or whatever the nome de jour is in his lexicon... lol!

...  and most of them probably do not post to this board.

I agree.  It doesn't matter what the issue is: the position is predictable based on the ideology of the parties involved.  In the 21st century with accelerating, interconnected global issues of energy, environment, multinational corporate power, population, weapons of mass destruction, etc, etc we need the clearest kinds of thinking in leadership positions.

Alas, I do not know how our system where all media  is marketing oriented (I just watched the movie Network for the 1st time in years.  It is dead on) can generate such leadership.  It's too easy to form support around emotional but essentially irrelevant issues.

not in a good mood today.... Lunies on the freeway again... and some luny middle of the roader with an easy rider rifle rack in his pick-em-up truck tried to have me do Greek with his car....  when I let him by - he stops right in front of me.... we were doing 60 MPH at the time....  so me not in good mood.

but that's not what radicals want, so you get Rehnquist and other radicals saying that a political party - which uses public facilities and funds to seek public offices - is a private association, so that it can exclude members.  That is just one issue in radicalization.

Interest groups are inevitable and not bad.  Perspective is the problem, and shutting out issues is counterproductive.    Politicians should be negotiating solutions, rather than entertaining us.   And that is the reason you can't negotiate with the religious right.  Politics is about faith to them, and they want to be persecuted - they are *trying* to pick fights.  Let them take a swing, then knock them into next week, and bundle them off to jail.   Sue their fraud-assed leaders into penury.  Fucking perverts.

it'll be alright.

(1)  There are going to be a lot of different opinions and miscommunications out there, so listen up and try not to be one of them.  If you are, relax, it'll be OK.

(2) Anal on a pickup is not a good idea, but the only way you can make it worse is take it personally.   Maybe he's malicious, maybe dum, don't let it get to you - deal with it as a THING, not a driver.   Don't pick their fight, ie, get stuck in a lane.  Think sportbike.

Ain't no problem ...

... There is a silent majority.  Most of them aren'stsilent because they are dumb or uninterested, but because they have better things to do with their life than to stand on one side of the ravine and shout at the people on the other side.  

Remember that I'm a pretty committed democrat.  That doesn't mean that I can't see there are some people that call themselves democrats that I am uncomfortable being around.  I'm not uncomfortable because I disagree with their ideas, but because they don't seeem to have any ability to see or have any sympathy for other's points of view.  

I am reasonably certain that I am not always correct in everything I think or feel.   All of the problems this country faces are not the moral equivalent of slavery and there is almost certainly some sort of common ground.  Lets hope we can find more of it.

Harry

the current administration. Are you suggesting that a centrist favors milder incompetence and a toned down theocracy--perhaps a Methodist theocracy?

It is also funny that your analysis of who the parties talk to omits the one group that actually has all the real power--namely corporations.

Remember: A centrist is just someone who won't make up his mind.

Could you list some specifics of the Dems pandering to the "radical left" recently?

'Cause I must have missed it...

...which have been removed.  

The biggest thing was probably the communist threat.  The center, which was already strained, began to crumble when the Berlin wall did. We no longer had the Red threat.  

Really, the seeds were planted before that.  George Bush I had made liberalism a bad word, and formally made a "card carrying member of the ACLU"  something shameful-- well, like the communist.  Thus, he took the Cold War and made it domestic-- only because he wanted to win an election.  

Before that, the Reagan administration killed the fairness doctrine.  The first bastard child of that was Rush Limbaugh.

But let's face it, Harry, people were through with the center anyway, and that's why Rush Limbaugh immediately commanded big audiences.  

Patrick Buchanan was right that there was a culture war in America.  It was seething below the surface.  

Now we have the terrorist and/or immigration threats.  However, as they say, it's much easier to tear down a house than it is to build one.  Now that the forces have been released, I don't know if we'll see the "center" again in our lifetimes.

Strangely enough, we will all think of the '90s as the good ol' days.

Why?

