Mike over at the Big Stick and our own Martin Rybicki have had a good discussion on the role of Moderate Republicans in the GOP. I’ve followed Mike’s blog for well over a year and while we may disagree on some things (social issues) he is a good thinker and what the GOP needs today.
And while I hate saying this…I think Mike is right when it comes to socially liberal Republicans like me.
Well, sort of.
I will let Mike explain:
For the past week or so I’ve been having a really interesting conversation with Martin Rybicki over at Republicans United about moderate/centrist  Republicans and their role in the party. My position going into this discussion was that I think ‘moderate’ Republicans definitely have a place in the party but I think that position needs to A) Still grounded on the Right and not the mythical ‘Center’ and B) Republicans who are really just social liberals need to call themselves such and stop hiding behind the ‘moderate’ label.
The part where I am starting to agree with Mike is that we who consider ourselves moderates have to see ourselves as a part of what might constitute the Right and the Center. Mike calls the center “mythical” while I tend to say that “the center” is amorphous and is in the eye of the believer than anything else. To be a centrist is not to adhere to an ideology, but it is more a temperment, a way of dealing with the world.
I’ve noticed over the years that those who call themselves “centrist” are only centrists in their own eyes. In reality they have picked a side, they are just not able to admit it. For example, I know of two bloggers who billed themselves as moderate Republicans. They railed against the excesses of the GOP, but they rarely had anything to say about why they were Republicans. They spoke in awe of then Senator Obama and both “retired” from blogging after he was elected saying the country is in good hands. While they may have seem themselves as centrist Republicans, in reality they had become Democrats.
I am all for a more toned down GOP. One that doesn’t see Democrats or gays, or pro-choicers as the enemy. I am also not making the case for a the kind of rigid conservatism that has become a staple of the GOP these days. I am thankful for moderate Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats to produce good legislation. I am thankful for moderate Republicans who have stood for gay rights.
But at the end of the day, moderate Republicans have to believe in something. They have to have an ideology, not that binds them to stiff positions, but to guide them along they way.
And that is what bothers me these days. What do moderates in the GOP believe in?
If you look at other conservative or center-right parties around the world, the moderate faction has had an underlying ideology or philosophy. The Conservative Party of the United Kingdom has the “One Nation Conservatives” that today is represented by party leader David Cameron. The Conservative Party of Canada had Red Toryism. Throughout Europe and Latin America, Christian Democracy parties have been the moderating stream of the Right.
But what undergirds moderate Republicans? As far as I can tell, we don’t have a guiding philosophy. In many cases it was a pragmatism that kept us going. That might have worked in the past when ideology mattered less, but in these days, you need to explain why you are a Republican.
Most moderates basically make an appeal to the center. But that is not enough. We have to spell out an alternative vision of society. What is our vision? How is it different from the Democrats? How is it different from the hard right? Why should voters vote for it? What is a moderate Republican vision for health care or the environment?
I believe that one of the reasons that moderates are so weak in the GOP is because we don’t really know what we believe. Such fuzzy-mindedness is not going to keep one going when the going gets tough. I think that’s why so many moderates just leave when things turn black- there is no foundation to hold them up when life falls apart.
I beginning to think that blogs such as Republicans United have to spend time developing a more humane conservatism for the 21st century. We can’t just make hallow appeals to a shifting center, we have to be able to provide a vision for people to work towards.
What do you think?
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Great post Dennis.
I should probably explain my comment about the ‘mythical Center’ in more detail…
The ‘center’ does of course exist in American politics. There are some people who either by triangulation on inclination hold a majority of views that could be fairly defined as exactly in the middle between traditional liberalism and traditional conservatism. So fine, let’s call them Centrists. Those are the folks that I think Martin hopes the GOP can gobble up by moving leftward on some issues (mostly social). I think that he’s probably right that some of these folks could shift their support to the GOP under those circumstances.
Where I think Martin and I diverge is in our belief that those Centrists constitute a group large enough to qualify as the American ‘Center’. I don’t think they do. I think true Centrists are a small minority of American voters. So in that respect I think the ‘Center’ is indeed mythical because it’s not some monolithic voting block we can go after it. It’s really just a small % of voters that either like to straddle the fence or have a compromise fetish.
