Your example of Republican sanity is the foul Christine Todd Whitman???? (I'm sorry, you're close personal friends with her--"Christy" Todd Whitman.)

Interesting point you make at the end about the benefits of the myth lingering as it may or may not correlate to the ability of the GOP to re-group.

You may be onto something--so long as they can't tell the truth about what is so, they sabotage their efforts to move forward. Kind of like what we learn in psychology, about individual growth.

In any case, it is interesting how this myth prevails despite evidence to the contrary.

"The longer the GOP is convinced it's a center-right country, the longer it will take the party to adjust to the new political landscape."

I'm not so sure they actually do believe this. I think it's more of the same old reThug policy... repeat a lie often enough and people will start to believe it. I think it's an attempt by the talking heads and republican party to poison the well. They say that Obama must govern from the center right, and if he doesn't they'll all shout about his liberal policies.

If hammers were conservatism

Hits thumb with hammer

Owww!

Hits thumb with hammer

Owwww!

Hits thumb with hammer

Owwww!

We need more hammers!

Yeah, but did you see Pelosi's and Reid's remarks. Our dem leaders seem to be buying this nonsense of being a center right nation hook, line and sinker. Pelosi spouting how "we will govern from the center" and Reid claiming the dem electorate majority was not a mandate. It seems our Democratic leaders must also realize and accept the nation has shifted to the left because they also believe we are a center right nation.

I do hope we change our dem leadership to those who will move "with" the country and not two steps "behind" it. We know that Pelosi and Reid have long since stopped listening to the people always believing they know what's best for us despite our objections.

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: Can you please fix it so we don't have to enter name and email address each time we comment....fix the "remember personal info" part. Thanks-bjobotts

And the shrieks of "Blasphemer!" will arise from BrownState in 5...4...3...

Also, ditto what joey said. And while you're at it, why not redesign the entire blog so it looks like it was made during this century? The left side-bar with the old articles is particularly silly. (This is directed at the people who manage the site, not Steve B.)

It IS a center-right nation! It IS it IS it IS!! It's center-right-center-right-center-right and ICantHearYouLalalalalalalalala!!

And Ronald Reagan's military-spending binge was what caused the Soviet Union to collapse, and evolution is a secular-humanist lie, and dinosaurs shared the beginning of Earth with Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago.

And I'm all for it. Let them get all bug-eyed and red-faced and thick-veined, and let them collapse on the floor and speak in tongues and shout themselves into infarctions and vascular ruptures in overheated revival tents. Think of spastic death throes. The crazier the better.

And as for Pelosi and Reid, we should judge them by their actions and not their words. Of COURSE they're going to say nice things about bipartisanship and hands-across-the-aisle. What's the mileage in doing anything else except making our OWN revival-tent hotheads feel good? It's a no-brainer.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

This country may or may not be center right

Today's GOP is extreme right, and getting more so

But the US is center-right by sane international standards. However, the democrats are similarly center-right by those same standards.

When I was in high school in the late '60's the epitome of beyond-the-fringe right-wing nuttery in the US seemed to be the John Birch Society. As far as I can tell, at least a quarter and possibly over one-half of the Republican senators and representatives that one encounters when following the news nowadays are farther to the right and nuttier than the average John Bircher back then.

Regardless of whether we're a center-right nation or center-left (or a nation of individual people with individual beliefs that sometimes appear to "average out" into the illusion of a signal of political will during an election) - - - the main stream news media is pretty biased to a center-right zeitgeist, (with a few exceptions like Fox, and CNN's resident far-right-tool, Wolf Blitzer).

I don't think that generalities is at all constructive, because it's not about how many voters of which persuasion we have. It's about how energized and motivated these subsets are.

