Centrist Pundits

Tonight, Massachusetts voted a Republican in to the Senate. This would surprise anyone who was looking at the race a few months ago, but comes as no surprise to those who’ve been looking at it for the last couple of weeks.

What does this mean for centrism? Well, you have to look at how the race was run.

On the one hand, it definitely reminds us that almost no state is a red state or a blue state. Like all states, Mass has a mix of people with a vast, muddy middle area. They elected Romney to office, after all, though he was a bit more liberal at the time. So it might be tempting to note this as a victory for centrists – that even in a “solid blue” state, moderates can and do influence the politics. A lot of people have said that Republicans could be in trouble if they go to the right particularly hard, and this might bear that out – for both parties.

On the other, neither side ran a typical campaign. Brown, for one, hardly ever called himself a Republican, knowing that word is anathema in Massachusetts. Coakley, on the other hand, sold herself mostly as a person with a penchant for misspeaking. Democrats didn’t take this race seriously, and it might have had another outcome if they had. But Brown’s strategy worked – Brown sold himself as a moderate, and yet a look at his record, while hardly the most conservative record in the world, if fairly solidly in the Republican camp. Whether or not the votes of Massachusetts will hold him to his promise of “social consciousness” while he has his personal beliefs tend towards the conservative side of the aisle will remain to be seen.

Now, the question is, what does this mean for the legislative centerpiece of the Democratic Congress, health care reform? I’ve seen a surprising number of posts tonight indicating that its dead, most of them in the “ding dong the witch is dead” vein (mostly from my conservative friends). And it could mean that. But keep something in mind: neither side really wants it dead, and neither side has to accept its death.

Democrats may actually come out ahead (at least in terms of how liberal a health care bill is passed), if they are willing (which is always the question with them.) The only option left to them is reconciliation, a concept I admittedly don’t understand well. I thought it could only be used for the budget. But people talk about using it for health care reform. If Democrats move this direction – costly as it may be in terms of making them look like they are playing fair – then they only need 51 votes in the Senate. They can tell Lieberman and Nelson to take their amendments and shove them, and pass the House version generally in tact. This might be a monumentally unwise move by the Democrats, but cornered animals tend to do strange things.

On the other hand, while no Republican in the world would admit it, they need Health Care as an issue. If they kill it now, it – meaning the need to repeal the bill – doesn’t help with the mid-terms and doesn’t help in 2012. I wonder if we’ll see Snowe or another moderate Republican have a change of heart, though that may be the cynical part of my brain.

What does this mean for the future? Not a whole lot. It will keep Steele in his job a little longer, and it will re-energize the morale of a number of downtrodden Republicans, but like NY23, it won’t maintain its party switch. Come 2012, barring a truly popular Republican with incredible coat tails, one Kennedy or another will decide to run, and take it from Brown. In short, what this race does is one thing only – remind us that the political pendulum in America is ever-swinging.

JC Congress, Political Parties, State Politics Congress, Health care, Massachusetts, Scott Brown, senators

One of the great things about politics is that people tend to draw whatever conclusions they want to draw out of any poltical contest. I remember a Democrat in November of 1994 telling me that the election wasn’t anti-Democrat, it was anti-incumbent. I found that hard to swallow, since all of the incumbents who lost that day were Democrats. But it does remind me that it can be dangerous to find what you’re looking for in the tea leaves.

But, no matter, because now I am doing the same!

I think that the victory of Democrat Bill Owens in the special election for the NY23 congressional seat should indicate something very important to the major parties: shut out the moderates at your own peril.

Dierdre Scozzafava is a moderate Republican. She represents the future of the GOP — if, indeed, it has one. And the national party’s insistence on dragging the party to the right of what the locals knew would work lost them the seat. They might not have liked a moderate Republican, but they’d sure like her better than a Democrat.

Fact is, moderates and independents don’t like crap like this, and they’ve shown that it won’t be tolerated. Well, in upstate New York, at least.

Greg National Politics, Political Parties

(No, I’m not really back yet – new job and all – but I may post a bit this month.  I expect December to be when I start getting back in to this regularly.)

You know, the New York Senate was completely messed up this summer, and it barely made the national news.  But one not even particularly interesting Congressional race gets a bit weird, and suddenly, it’s everywhere.  I speak, of course, of New York 23, a bit north of where I live… but on my TV a lot these days.

Now, of course, normally, there would be no Congressional election this year.  But the previous Congressman is now the Secretary of the Army, and so a special election needed to be held to fill the seat.  Normally, this would be a remarkably open and shut case.  New York 23 is one of the more conservative districts in the state, and the area hasn’t had a Democratic representative since just after the Civil War, if  I understand it correctly.  Its Republican country until tomorrow.

