The centrist scrutinizer
Earlier today I ran across the centrist coalition. Like many, I consider myself a centrist not because I lack strongly held values, but because I do. I can’t truck with the standard slate of ideas of today’s “left”, “right”, “top” of “bottom”. Accordingly the Centrist Coalition believes that strong leadership is composed of a “bold mix of views”:
On the one hand, we embrace an economic agenda focused on growth and fiscal responsibility. We believe in free trade, fair competition, and limited government.
On the other hand, we embrace an inclusive social agenda that celebrates the rich diversity of American life, and seeks to avoid imposing one person’s choices on another. We are pro-choice and pro-civil rights.
Which is essentially the position of a great many successful pols, from Guiliani, McCain, or Shwarzenegger to the Clintons or Eliot Spitzer. A sort of soft Liberalism for the 21st century.
That’s not to say that there certainly isn’t a rich discussion going on in the middle. Radicalmiddle.com has a list of 25 great radical centrist blogs. Many of these blogs I read as often as I can; some of them I agree with all the time while others I rarely do. But what marks most of them is a willingness to take on policy and theory from others when the evidence points towards it. It’s easy to see the middle as the area where reform comes from.
It’s heartening to see that many of the rising stars in the Republican party quite liberal on social issues though it’s an open question who will be on the FOP ticket in 2008, but where are the Democrats going? Even though a lot of political power rests with the Democratic Leadership Council, the label of New Democrat has taken some abuse, as TNR points out,
[T]rue New Democrats are neither conservatives nor compromisers. They are not necessarily more bipartisan than other Democrats, and certainly can be–and have been–forceful critics of the GOP. New Democrats have a sophisticated, modern public philosophy that includes distinct views–of equality (they favor equal opportunity over equal results); of the relationship between citizen and state (they stress reciprocal responsibility, not individual rights); of the role of federal government (they believe it should enable not mandate); and of American society (they see it as one community, not groups with competing demands). That is why when elected officials gathered twenty years ago to found the DLC, they didn’t call themselves “moderate” or “conservative” Democrats; instead, they used words like “mainstream” and “new.”
This wasn’t just an exercise in smart marketing (although any group calling itself “conservative” is not long for the Democratic Party). Rather, these terms reflected the insurgent nature of the New Democratic project. In seeking to wrest control of the party’s agenda-setting from entrenched interest groups, and in taking both Republicans and Democrats to task for ignoring the “forgotten middle class,” Clinton and the New Democrats of the early 1990s were as much populist-reformers as anything else. If the bloggers and activists who rail against the brain-dead Washington party today went back and read what New Democrats were saying in 1985 and 1989, many would be signing up for the fight. And if the Internet existed in 1985, the DLC might have started with a blog and a series of Meet-Ups instead of a Capitol Hill press conference.
For New Democrats to reenter today’s debate about the future of the Democratic Party, they must reclaim their identity as the modernizing, reformist wing of the party. While the battle over the future of the party is seen by many as a fight between Washington insiders and activists online and around the country, it is also an ideological battle. And if New Democrats want to be able to beat back the growing liberal impulse to repackage–or “reframe”–the failed policies of the past, they have to regain their bona fides as reformers.
To begin, New Democrats must banish from their vocabulary words like “centrist,” “moderate,” and “conservative.” And they must make a clear distinction between politicians who embrace those wishy-washy terms and those who truly are New Democrats. Put another way, New Democrats need to be just as critical of those who would simply pare back the brain-dead ideas of the Republican right as they are of those who espouse the brain-dead dogmas of the Democratic left.
Most of all, for New Democrats to reclaim their insurgent edge, they need to pursue the type of authentic and creative thinking that marked the movement a decade ago. That means taking on entrenched sources of power within the party and within Washington. To take two examples: When it comes to rescuing public education, New Democrats should be putting all ideas on the table–no matter what the NEA says. And when it comes to political reform, from ending gerrymandering to rethinking the party’s primary system to breaking the iron bonds between corporate America and Capitol Hill, New Democrats should be leading the way–even if senior Democratic elected officials (or those who fund them) disagree. Such efforts can’t be limited to policy wonks in Washington: The governors, senators, and representatives who wrap themselves in the New Democrat label need to lead the way in developing and pushing new ideas.
I have to admit that I recently read (ok, listened to) Bill Clinton’s memoirs and though I already had a pretty favorable view of him, found his own account of his political positions quite enlightening. Clinton’s boldness in uncompromisingly pushing for a coherent and distinct policy, is pretty apparent upon a review of the policy fights. Perhaps most notable in these are facing down house republicans on the budget crisis and passing welfare reform; cases where the Democrats managed to really own fiscal prudence, as well as making social programs more effective by escaping ancient dogma and doing something seemingly radical at the time.
I think that this sort of sentiment is behind a lot of the posts I made earlier today. It’s important to accept when a policy begins to bear fruit and evaluate the results in light of the less volatile values that one holds. Similarly the most successful in politics, perhaps not always at the election box, but at least in their impact on the world are those who recognize and adopt the best ideas of their opponents. Examples are numerous, but include Clinton’s admonition that “the era of big government is over,” along with Eisenhower extending New Deal provisos with the Great Society, and Paul Martin implementing Preston Mannings central issue (fiscal responsibility) in Canada.
Bush’s biggest failing was the exclusion of ideas from the State Department and former Clinton staffers with real experience in nation building from the process of designing policy for Iraq. Depressingly, many Democrats respond with a corresponding, though not necessarily mirror-image, animus towards acknowledging logic or success in current Republican foreign policy. Regardless of party affiliation, I’ll likely be compelled by the actor that can identify the best policies of the time, augment them with the best ideas and caveats and move forward. I’d say a lot of others feel the same way.