Comments on: Stop Ignoring the Centrists in Your Midst

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:45:13 +0000

mpolito: It is that we currently have a court decision, Roe v. Wade, that makes any movement on abortion extremely difficult.
I agree that Roe v. Wade was a bad ruling with bad consequences.

But that has never stopped any Americans from winning their case in the court of public opinion. The practice of fetal ultrasound, by showing moms that the thing inside their wombs looks and acts human, has probably done more to discourage abortion than anything the pro-life activists ever did up to that time.

You don’t need to pass laws to reach a broad consensus on common social mores–that late-term abortion comes perilously close to infanticide, for example. Some people will always march to a different drummer, but that’s the price of living in a free society.

Instead of changing laws, try changing attitudes first.

By: mlloyd

mlloyd — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:22:26 +0000

“Centrist Democrats struggle with liberals in their party about the need to pursue deficit reduction, balanced budgets and low-tax policies that encourage private sector job growth.”

This is the stereotype that exists inside the heads of the GOP and Evan Bayh, but it is not actually true.

“Bush Derangement Syndrome” was shared by about 70% of Americans by the time he left office. He was criticized by the left for overspending, invading countries for no good reason, weakening our standing and strength, and for torturing accused criminals. Opposition isn’t always unprincipled.

sinz54 makes a very, very good point. It’s hard for me to ever see us getting the political will to make the changes he’s discussing, unfortunately.

By: mpolito

mpolito — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:51:20 +0000

On the abortion issue, it is not the “extreme fringes” that make search for common ground impossible. It is that we currently have a court decision, Roe v. Wade, that makes any movement on abortion extremely difficult. If this was to be sorted out democratically, this awful ruling would have to go. But what pro-choicer really supports that? Also, where is the evidence that a “broad concensus” is pro-choice (apart from pretty mild limits on partial birth abortion, parental notification laws, etc.)? Most people do not support banning all abortions, but do support significant limits about the conditions under which one may procure an abortion (beyond simple parental notification laws).

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:45:18 +0000

Redistricting reform is needed, definitely.

But so is reform of the winner-take-all rules that enable a determined plurality to win all the electoral votes of a state.

As things are now: In a race with a credible third-party challenger, like 1992 with Perot who got 19% of the popular vote, it becomes possible for a candidate to win all the electoral votes of a state with significantly less than 50% of the popular vote there.