Tomorrow, it may be Democrat country, or, more likely in this blogger’s opinion, Conservative country.    Now, I have no problem with a Conservative campaigning and winning an election (although he doesn’t live in the area, which I do have a problem with) but that’s not really the story.  The story is that a moderate – something that this website is interested in – was completely forsaken by the party – in favor of a conservative.

We all know the country, generally, leans to the middle, by most guesses, a little right of center, but towards the middle.  We also know that politics is completely defined by the two extremes of the political spectrum, both in their own self-definition and in their opposition’s definition of who they are.  Right now, the Republicans are looking towards their future, to figure out how they’ll define themselves.  And most of the bigwigs look like they’ve decided that they will define themselves as the far-right.

The vast majority of the party leaders said that the candidate for the Republican party (who is, admittedly, a moderate – but let’s face it, NY Republicans are never the standard bearers of conservatism – and who, admittedly, was not elected but appointed as the candidate by 11 NY Republican Party county chairs) wasn’t conservative enough to be a Republican, and endorsed the Conservative Party’s candidate.  I’m not one for blind party loyalty but I think the least one can expect when one is the candidate for a party is the endorsement of the party’s movers and shakers, whether its enthusiastic or not.  It seems pretty basic.

The Republican, Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, isnt showing much loyalty to the ideals of the Republican party either.  Not because of her moderate stances on things like gay marriage – which isn’t nearly the issue here in NY that it is, say, in Oklahoma – but because when she withdrew from the race, she endorsed the Democrat.  Again, not one for blind party loyalty, and she’d been rogered pretty badly by her party, but you probably shouldn’t endorse your party’s traditional opposition, as a general rule.

The parties exist, whether they should or not, because like minded people pooling their resources make for more power than a bunch of individuals.  In exchange, sometimes, you take one for the team.  If either part of that equation falters, the party suffers.  Right now, it seems like no one is remembering why parties exist.  I’d normally be okay with that, except I think at the moment it plays in the political extremist hands, rather than the rise of the center.

I suppose some might say that this is the beginning of the rise of a Conservative party.  And maybe they are right.  But if they are, is that good for conservatism in America?  If most Americans are center or center-right, does a stronger national party that always plays far-right get elected?  Or do they split the vote with moderates and start to consistently lose to Democrats?  When people say that parties are, by definition, big tents, they aren’t just saying that because they like to see a few people of color, a few women, and a few homosexuals around.  They are pointing out that you need to get to at least the plurality of votes.  A Conservative party that ignores moderates only works if moderates themselves go by the wayside.  Right now, it looks like the only two Republicans who realize that are Newt Gingrich and Meghan McCain.

The sad part about it is, this election isn’t some sort of bellweather.  If the Democrat wins, it is because the vote was split.  If the Conservative wins, it is because of outside influences.  If the Republican wins – which is basically impossible – it is because the district votes Republican by default.  There’s no… data… to be garnered from the results.  Just noise.  And noise is what those who endorsed the Conservative want – they want their names in the papers for their own ambitions – Palin, Pawlenty, Pataki and more.  Because if they can say “Hey, I don’t toe the line, I do what’s right, heck, I don’t even endorse my own party’s candidates if they are the wrong person” they can claim to be mavericks, free-thinkers, and movers and shakers, even if all they are is an ideologue.

JC National Politics, Political Parties, State Politics Congress, Conservative Party, elections, Palin, Pawlenty

If there’s anything that unites centrists, it’s the feeling that the two major political parties fall short of enchanting us to the degree that we want to give them all our support. After all, terms like “centrist” and “moderate” are considered by partisans to be invectives.

I’ve looked at other parties before; most are to the left of the Democrats or to the right of the GOP. There are some that appeal to a few moderates; I looked at the Libertarians, but they’re a little too liberal on the social scale for my tastes.

One party with promise seems to be the Modern Whigs. They claim to inherit the rich history of the 19th Century Whigs, which gave us four presidents, and was also the original party of Abraham Lincoln. From a purely marketing perspective, I think that’s genius — because the Party of Lincoln hasn’t really been acting like it for a long time.

Right now, the Whigs seem to not be fully defined. They do have some basic tenets listed on their website, including a fiscally conservative policy that is state-driven, emphasis on scientific research and development, and a recognition that the economic and national security future of this country depend on energy independence. Also, there is a tenet about veterans affairs that seems to be common sense, but has a prominent placement that’s likely due to the fact that the party was re-established by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for other issues, they do go into some… well, detail isn’t the right word. They touch on some of them, and I think this is an area that the Whigs need to work on. Many issues are kicked to states rights. And that’s fine, but when they do that for Gay Rights, there’s nothing on the party’s view on federal issues, such as federal recognition of same-sex marriages for social security retirement benefits and for joint tax returns, or about federal laws like DOMA.