In the 1990's Gingrinch was pretty successful at motivating the mouth-breathers on the right. And the sociopathic opportunists in the Republican party took full advantage of it, and look at all the criminality that arose from the power their dominance gave them; Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Ted Stevens - look at any prominent Republican of the last 10 years, and just about every one of them has been heavily implicated in some kind of criminal scam from their chairman's robocall jam scam, to the Abramoff Contracting scandal, etc. Add to the mix the FISA nonsense, the lack of Iraqi WMD, and the whole thing looks like exactly what it was: the crime of the century, scamming taxpayers out of TRILLIONS of dollars; all while they complained about Social Security going bankrupt - tried to privatize it, and when they failed, we immediately saw this stock market collapse. (Actually, I wish they had succeeded at privatizing social security, watch everyone dump their retirement in the market - and all that money evaporate, which was the plan, all along).

The dumbest of the dumb even got it: Conservative values aren't necessarily dead. But the Republican party is just Organized Crime, and they've taken over "Conservative values" as part of their con game. No politician represents real conservative values any more. (as if any ever did).

No surprise that these people feel conned, betrayed, and as if they don't have a stake in how their nation is governed anymore.

I think the Bush presidency will keep the "conservative" center-right vote suppressed in this country for a generation, at least.

This year, the Democrats made up a stunning 39 percent of the electorate, compared with just 32 percent for the Republicans

Does this mean that 39% of the people who voted were Dems or that 39% of people registered to vote were Dems. There was a poll in the spring (Pew, I think) that showed a 39-27% advantage among those who identified themselves as Dem.

It is now harder for the Republican presidential candidate to get to 50.1 percent than for the Democrat

Harder, yes, but unfortunately, I think a lot of people vote based on personality and character, and then respond to issue questions according to who they choose.

Housekeeping: Ditto what joey says. Thanks.

I suspect, however, that the party and its base will ignore this kind of analysis -- Steve Benen

Well, of course they will; Lindberg is an elitist, not a real American. What does *he* know?

Some analysts like to explain this shift by pointing to Democratic gains and Republican losses [...] -- from Lindberg's article

If they (some analysts) do, then it strikes me as being ass-backwards or, perhaps, the-chicken-and-the-egg question. People would have had to shift their perceptions towards the left *first*, before abandoning Repubs in elections as not being representative of their own needs/philosophies.

I can't imagine anyone saying to himself, on a whim, "well, I don't want to be a Repub anymore; I think I'll become a Dem instead. It's too bad that Dems are way too far left for my tastes, but I guess I'll learn to live with that". It doesn't make any sense.

BTW, I agree, absolutely, with N.Wells' assessment of the general US position; even the Dems are center, at best, not "lefty". It's just that the Gop has bee frying our braincells for so long with their *very far* "right" ideas, that we can no longer recognise what constitutes "left"

I find the United States to be a sort of bathtub shaped nation: with a lot of liberals on the leftj conservatives on the right, a large number of idoits who don't care, and very few genunine moderates.

Lindberg has always written good columns even at the Wash. Times. He is a dispassionate conservative. People I know in New Jersey have told me CTW is all pomp and circumstance- using shutting down street lights to fix the budget for example-it is almost as if it was the end of times. At the EPA she was way over her head-she did use good judgment in quitting though.

Sometimes I think that this country's main problem is that ideology and party seem to be a form of LSD.

1. Of course, the US has been relatively center right 1980-2005.
2. Of course, voters have expressed a preference for center-left (or in some cases just left) candidates.
3. Does Republican party have major brand, talent and other problems? Heck, yeah!
4. Does this mean the next 20 years are set in stone politically? Heck, no!

Let me suggest:
1. If Barack Obama is a very successful president, 2008 will be a "re-alignment."
2. If he's not, it won't.

The whole scale has moved to the right over the last three decades. Even so, I would say on average we are center right. True, the pendulum has finally shifted, as a result of eight years of disastrous Bush policies, but how far did it swing? Obama is center-left. Not liberal left, not even moderate left. He favors the private sector for solutions. What Democrats would dare describe themselves as "liberal" today, or in favor of "big government" solutions, or even to "proactive government?"

Center left is as far as we're going this time, and when the Democrats screw up (everyone screws up when in power long enough), we'll shift far to the right again. Average = center right.

We could never pass Social Security or Medicare today. We will not see national health insurance, even if Obama's program passes. We will not see the end of this grotesque military/industrial complex buildup - everyone should read the NYT lead editorial today. You'd think we were just about to fight World War III with what they recommend.