What I think Martin is doing is confusing Centrists with Independents. There are more Independents in this country than at any other time since polling on the subject started. They are indeed a big group and both parties ignore them at their own peril. But Independents are not the Center. To the contrary they are usually folks who hold conflicting views on a number of subjects. I’ll use my wife as an example: She is conservative on abortion, education, gay marriage, etc. But she is also pretty liberal on foreign policy, immigration, crime policy, etc. So some people might say since she is 50/50 that makes her a Centrist. Well, no, it doesn’t, because her specific opinions on those issues are not Centrist at all. She’s not really a moderate either if moderate means closer to the middle. I mean, she is really liberal on crime policy. And she is really conservative on education. So my wife has no problem with being a registered Independent. She loves her status as an Independent. She loves that her vote is always up for grabs. She loves that no one just assumes she holds one opinion or another. She is the textbook definition of a swing voter.
What I tried to convey to Martin was that his quest for the Center was really a quest for Independents. And while this is always smart in an election year, you can NEVER secure their votes permanantely. They like being unpredictable. They are hard to please. The issues that are most important to them change from year to year. Obama might have really appealed to Independents last year because he was going to liberalize foreign policy. In 8 years the world might be quiet and our troops might all be home and Independents might vote for the GOP candidate because they are now really interested in education and they like the conservative position on it.
So I guess what I’m trying to say in my round-about way is that yes, please, define what it means to be a moderate. But remember that the Center doesn’t really exist. If you want to stay in the two party system, and you pick the GOP, then you’ve got to at least hold a majority of views that are right-of-center and be honest about the ones that aren’t.
Amen to both Mike and Dennis.
And Martin is on my all-time favorites list.
Be liberal. Be Conservative. Don’t wear the “Moderate” bumpersticker or you will get run over on the highway of life.
If you going to be political then you are a product. Be a premium product. Moderates are commodities.
I have heartily readopted the bumperstick label of being “conservative”. Those who know me know that I have fairly centrist views, and sometimes even liberal views — depending upon who is the judge.
Yet, at all times I am able to reconcile my positions with being conservative.
I even dallied with being a progressive conservative. It just didn’t work. The Left has absolutely poisoned the word “progressive” and American tend to dislike hyphenated people.
My belief is that it is not possible to win many elections by claiming to be a moderate. That’s like drinking warm coffee when hot is best, or eating microwaved pizza when you want oven fresh pizza.
As for moderation, if you are selling you ask for a high price. If you buying then you ask for a low price. Somewhere along the line you’ll meet approximately at the right price — that’s what Moderate and moderation means to me. If you start in the middle then you are just a commodity — and commodities command limited value and even less respect.
On the pendulum from Far-Left Liberal to Far-Right Conservative, a centrist is someone who holds 50% of the views of each side.
I will agree with Mike that there is no real center – in so much as when you go to the voting booth, you aren’t given an option for “strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree” – instead, you vote yes/no on each issue.
Swing voters, generally speaking, simply vote for the candidate who has the most views that align with their own.
The problem for centrists stems from the fact that the Far-Left and Far-Right have fairly well defined positions, and so if you agree with all of one side’s positions, then you are in “alignment” with other people who have chosen the same label.
Not true with centrists. This is due to the fact that two people can each agree with liberals 50% of the time, and conservatives 50% of the time, but not agree with each other on which liberal or conservative positions are right/wrong. You could have 1000 centrists, then, each holding fairly different viewpoints on where liberalism and conservatism break down.
It makes it difficult to create a strong center (or center-right in this case) – when such disparity in positions can exist – and therefore alignment cannot.
From where I stand, the approach to creating a big tent republican party must come from a principles based approach. What I mean is that the rallying cry shouldn’t be to find people who want a moderate or progressive label, it should be to find people who share a common set of principles and then creating a grass-roots campaign to promote those principles into the mainstream for the republican party.
Collectively, the label is unimportant, unless a derogatory label or a label with a negative connotation is assigned. It can be moderate, or progressive, or whatever – as long as it effectively communicates to the population at large that there is solidarity and a sense of purpose that will move the country in a positive direction more so than any other group.
The question is, can a group of people who consider themselves to be center-right come up with a set of principles that can foster alignment?
I think so, but I don’t think it will be easy.
Though I’ve been called a RINO, I see myself as conservative on most issues and leftward leaning on just a tiny fraction of issues. I don’t see myself as moderate at all, because I’m really not neutral on any issues. I’m not “squishy” on the issues, either. On any given issue, my views are very defined. If I were undecided/neutral/in the center of the spectrum on the issues, I might consider myself moderate, but that’s not the case. However, when I take a political survey that charts overall where I am on the political spectrum, I’m plotted very close to the center of the graph.
http://buckeyerino.com/2009/04/30/survey-says/
How I got in the middle of that graph, I’m not sure, because, as I said, I see myself as conservative. It’s the perception of others, I presume, that places me in the center.
Daniel,
I think you are exactly describing the same kind of problem that many of us whose views do not neatly line up along ideological lines have.
Mike