I don't see a connection between open primaries and centrism.  Sure, 'centrists' could vote for whatever candidate they wanted.  But the 'radicals' could also vote for the 'radical' of the opposing party to sabotage the November elections.

This has already happened in states with open primaries.  Let's say the Republican candidate is unopposed.  Many Republicans will then vote in the Democratic primary, in an attempt to get an 'unelectable' Democratic candidate in November.

(Disclaimer: Party affiliation in that example was chosen by flipping a coin.  I'm not making any statement about the activities of either party)

... and I don't think we are there yet.   I don't think we are even close.  I'm a bit of an optimist.  

The people in the media that pander to our worst instincts get tiresome after a while.  

Culture Wars?  I'll worry when a Unitarian does a suicide bombing of of a Southern Baptist Convention.  Remember when (What's his name) was going to launch the culture war by bombing the federal center in Oklahoma?    When was the last time you heard a peep from those right wing shock troops?

We lived through the end of codified segregation in this country.   It changed things and the country survived.  Frankly, compared to that, finding a majoritian position on abortion and Iraq sound like a walk in the park.

Agree with me or not, I would bet you hope I'm right.

Harry

... A majority of the people that voted in the last cycle voted for GWB.  As a democrat, that means I have to live with it (as do we all).  

The country has always had an uneasy relationship with religious morality.  The first money bill voted by the Continental Congress in the US was for $1.5m to Christianize the Indians.   I personally think it is always important to separate church and state.  That won't always be easy -- people LIKE to infuse their morality into their politics.  Sometimes that is a good thing,  Most of the time (IMHO) it isn't.  A lot of what passes for morals in this area consists of condemning what the other guy is doing wrong.  It is always easier to condemn a sin that doesn't appeal to you.  

Corporations represent riches and jobs in this country.  They want peace and stability and low taxes and government getting out of their way (as well as some bad things).  Those all sound pretty good to me.

A centrist is someone who finds people strongly on the right or left tiresome after a while.

Regards,  Harry

... pandering for union votes by demonizing corporations and foreign imports and promising protection from change that they can't deliver.  

Not admiting that teachers unions are a big part of the problem in urban schools.  

Condeming religious conservatives as a block and forgetting that large numbers of them care about the treatment of the poor, are against capital punishment, dislike the war in Iraq, and find the treatment of prisoners immoral, ...

Harry

Michael Moore's invitation to sit in the most prestigious box seats at the Dems last National Convention?

I'd be interested to know what some of you think are "good" examples of the Republican's cow towing to the extreme right.

There is nothing wrong with special interest groups.

There is nothing wrong with special interest group money.

That's all there really is...special interests of one fashion or another. Some are just more popular than others...some groups are larger than others. Every person is a special interest group of one.

"They" (special interests) don't need to be "controlled".
Nor does "their money" need to be controlled.
Make it all transparent and out in the open.

What is needed is a limit to the power that the money buys.

And the only solution I see for that is TERM LIMITS for ALL elected officials. Put an end to the professional politician. The Republicans tried it once and it was shot down by the Supreme Court. This requires a Constitutional change. The risk is that the bureaucracy takes over, bullying the politicians, since they would always be “Freshman”.

OK.  But public funding of elections is legal and there are constitutional limitations that can be applied to advocacy advertising.

and I think they are both bad law.

Both are attempts to limit free speech.

Limiting what I can say during any given year, day or at any instant in time is wrong.

Limiting the number of years I'm elegible to run for office is at least more tolerable.

"pandering for union votes by demonizing corporations and foreign imports and promising protection from change that they can't deliver."

Funny...there's all these Democrats, including the Clintons, who are pushing for "Free Trade" treaties.  The only 'protectionist' action I'm aware of is they want restrictions in these treaties for environmental and labor protection in  other countries.  Those protections would not stop trade, they would just make it more 'fair' to the workers in other countries as well as protecting the environment.

I will admit there is a lot of people on the radical left who are anti-corporate and anti-trade, but they're not in office.