I am not sure if that reflects a lack of resources to get that information on the website, or if it’s simply because the Whigs haven’t fully defined themselves on some issues. If it’s the former, they really need to get some proper position papers out there on some key issues. Not every issue under the sun, but some areas to fully explain what it means to be a Whig. If it’s the latter, then they need to figure out what they’re about.

There’s also a possibility that they’re shying away from some controversial issues to keep from alienating potential supporters. In fact, their statement on abortion appears to be just that. Not that I blame them for wanting to stay away from it — it’s an issue that sucks time, energy and money away from critical issues like health care, national defense, the economy, and education. But you can’t look like you’re dancing around the issue if you want to be taken seriously.

The Whigs have ballot access in Florida, and have three candidates for Congress next year. I listened into a web conference they had with the candidates, and by far, the most appealing was Paul McKain. He seems like the real deal, and if I lived in his district, I think I’d be voting for him.

I’ll be paying attention to the Whigs. I’d have gone to a meeting to find out more, but they don’t seem to have any state organization here, nor can I find anyone else why has heard of them. Maybe that will change… I’ll see!

Greg Congress, National Politics, Political Parties whigs

Sometimes, what the parties send out that might look like a desire to know where their supporters stand is actually a push-poll designed to raise revenue. Here’s a recent example from the GOP:

Republican Census Document

Greg 2012 Election, National Politics, Political Parties gop

Republicans have aired ads and made statements attacking the stimulus.  It is an easy target, as the economy isn’t feeling much better most days.  Never mind that Politifact is having most of Boehner’s statements rated as false or barely true, it’s a good sound bite, which is what a lot of politics is about these days.  Meanwhile, some Democrats are talking about a second stimulus to get more money out there.

Both parties are being stupid.

If this were a school, it wouldn’t be an F or an A, it would be an incomplete.  I know everyone wanted the stimulus money to move quickly.  “Shovel-ready projects” and all that, meaning projects that were good to go, including all site reviews and all that jazz, except for funding.  But the truth is billions of dollars don’t move quickly.  Only 10% of the stimulus money has moved so far.

When Republicans claim that it is already a failure, it is too early to say that.  If they want to make a legitimate claim, talk about how the stimulus is being disbursed slower than they would like.  Not as good a sound bite, but the advantage of being true.

When Democrats talk a second stimulus, it is too early to know if that is a good idea or not.  If the money hasn’t be sent out yet, then we don’t know if this is throwing away more money, or if the first money is going to handle what we need it to handle, or if the current stimulus is getting us a lot but needs a bit more… which is when you talk a second stimulus.  A “surge” if you want to use Republican-speak.

I get it when the people have unrealistic expectations, but the leaders should have a greater understanding of reality.  Of course, they probably do, and it probably has no bearing on their actions; the attempt to score points is what has bearing.

JC Economy, Political Parties commerce, stimulus

So, previously, I had mentioned how dysfunctional the New York State Senate is right now.  I discussed the “coup” and how the Republicans had taken power in a Democrat-dominated chamber based on some private bankrolling and a couple of people changing their minds on who to caucus with.

Since then, the situation has gotten worse, with court orders to meet and each party holding their own Senate sessions, court challenges regarding the requirement to meet, and gavel-in, gavel-out sessions of the Senate.  New York is easily the most dysfunctional state in the Union right now, leadershipwise, and I’m including the 15 or so states that may have to shut down or write IOUs to employees because they failed to pass budgets.

It took an even more childish turn yesterday when Democrats claimed to have a quorum:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/nyregion/01albany.html?ref=nyregion

The claim is based on the fact that one Republican senator was forced to divert his path to get around reporters when all he wanted was some coffee or a soda.  It is insane.

Look, I’m no expert.  It looks to me like Republicans are the legitimate leaders of the Senate right now, but I don’t know.  I think with a 31-31 split there should, in fact, be some sort of power-sharing arrangement reached.  But my real problem is this: whatever legitimate questions there are here about the Senate leadership, they are being completely masked by the childishness of 62 New York State senators.  This isn’t 2 rival kindergarten classes, these are 62 elected officials who need to get back to work.

I haven’t seen the full list yet, but there are literally dozens of important things waiting on New York legislative approval.  I’m not talking big things like taking up gay marriage issues, I mean little things that have big impacts on communities, like money for schools.  When the only thing the two sides can agree on is that they should keep getting paid, I really think we have to consider whether any of them deserve their jobs.

