RINOs can do socialism better!
Posted on 10/01/2010 6:34:11 AM PDT by Lexluthor69
The Mythical Middle: Why moderates are dangerous.
What is a moderate? Who, exactly, lives in the middle of the political spectrum? More importantly, why does anyone care?
In politics and religion, a moderate is an individual who is not extreme, partisan or radical.
Politicians are always seeking out the votes of the mythical moderates, independents and undecided. We hear how politicians move to the “middle” to garner votes or stem a tide of resentment towards their policies. We hear politicians admonished to tone down the rhetoric less they scare away moderate voters. President Clinton comes to mind, most recently, utilizing this strategy to retain office after his party suffered a catastrophic mid-term defeat.
But what exactly is a moderate and do they, collectively, represent a significant voting block? Some would argue that they do:
Which brings us to the Tea Party. Despite all the headlines about their impact on the upcoming midterms, I have a theory that out in the political heartland, the trashing by the Tea Partiers may be preparing the battlefield for a much more profound second wave of disaffected, independent voters, who could make the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party.
I’ve always called them the Militant Middle, and Gary Butts is a founding member. “It’s about time the moderates stood up and said, ‘Hey, we’re in the majority here!’”
He is with ModerateVoters.org, based in Irvine, California, and he says the Militant Middle started growing and coalescing around a broad slogan of “Throw the bums out” long before the Tea Party even started brewing — and now it’s reached a boiling point.(SOURCE)
(Excerpt) Read more at silentmajority09.com ...
A moderate believes in bigger, but better and cheaper government.
The dangerous ones are the self-proclaimed moderates.
That’s just another way of saying “I’m always right.”
The moderate middle-roaders are IMHO, an unreliable, fickle electorate. They vote on emotions, not facts and are led around by the MSM spinmasters.
Spot on. Fickle as well as completely credulous. They demonstrate an absence of healthy skepticism regarding a politician’s campaign promises.
Seems like there must be a middle if there are sides.
Being of moderate political views and the “middle” from an electoral standpoint seem to be two different things to me.
The middle IMO are voters who fall in love with candidates and pay little or no attention to what they are saying.
Moderates tend to be people who have well formed (and often opposed) viewpoints. I would say Bush was a moderate. I’d say they also vote all over the place depending on what issues they are most passionate about but they do so for a reason.
Moderates? These are people who wait for the most convincing voice to tell them what to do.
Moderates also, often like our lower taxes but like the left on the other stuff, they call themselves libertarians.
No libertarian would ever call himself a moderate. Any moderate who calls himself a libertarian is lying.
The media calls liberals moderates.
The most successful Libertarian candidate ever, called Libertarians “low tax, liberals”.
He was accurate. Libertarian is another word for a liberal that likes conservative economics.
“The media calls liberals moderates.”
who, but a liberal, like you, cares what the media calls anyone?
“The most successful Libertarian candidate ever, called Libertarians “low tax, liberals”.”
who would that be?
“He was accurate. Libertarian is another word for a liberal that likes conservative economics.
So what are you? a high tax liberal?
Since you insist on trashiing people who are for smaller government, I must conclude that you are for big government, making you a liberal.
That was a particularly ignorant post, and useless post.
“That was a particularly ignorant post, and useless post.”
In response to one that was even more ignorant, and very ill-informed.
You work, or worked for the government, right?
In 1980 the libertarians ran their most successful Presidential candidate ever, trying to stop Ronald Reagan, their canidate, Ed Clark.
"In 1979 he won the Libertarian Party presidential nomination at the party's convention in Los Angeles, California. He published a book on his programs, entitled "A New Beginning". The book's introduction was by Eugene McCarthy. During the campaign, Clark positioned himself as a peace candidate and emphasized both large budget and tax cuts, as well as outreach to liberals and progressives unhappy with the resumption of Selective Service registration and the arms race with the Soviet Union."
When asked in a television interview to summarize libertarianism, Clark used the phrase "low-tax liberalism,"
"Moderates" -- those who inhabit the middle of the political spectrum -- happen to be a significant majority of voters. They are "moderates," in large part because they distrust extremes, partisans, and radicals -- and choose not to associate themselves with same.
The author apparently wishes to radicalize moderates -- to force them to choose between left and right. Apparently he only understands moderates well enough to build a strawman of them.
His big mistake is in thinking that "moderate" equates to "passive." In reality, the moderate mindset translates more into a willingness to only go so far -- and it's never as far as the partisans want them to go.
The partisan left understands moderates far better than the partisan right does. They know that the way to move moderates in their direction, is to do so patiently and incrementally.
Conservatives, otoh, have an unfortunate tendency to assume that an electoral move to the right equates to a willingness among moderates to accept large changes to basic systems, and as a result they try to ram things through all at once.
But moderates are never ready for big changes, and they're at least as suspicious of drastic change from the right, as they are from the left.
The difference is that the left knows that, and uses that discomfort to counterpunch conservative initiatives -- which explains why the left never seems to stay defeated, and usually, eventually, to come out ahead.
The author doesn't seem to understand that.
Well.... Ed Clark did (just barely) break the magic 1% mark, which is really, really good for a Libertarian....
But he still got squashed.
One Libertarian said that. One. I don’t know what he meant. Maybe, because, prior to the 1930’s liberalism meant smaller government, and more indivudual freedom, before progressives started calling themselves liberals, appropriating the word for something that was, and remains, anything but liberal.
Do you favor smaller or larger government. I don’t believe you ever mentioned which you prefer.
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