Marriage for gays is going backwards. Could we pass civil rights today?

Forty years ago the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Can you imagine even going to 40% today? Government doesn't even have the financial muscle to do anything meaningful. It has to borrow everything.

Maybe we should agree on a definition of what the terms mean before continuing the debate, so we have some kind of handle on it. But in the tradition of FDR or LBJ the idea that we've swung dramatically to the "left" is ridiculous. But if we're recalibrating the scale, so that "left" means what the center was forty years ago, maybe it makes sense to call this a major swing to the left.

I'm sorry Steve, but this is just the wrong argument to have. And you should know it's the wrong argument to have given that the only people bringing it up are conservatives. This is what they WANT you to talk about. Why?

Because we ARE a center-right country in terms of political philsophy. See Table 3 here:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=860

In the past 40 years, self-identified liberals have NEVER amounted to more than 20% of the electorate. Now, you can say that we're a center-left country in terms of policy, but that's not what the conservatives are saying. They're saying we're a center-right country in terms of politics.

So what should we say in reply? First, we should say that we're actually a moderate nation, because we are. And focusing on the great moderate mass in the middle of the political bell curve politics would help liberal causes, because many liberal causes eventually become mainstream/moderate causes.

This bullshit, assinine tug of war about center-left and center-right simply exposes BOTH the left and the right as egocentric and ideologically driven, which in turn makes moderate, independent and swing voters wash back and forth between the two, looking for someone who will actually do the damn job of governing.

To the left it's not enough that we're a moderate, pragmatic nation which was hijacked by George W. Bush. No. The ONLY thing that matters is whether the word 'left' or 'right' goes after the word 'center', because for too many god damn people the only thing that matters is the ideological war.

Well, I'm sick of it. Anybody who responds to the center-right claim with a center-left defense is more interested in politics than policy, and more interested in gloating and rubbing the other side's noses in the dirt than in getting anything done.

We are a moderate, centrist, pragmatic nation, and George W. Bush and the conservative base of the Reublican party ingnored all three of those traits. That's the answer we should be giving.

Except that's not the answer that makes us all feel great about our shallow ideological selves.

"I suspect, however, that the party and its base will ignore this kind of analysis, and Democrats everywhere are probably hoping that they [do]".

Why you assume the gutless wonders of the democratic party won't continue their run to the right whenever the GOP shouts "boo" escapes me. Jeezuz, they're poised to welcome Joe Lieberman back into their ranks. What more do you need to know?

The trouble I have with all this is that today's GOP is nowhere near center-right. The faithful of the party is so far on the right fringe that they barely make a blip on the political radar screen. The idea that they're "center-right" is just ridiculous.

Joshua Holland has a detailed essay 11/10/08 over at alternet.org that analyzes a good bit of data on the "center right" bloviating by media pundits:
Here's an excerpt:

"...Reality: an Election Day poll by the Center for American Progress and the Campaign for America's Future asked whether Republicans had lost because they were too conservative or not conservative enough. By a twenty point margin, voters chose “too conservative�, including independents who agreed by a 21 point margin. Seven out of ten said they wanted the Republicans to work with Obama and “help him achieve his plans,� while fewer than a quarter of respondents thought the GOP should try to keep him from implementing a progressive agenda..."

I accidently posted this comment on the previous blog

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I don't get it.
You WANT teh Republicans to stay bad.

WHY?

If the GOP moves to the left, I really don't mind that much. If they stay right, the DLC can justify a "center" campaign that runs on conservative issues.

That philosophy led to Clinton and the loss of both houses of Congress.

Welcome to progressivism, GOP.
I welcome thee with open arms.

Do I think they'll accept my invitation? No.
But I'm not HAPPY that they're the selfish, lying, bloodthirsty animals we're going to pound into the dirt for ten years at least.

I got better things to do.

But how does that explain the disappointing results in the House elections that among others, Booman and 538 have commented on?

There certainly is evidence that these people voted for Obama but split their ticket farther down which argues AGAINST moving to the center-left.

