Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (43808)	12/30/2005 10:55:26 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

"If pressed, I agree that most people would find themselves in the fifty percent of the curve comprising the center, and immediate right and left quarters. That IS most people. They are also the ones who elect the President. The battle is for their hearts and souls (read: votes) and the packaging of "centrism" is central to that endeavor." Well, technically, the two middle quartiles make up half of, not most, people, but you're talking basic median voter theorem (MVT) here and I wonder whether what economist Harold Hotelling said in 1929 really still holds. He said: "The competition for votes between the Republican and Democratic parties does not lead to a clear drawing of issues, and adoption of two strongly contrasted positions between which the voter may choose. Instead, each party strives to make its platform as much like the other's as possible." Now, I know many (on the extreme left in particular) say the two parties are essentially the same these days, whining that we have no real choice in presidential races. But at some point after the 2000 election (maybe when the first DNC-hired lawyer showed up in Florida to try to change the outcome) the DNC seems to have either forgotten the MVT or decided it was for suckers 'cause they abandoned the median voter in favor of, for lack of a better term, simple contrariness. If the GOP supports it, they must oppose it; if Bush (or Cheney or Rove) does it, it's an evil plot and the outrage-of-the-century-of-the-day. Far from being "progressive", it's mere reaction. Not only that, they must also try to use every issue to divide the voters into "us" and "them", whether by race, socio-economic class, or even religion. Perhaps they do understand MVT. Perhaps they want to create a double-peaked distribution of political preferences so that going for the median voter means no one votes for you. Everyone is polarized. Then you demonize the enemy, trying to scare a few from the fringes of its camp (what used to be the middle) over the line into your camp. Rather than fighting for a mass of voters in the middle, you are then fighting only over the marginal voter, often by appealing to them on just one issue. Special interest politics. And if divide and conquer is your strategy, you simple can't approach any issue in a bipartisan manner. Ever. That would imply that the enemy is sometimes right, or at least not perfectly evil. And when you have no choice but to go along because a clear majority supports a policy (e.g. No Child Left Behind or the Iraq war powers resolution) or the other side gives you something you've been clamoring for for years (Medicare drug plan), you simply wait for an opportunity to turn around and oppose what you claimed to support before. Then the drug plan you supported becomes a GOP scheme to enrich the drug companies, NCLB becomes unfunded federal meddling that (somehow) disadvantages all but the rich kids in private schools (like your own), and the war you voted for becomes the war you were tricked into supporting (and didn't really vote for, after all) by lies from the evil fascist administration. Now, don't get me wrong. There are some on the GOP side of the median voter chasm who also seek to divide and demonize, particularly on the basis of religion (or more precisely, issues they define as religious ones), or feign outrage for political gain (e.g. Clinton's impeachment), but I don't think these are the kind of overarching strategy and instinctive response they have become for the Dems. Last time the GOP was clearly a minority party (1993-1994), the response was the Contract with America, which was not a list of complaints, but rather a set of proposals calling for tax cuts, term limits and other specific policy changes. Much of that didn't happen, of course, but still, we don't get a DNC version of that from the current minority party. We get no answers, no responsibility, just feigned outrage and alarmist rhetoric. BTW, Happy New Year.