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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (146121)	10/3/2010 1:42:46 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540820

Regardless who is right or wrong (eg left, right, or center) what we need is a vision (in practical terms, a roadmap). Whether you like it or not (does not matter) Obama has offered his vision. Republicans have not offered a vision. What they have offered are a bunch of complaints. Friedman has stepped into this thing with a declaration that there are a lot of people not happy and want an alternative vision (more centrist). Bottom line is, we have a lot of people that are unhappy with the way things are now and feel that it will get worse. The answer, seems to me, is that we need a vision that most people can buy off of. If you don't like what Obama is offering then explain to us what you want but we don't need a list of things that you are against. We want a list of things that you want and see how many people you can get to get behind it. Anybody can make up a lsit of things they don't like and you can easily get a negative concensus. The real problem is to be able to get people to support a vision or action plan.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (146121)	10/3/2010 1:57:47 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540820

If Benen is going to criticize Friedman we should at least look at what Freidman said I would think. Note bolding; I agree with the thought of posting Friedman's stuff (we're both misspelling his name--I've been using the "ee" and you've been using the "ei" sometimes). And the list of problems/solutions is not bad (I would have a different one but the point is made). However, what he didn't do, and this is Benen's chief point, is identify a movement source. We simply don't have that at the moment. The tea party is not that. All Friedman's problems point to government solutions--more government, not less; yet the tp types are simply angry at government. And there's no "radical center" that can be identified as a movement, at least not right now. The closest to that is the political space Obama occupies, and the small fragments of Rep "moderates." And the very act of identifying that space, reveals just how ephemeral it is. It already exists within the Dem party. Just have the "no" party with barely enough leverage to stop the government from acting. But with the prospects for more leverage in the next edition of congress.