Call Me A Raving Moderate

Hey–I want to be an I.M! I wish it were possible to create a third party–I have no place to call home now. We need a strong leader–How about Michael Bloomberg?

I have always been a moderate We don’t have to have a 3rd party, We just need honest people who are capable, qualified, objective, and whose primary interest is what the job of President and Congress calls for, We the People, and done so with integrity. As unplausible as that may seem, I still believe there are people like this. The problem is they are simply outnumbered by dishonest, greedy people who could give two shits about this country and don’t have an ounce of integrity in their whole body. A third party can be just as dishonest as the two we have.

Dear Steve: What a wonderful article. This election forced me to realize I am not a “liberal” in the sense that Daily Kos, Huff Post and other raving lunatics are, but a moderate “D”emocrat who sometimes agrees with things the republicans have to say (heaven forbid). I even respected Sarah Palin even though I did not agree with some of her ultra-conservative views, and yes, I agree, let’s get un-dependent off foreign oil as quickly as possible no matter what kind of U.S. drilling is involved. Because of all that went on this past election cycle, I can no longer officially call myself a “D”emocrat (having failed to show up to vote on Nov. 4 and support the CHOSEN CANDIDATE) but truly think both sides have good ideas and very bad ones and we should ALL work together for the best interests of our country.

I’ll probably get called a troll for this one but whatever.

CNN just announced the Dems are letting Lieberman stay in the caucus and keep his chairmanships. I think we need to give credit to Obama and the Dems on this one.

After 8 years of a vindictive “decider” who held grudges like my 9th grade girlfriend, it’s nice to have some adults in office who don’t hold vendettas when they’re bad for the country.

If Hillary actually gets SOS as well, I’d be pretty impressed. A far cry from Bush’s cronyism. I think I’m starting to understand what Obama meant by change that whole time.

I agree! Rather than being of the left wing or the right wing, I’d rather think of myself as of the up wing. Not to be self-righteous, but centrism or “up-wing-ism” tends to de-politicize our views and how we interact.

Oh, I love this post! Great work!
Although I have identified myself as a dem, I have always weighed both sides of issues…that is the most interesting part of politics for me.
When folks become so deeply entrenched that they refuse to negotiate, their usefulness is over!
That is the problem in D.C. and it will only get worse.
Can we make a difference though?
With as much resistance as we put up this year, and still failed, I think the logical, practical people have been silenced permanently! I never considered passing up the duty of voting, but now it crosses my mind often!

I definitely have a guiding ideology so I never considered myself a moderate per se. But like you, I feel like I have no party either.

Specifically, I think the government should be a last resort and as Jefferson said “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.”
I also think we should try to harness market mechanisms the majority of the time because they’re superior in terms of information transmission and collection and in terms of incentives. Lastly, I think the government should stay out of our personal lives – I hate the social conservative agenda for federal amendments against gay marriage and abortion. I say let that stuff be handled at the state level.

Those stances are probably most consistent with the libertarian party and then secondly the Republican Party. But my problem is that those parties (as well as the Dem party) seem to be dominated by ideological zealots right now. These Republicans and libertarians seem to believe in NO government spending at all and zero government intervention.
In contrast, I think it’s unreasonable to expect NO federal government and no taxes. Moreover, I think it’s irrational to have NO regulation at all (particularly since we’ve had prior government interventions that have distorted market incentives. In addition, market participants like all human beings are only boundedly rational. Like all of us, they rely on heuristics and exhibit biases that systematically degrade the quality of their decision-making.) Lastly, markets DO fail under certain conditions. All economists would agree with this. Externalities and high coordination costs are just two reasons why they may fail to allocate resources effectively. So I see a role for the federal government that goes beyond just national security. But if you say something like that on a libertarian or rightwing blog today you’re labeled a fraud and a RINO and told to join the Democratic Party!!! lol. The funny thing is I disagree with the Dems most of all!!! Bottom line for me: I have no party either.

I wanted to add one more thought:
One thing I noticed this election year that I find really disturbing is an uptick in partisanship in rank and file Dems. (For the GOP I see the problem as more ideological zealotry than partisanship per se.) Many young Dems on the net totally buy in to whatever policy, stance or action engaged in by Dems, no question asked. For example, they’ll passionately defend the Dems on things like sexist treatment of Palin or the way Dems abused the public trust by rifling through databases to find private information about Joe the Plumber’s personal life and then using it for political points. That kind of hypocrisy really sickens me. Partisanship and ideological zealotry over the best interest of our country is a cancer on our democracy.

I agree that the majority of the public is moderate, but forming a viable third party would take years if it ever happened. I think the idea of having everyone give up the R and D after their names is good one, but that’s not going to work either. That leaves people out of the primary process in too many states.

But how about starting such a movement with REAL election reform? I think that’s an issue the overwhelming majority of Americans can agree on. Simple things like a national voter registry, so that people can’t register to vote in five states. Open primaries, true public funding. Take one issue at a time starting with the simple, doable, one person one vote concept.

The two parties will fight it, because they both game the system. They both talk about reform, but neither of them REALLY wants reform. But I honestly think a well thought out campaign with well spoken, level headed people leading the way could accomplish the one person one vote possibly by the next Presidential election. You’d have to start with petitions, NOT with Congress. No, it would have to be grassroots and overwhelming in nature. A movement that couldn’t be silenced, I truly think that is possible. People on both sides are fed up, even some obots are appalled by the ACORN mess.

Once you had that grassroots structure in place then you could use it as a spring board to bigger things. Again, this would take years and I don’t think trying to jump into the Presidential race from the starting gate is the way to go. That would almost by its nature end up with a cult of personality. I think the smarter way to go would be to find level headed moderates in purple districts and begin to ebb away at either of the two parties having a majority. Using grassroots volunteers and internet fund raising it’s possible you could take enough seats to force the two major parties to work together. That would force bipartisanship and begin the process of neutering the wing nuts in both parties.

Just my two cents, which isn’t worth much these days you know.