Michael Barone asks the question:
How to explain the rejection by American Democrats and British Labourites of center-left strategies that recently proved so successful?
…and while his answers are not bad I am struck by something that is not often addressed: to wit, one major reason why the center-left in the USA is so weak today is because it made the mistake of trusting the progressive wing of the Democratic party. In 2009 the progressives teamed up with the cynics running the Democratic Establishment and rammed through any number of proposals that would have made 1980s Democrats vomit in sheer disgust and embarrassment. Then the American voting public responded by purging the center-left from Congress and as many states as the voting public could manage.
And not having politicians around that can believably tell you that you’re screwing up? That’s going to be a factor in any kind of plausible rejection scenario. That’s just the way that it is.
Via Hot Air Headlines.
Moe Lane
Yeah, I can see where not having someone around who can go up to the progressive left slap them silly tell them to put their clothes back on and quit screaming about locking up anyone who disagrees with them before they scare the normal people might hurt the left in the long run.
once Hillary!/Gropin’ Joe/whoever gets hammered, will the party actually re-explore DLC territory? or just become more and more selective? nature abhors a vacuum after all, and that area of the spectrum is woefully empty.
I expect some smart Dem governor to get there. Of course, some purplish State will have to elect a smart Dem governor first .. Kate Brown (D-OR) does not count.
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Mew
The destruction of the Southern wing of the Democrat party destroyed any chance of a DLC comeback.
The DLC worked because it helped glue the progressives and Blue Dogs together. The progressive wing would support DLC because they weren’t as “bad” as the blue dogs, the Blue Dogs would support DLC because at least they weren’t the progressive wing and they knew this was the best they’d get nationally.
2010 changed that when most of the Blue Dog wing was purged and a significant number of DLCers lost, and they continued to lose in 2012 and 2014.
The number of “conservative” democrats is 0. The number of socially liberal and pro-business Democrats can be counted on one hand.
As far as Oregon and a lot of purple states are concerned, the state Democrat Parties are completely controlled by the Progressive wing ( especially in the Pacific Northwest) and unfortunately the GOP in those states have failed in their duty to provide a loyal opposition. By all rights we should have an R Governor in both Washington State and Oregon ( came close in both 2012 and 2010, should definitely have won in 2014 in OR and should definitely win in WA in 2016 but probably wont)
That’s the thing about single-party rule .. defeating it takes a loyal *and competent* opposition …
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The thing about Chicago, and Oklahoma, is that the opposition is there .. baked into the dominant party .. so the primary is the “real” election.
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The general election is just a showboating run against a loon or a kook, followed by a coronation. Frees up a lot of resources for the statewide or national general election campaign, doing things that way.
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Not sure that’s what’s up in WA or OR, though .. I don’t see the kind of in-fighting in either state Dem party that I’d expect.
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Mew