JC Political Parties, State Politics New York

There are people who have been wanting South Carolina governor Mark Sanford to run for President in 2012. However, many people told him that he needed more experience in foreign affairs.

I am afraid he completely misunderstood what we meant.

Greg Media, National Politics, Political Parties

Anyone who understands even the most basic parts of demographics knows that this country is shifting.  Shortly, within the next 20 years, the Latino vote will be amongst the most important demographic to appeal to if you want to remain in office, especially in states in the Southwest and in populous cities nationwide.

What will be interesting to watch will be how ideologies and practical politics collide.  We already see it at times, such as with the Sotomayor nomination.  Republicans have generally been very careful to avoid doing things that could be construed as racist.  For some, this is no doubt because they aren’t racist, and for some, it’s a matter of keeping their record clean.  Those Republicans who tried to pin the racism on Sotomayor herself have either reversed their position (Gingrich) or have moved on (Limbaugh). 

More interesting will be how the 2012 Republican platform takes shape.  Will hot-button issues for the Latino vote be downplayed?  What will be the fate of the Republican stance on amnesty for immigration, tighter border crossings, denial of access to services like health care, and English as the national language?

English as a national language might still be fair game, as long as its implemented with sanity.  Making people learn the common language of the nation for citizenship can be presented in a light that makes it not different than having to learn our history.  But you can’t just leave people to die in hospitals or go without legal representation in court because they don’t speak English.  Those things probably wouldn’t happen anyway, but that seems to be the fear raised when English as a national language crops up.  A more robust explanation of the party stance would be in order.  “English as a national language to facilitate communication, while acknowledging that emergency services must be granted despite language barriers” would be a start.

Denial of services like health care, education, and driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants will be a trickier one.  The question will be where the line is drawn.  No one seems to think much of denying driver’s licenses to people, but on the flip side, no one wants to see people at a hospital denied treatment because they aren’t an American (the common argument being they are still human).  Education is a hot-button middle ground.  Both parties will have to choose where they stand on this, but it is the Republicans who would tend to the more restrictive policies in the past, and will need to decide if these policies still represent their views in the future.  Similarly, amnesty for immigration will need to be examined.  The current view is that amnesties encourage illegal crossings, but if these amnesties would please potential voters by reuniting families, it may be worth it to abandon this plank.

Tight border crossing controls have a good backup in place.  The discussion will need to be turned, in the Republican point of view, from one of immigration to one of national security.  If the Republicans can convince Latinos that tight border controls are in place to keep terrorists out, not to keep their families out, then they might have a chance.  Of course, that will require the groups along the border who have taken it upon themselves to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border to not seem quite so stereotypically white, racist, and Republican.  Unity will be the watchword here.

What it boils down to is principle versus practicality.  I think there are many conservatives who honestly have a problem with amnesties, with tax money paying for services for people who don’t pay taxes, and with a porous border.  I even sympathize with some (but not all) of their arguments.  But the Latino vote is a rapidly growing segment of our population and unlike, say, the African-American vote, it isn’t inherently attached to either party, and probably won’t be, unless one party or the other makes a mistake.  So the question is, is sticking to those principles that will most likely drive a vote away from your party a mistake?

That’s an old political question – do what’s your heart says is right or your head says gets the most votes?

JC 2012 Election, National Politics, Political Parties 2012, elections, gop, immigration, Sotomayor

Today, the US Supreme Court put Chrysler’s sale to Fiat on hold, slamming the brakes on a fast-paced bankruptcy process that’s raised more than a few eyebrows due to its White House-endorsed elimination of long-standing creditors rights.

In an order issued this afternoon, Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg granted a delay that had been requested by several creditors, most notably the Indiana state pension fund. No reason was given in the order, but the bankruptcy judge’s decision not to protect the secured creditors of the company, just like, well, every other bankruptcy that he and all other bankruptcy judges have done.

Normally, the secured creditors get paid first. That kind of protection is what makes people, companies, and, more commonly, institutions want to invest in companies. So, in a normal bankruptcy, they’re the ones that get paid first.

But this is no normal bankruptcy. It involves a huge American manufacturing company. It involves many other industries that feed into it. And, as many will tell you, it involves one of the most politically influential unions in this country.

The stay was the right move. The government cannot just leave Indiana retirees holding the bag for investing responsibly. If Fiat wants to take this company, they better be prepared to take some parts they don’t want — such as the liabilities of public servants from a state that usually votes Republican, but went for Obama last year.

Greg Economy, National Politics, Political Parties, Supreme Court Chrysler, finance, obama, Supreme Court, unions