Liberals and Conservatives don't talk to Centrists

If you read thousands of comments on political articles in mainstream publications, you will find precious few addressed to centrists. Mostly it's liberals and conservatives berating and belittling each other--as if all voters are either liberal or conservative.

At least 40% of voters are centrists, and the number rises with every election. Yet we're completely ignored in the primaries, given only passing notice in the actual elections, and almost never addressed directly.

It's amazing. To these guys we're like the dark matter in the universe--unseen and unknowable.

If they think of us at all, they see us as pallid, wishy-washy, indecisive creatures, painted in diluted water colors.

They have no idea that the words "moderate" and "centrist" aren't the same.

There are moderate centrists, all right. There are also moderate liberals and moderate conservatives.

And just as there are radical leftists and rightists, there are also radical centrists.

Radical centrists follow their ideas to their logical conclusions. The difference between them and their radical counterparts in either wing is that radical centrists don't see the world in black and white terms. They see their ideas as trying to conform to reality, and if it turns out they don't match, they change their ideas. Whereas radical leftists and rightists are rigid idealists who don't ultimately care about the reality outside their ideas.

Radical and moderate centrists both support nonpartisan redistricting. But radical centrists support free abortion on demand for everyone everywhere, while moderate centrists make the usual noises about how terrible abortion is and the less the better, while making it strictly a choice between pregnant female and her doctor.

Radical centrists support abortion on demand not because they're radical feminists, but because they realize the world is in an overpopulation crisis. In other words, their extremism derives from the times and places and circumstances in which reality itself has become extreme, not because their eyes are whirling with ideological fervor.

I realize it's largely a waste of time to say all this, though, because political partisans just want to joust with each other, in their bright, clear, world with a bright red line drawn down the middle. We muddy the waters and disturb their neat boxes and categories. So I can understand why they'd rather not deal with us--or simply assume that if we're not totally with them we're totally against them.

So neither group of partisans understand how radical centrists could support abortion but be against illegal immigration. Neither understands how we can see the value in the Left, and Right, and the Middle.

If you are a centrist, though, keep trying to punch through their blindness to anything but each other. Unlike real dark matter, we can force them to recognize us.

After all, we decide every national election. Not them.

If President Obama weren't a pragmatic moderate, he'd...

Some observers have pointed out how this is a race between moderates: a pragmatic moderate conservative pretending to be a hard-core right winger running against a pragmatic moderate liberal who the pragmatic moderate conservative is painting the pragmatic moderate liberal as a hard-core left winger.

However, I think movement Republicans are more worried about Romney's honesty than they need to be. Obviously he'll do whatever opinion polls of Republican voters tell him to do so he can get reelected, so as long as a majority of Republican voters want him to simulate a hard-core right winger he'll be happy to oblige. The man is nothing if not flexible.

In particular, since several moderate Supreme Court justices are highly likely to quit or die during the next two presidential terms, Romney will for sure nominate justices like Alito and Roberts, thus guaranteeing the outcome of all cases coming before the Court for the next twenty years--and enabling the Right to beat back liberal legislation even if Romney were followed by a highly liberal Democrat backed by a highly liberal Congress.

But he and his party are lying about Obama's left-winginesss. Lying of the bald-faced variety.

If Obama were a liberal ideologue, he'd have done the following things in his first term:

1. Signed an executive order banning discrimination against homosexuals in the military on his first day in office.

2. Signed an executive order ending enforcement of laws against illegal immigrants not accused of/convicted of felonies.

3. Insisted on healthcare reform being based on conversion to a single-payer system.

4. Campaigned vigorously for strict gun control laws.

5. Reduced government cooperation with religious institutions via "faith-based initiatives."

6. Campaigned to raise the gas tax to promote buying fuel-efficient vehicles.

7. Campaigned to overturn the anti-homosexual law misnamed the "Defense of Marriage Act."

8. Nominated far more liberal Supreme Court justices than Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan (and would have made sure one of them was black). The number of times Sotomayor has recused herself (unlike Scalia, who never does) by itself proves her moderation.

9. He wouldn't have used all those Wall Street pros for his economic brain trust.

10. He would have pursued criminal prosecution of the Masters of the Universe who engineering the 2008 financial meltdown.

11. He would have campaigned against the Republicans in Congress from day one instead of consistently seeking compromises with them.

12. He would have gone for government takeover of bankrupt banks, manufacturers instead of bailing them out (for which none of them are the least bit grateful, of course).

13. He would have promptly withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.

14. He would never have authorized drone-based assassination of innumerable Islamofascists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

15. He would have bargained with the Somali pirates who captured an American vessel instead of authorizing the assassination of the pirates who were holding the captain.

16. When we located Osama Bin Ladin, he would have initiated extradition proceedings in Pakistan's legal system instead of sending in the SEALs to kill him.

17. A liberal President would never have made a bargain with the Greed Over Principles party that extended the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich, regardless of the terms of that bargain.