"We are a moderate, centrist, pragmatic nation..."

Nah. A fairer assessment is that here is a center/right bloc -- and Obama will scoop them up, since the far right can't reach them.

It's just such a dumb concept, no matter where your calculations on the subject take you. What if 100% of us agreed we were collectively exactly "center-right" on the dot? Wouldn't that mean that "centrists" were too far left? If I'm "right" on abortion and "left" on health care, am I a perfect centrist, or do those get weighted differently? And so on and so forth.

It doesn't even let us make comparisons with "center-left" Europe, where on free-speech and IP issues Pat Buchanan starts looking like Eugene Debs, in that context.

Center-Left, Center-Right is a load of crap from the pundits and the Inside the Beltway crowd. America is a pragmatic MIDDLE CLASS nation, not a particulary ideological nation. The voters finally figured out they were getting hosed by the Republicans.

Self-identified ideological views, from 2008 exit
poll data:

Liberal: 22%
Moderate: 44%
Conservative: 34%

You can spin, twist and lie as much as you like, but that's a center-right country.

Liberal: 22% - Moderate: 44% - Conservative: 34%

All that proves is that you're a Republican who's trying to spin the numbers your way. Being a conservative does NOT automatically imply that you're a Republican - or center right as you imply.

Sure the Republicans love pretending that they are the party of small government and fiscal responsibility.

Any 'real' conservative doesn't recognize the republican party from yesteryear. Blue dogs in congress deserve the conservative label more that some of the rabid Republicans politicians.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to fiscal responsibility and smaller government is:

Democrats want government to work for the people; Republicans not so much, they want government to work in their favor, regardless of how bad it is for the country.
Democrats want a sensible tax structure so we don't run huge deficits; Republicans not so much, they are selfish enough to not want to pay anything and just put it on the next generations' tab.

That is two of the reasons Democrats humiliated the Republicans in this election - as well as the previous election.

'a' is right: that's a center-right country when measuring ideological preference. The data I posted earlier in this thread from a 40-year-long Harris poll shows the same thing.

Where everyone goes wrong is by making the leap between a center-right/center-left argument and any description of political affiliation.

Clearly America is a more Democratic (big 'D') country today than a Republican one. Nobody disputes that. But when conservatives sucker you into a conversation about center-right/center-left they're not talking Democratic or Republican political affiliation, they're talking ideological orientation -- and they will always win that argument on that basis. Which is why Democrats and liberals need to deny the premise outright.

Imagine a sampling of 100 people, answering the question: "Do you consider yourself to be a liberal?" At best you're going to get 20% who say yes, at which point any claim that America is center-left is in complete disrepute. This is precisely why conservatives want to have this debate, it's precisely why they're baiting liberals with it, and it's god damn infuriating that liberals are so fucking stupid they're actually falling for this.

The answer to the proposition that we're a center-right country is not that we're center-left, it's that we're moderate and pragmatic. This denies both the center-right argument on its face, and the premise that what matters to Americans is ideological affiliation. If liberals were smart -- although once again I am learning that they are as completley self-absorbed and braind-dead as their bloviating conservative counterparts -- they would champion a moderate and pragmatic America as both a partner in charting America's future and a preventative in swinging too far right or left.

But then that doesn't accomplish all the crazy-ass left-wing things that we all secretly want to accomplish, does it? You know, when we finally seize control and get to tell all the moderates and conservatives what to do....

Let them believe this is a center right country. The will continue to try to privitize SS, oppose single payer and so on and dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves.

Without wishing to give them any comfort whatsoever, as a European I think it depends on how you define "centre right". The notion that Obama would be seen over here as centre left is quite far off; he'd definitely be seen in Europe as centre right.

Mind you, we'd detain half of the Republican party under the Mental Health Act and deny them access to sharp cutlery.

"But then that doesn't accomplish all the crazy-ass left-wing things that we all secretly want to accomplish, does it?"

Phantom, the secret is worse than you think: we are actually all Islamic terrorist sympathizers and we want Sharia rule in the US. Soon you will have an Arab name.....