"Not admiting that teachers unions are a big part of the problem in urban schools."

That's because it isn't.  The problem in Urban schools is we've been cutting funding for 30 years.

I remember back when it was a scandal when a school had to add trailers, and class size went over 30.  Now class sizes are in the 60s, some schools are structurally colapsing and teachers are in one of the lowest-paid profession in the country.  Unless the parents make up for these problems, it's impossible to properly educate anyone under these circumstances.

And before you say "private schools", the difference is parental involvement.  Parents who send their kids to private schools are massively involved in their child's education.  As a result, the kid does better in school because Mom and Dad demand it of their children.  Unfortunately, public schools can not rely on parental invovlement.

"Condeming religious conservatives as a block"

Catholics are a major Democratic stronghold, and are welcomed in the party.  The only 'religious conservatives' that are getting condemned are the radicals, like Falwell and Robertson.

Democrats believe in religious freedom, so they must oppose those who want to plaster the 10 commandments everywhere, or put prayer back in school, or declare we are a 'Christian' nation, or demand control over a woman's body.  

Btw...religious freedom is a majority position in this country.  On this subject, the Republicans are the radicals.

While Michael Moore is a common target for the right, he's not actually all that radical if you pay attention to public opinion polls.

For example, polls show his position, as illustrated in Ferenheight 911, is shared by about 40% of the public.

Gun control, from Bowling for Columnbine, is also quite popular among the public at large.  Typically it also polls in the 40s.

Granted, I disagree with many of the tricks he's pulled in his movies to make the situation look far worse than it really is, but the underlying position is not radical.

On the extreme right front:
-Attempts to shove Christianity into government, such as DeLay saying he wants the government to have a "Biblical world view", and trying to plaster the 10 commandments everywhere.

-Anything doing with sex.  There have been attempts to ban birth control in general, lots of bans of things like sex toys, bans on "immoral" behaviors like BJs (yes, struck down by the SCOTUS).

-Anti-gay policies.  While a significant percentage of the public does not want "Gay Marriage", they do support civil unions.

-The Terri Schiavo mess.

are because you seem to think that corporations should have all the say and government's role should be to make sure that no one gets in their way. That hardly seems centrist. The fact is that the power of unions has steadily declined in the last 30 years and the plight of the middle class has mirrored that decline quite nicely.
Secondly, what prominent democrat has condemned "religious conservatives as a block"? Please site the example because I don't see it. And finally which "religious conservatives...care about the treatment of the poor, are against capital punishment, dislike the war in Iraq, and find the treatment of prisoners immoral, ..."? Seriously, because I can find plenty of religious liberals who feel that way but no religious conservatives.

"finding a majoritian position on abortion and Iraq sound like a walk in the park."

Yes...since there already is.  Majorites in public opinion polls are pro-choice, and want to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as practical.

like fucking in the park is just a form of expression.   Dodging the draft is just a form of expression, driving drunk and leaking the identity of covert operatives, misleading accounting, all that stuff is just a form of expression that the 1st amendment protects when *I* do it.  

But you better not try it.

Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson of the Focus on the Family, etc. & this is reason why we have such an overly invasive evangelical Bush administration...

I think not.

a prominent democrat invited Larry Flynt to dinner  to discuss 1st. Amendment issues, there would be quite a furor over it..

and exactly why did McCain draw so much shit from the Republicans when he criticized their reliance on the likes of Robertson & Falwell?

They're not talking to, or meeting with Dubya's boys.  They're knowing them, in the Biblical sense.

Look, let's be frank here.   The RNC is run by parasitic assholes.   The DNC is run by pathetic assholes.  The DNC being out of office is not an excuse for either party.   I will worry about the Democrats when they fuck things up.  Right now and for the past 25 years, it's been Republicans fucking things up (Clinton can have a new intern and/or stripper every day, as long as he keeps up the economic results) and it's time to play musical chairs up there.