18. And if he were the right wing's stereotype of "liberal" he'd have no respect for the institution of marriage, and (like so many Republican politicians) he would have buzzed through several marriages by this point, and cheated on his wife repeatedly, and had relationships with other men as well, because, well, you know those liberals.....

Right wingers might say he didn't do any of these things because he knew these efforts would not have been successful for the Democratic Party overall or could have simply been defeated by Republicans in Congress, and that he would have done all these things if he thought he could have, and he will do such things in he's re-elected.

They can only say this if they don't understand what the word "pragmatic" means (and in general they don't, really); and if they can read Obama's mind, which they firmly believe they can. These people are nothing if not confident about their godlike powers of discernment; they'd stoutly deny any such thing, of course, but in the next breath continue telling you what Obama thinks and believes, regardless of what he's done and said.

As for the "second term" monster in the closet right wingers talk about (exploiting his remark to the Russians), of course all second term presidents are less constrained than they are in their first term. However, second term presidents with a Congress of the other party that can't / won't send him bills to sign can't do anything about their legislative proposals, regardless of which term they're in.

And it's extremely unlikely that Obama will get a friendly Congress. The diligent, comprehensive efforts of the GOP at the state level to suppress Democratic votes will see to that if nothing else; not to mention the billions their billionaire patrons can now spend on propaganda campaigns both above and below the belt.

Lastly, a second term President rarely wants to behave such as to guarantee that the next President will be of the other party. He's always working on his legacy. A legacy of putting the other party in power? No pragmatic president would risk that.

You Choose, You Lose

What's a centrist to do? It seems like none of the real presidential contenders are running for President of the United States. Instead each is running for a slice of the job. McCain is running for Commander in Chief; Romney for Our Nation's CEO; Obama for Chief Social Worker; and Clinton for Chief Administrator. Each of this is a valid, important role--but it's far from the whole enchilada.

And each seems to be seriously flawed from a centrist viewpoint. McCain simply isn't as smart as the rest, and his apparently higher integrity compared to the rest is coupled to him being very far to the right on abortion, yet kind of a left winger on illegal immigration, and certain to nominate more right wing judges than a Democrat, in the context of a Supreme Court that's mainly divided between hard right Republicans and more moderate Republicans.

Romney is sharp, but he has taken hard right positions on everything across the board, including the environment, abortion, and Supreme Court nominations. And he consistently uses uncompromisingly hard right language and nasty tropes in his campaigning. He cannot unite the country when he represents himself as purely and solely representing the ideas and prejudices of no more than a third of the country. Despite his opposition to illegal immigration--his saving grace--Romney offers the prospect of four more years of acrimonious gridlock in Washington. Like Bush, he treats those who disagree with him contemptuously.

Obama is the only candidate promoting driver's licenses for illegal aliens. He has adopted the illegal aliens' marching chant "Si se puede" as his own, both in Spanish and English ("Yes we can"). Meanwhile he has nothing to say about how employers have exploited abundant illegal alien labor to drive down blue-collar wages 10-25% and bust unions. And he has certainly not pledged to veto spending bills stuffed with pork and earmarks. So he presents the prospect of an out of control spending spree comparable to what Bush and a same-party Congress did for six years.

The same can be said of Clinton--she hasn't pledged to veto porky spending either, and she's vying with Obama to see how much she can pander to identity politics such as treating Latin Americans as Latinos first and foremost and Americans only as an afterthought. But because she hasn't been quite as spineless as Obama in the regard, I find her preferable. Which is too bad, because a president Obama--just the fact of it--would be a great start in repairing the damage Bush did to us internationally.

Fortunately we won't have to choose between four candidates this September--just between two. That will make choosing slightly less painful.

How to be a centrist

Zealots are selective skeptics. They search for facts--or pseudofacts--that support their beliefs, while ignoring or discounting whatever doesn't.

Centrists are equal opportunity skeptics, always willing to toss their dearest conclusions if new facts warrant it. This puts us at a disadvantage. Zealots are always certain. We usually aren't. But we can't play their game. We have to play ours.

Some tennis players are known for being able to control the rhythm, the pace of a match. We can do that. It starts with language and premises. Never let them frame the debate with loaded words. Insist on neutral terms. And look for opportunities to hoist them with their own petards--espeially when you find them applying a different standard for credibility of their assertions vs. yours.

And don't let them paint you as their opposite. Conservatives want to fight liberals, and vice versa. Neither really knows what to make of us. So that messes with their game right off the bat.

There's something called the judicial temperament. That's a lot like what it means to be a good centrist. Cool, clear, subtle, sly, but fundamentally honest. Like Olympic curler Cassie Johnson. If you don't know what I'm talking about here, watch one curling match at the next winter Olympics. Curling is more like a really active chess game, rather than a sport like soccer or basketball.

Or maybe I just wanted to post a pic of Johnson here. Your choice.