What is a 'moderate' Democrat anyway?

[DonViejo]

The presidential field is tacking hard to the left, leaving some to wonder if there's room for a different approach and what it would look like.

March 17, 2019, 6:00 AM EDT
By Benjy Sarlin

WASHINGTON — Progressive Democrats are driving the conversation early on in the 2020 race with candidates looking to drive up enthusiasm with left-leaning grassroots activists and donors. But some in the party believe the early frontrunners have misjudged the party's base, leaving an opening for a candidate to offer a centrist correction.

Some look to a potential run by Vice President Joe Biden or the newly-announced former Rep. Beto O'Rourke as a possible vehicle for a middle-of-the-road campaign. They point to polls that suggest rank-and-file voters share their concerns that the party is moving too far to the left: A survey by Gallup in December found 54 percent of Democratic respondents wanted a "more moderate" party.

"I would say there's an energized moderate majority in the Democratic Party," Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at centrist think tank Third Way, told NBC News. "They're quiet compared to the activist voices on the left, and there's a difference between volume in decibels and volume in numbers."

But often lost in the discussion is what the term "moderate Democrat" even means at a time where many of the party's old ideological divides are collapsing and unexpected new ones are popping up. And there's still no declared presidential contender who has fully defined what the centrist alternative looks like for 2020.

So what makes a moderate Democrat?

more
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/what-moderate-democrat-anyway-n981931?cid=public-rss_20190317

[Funtatlaguy]

1. What do you find in the middle of the road?

https://www.amazon.com/Theres-Nothing-Middle-Stripes-Armadillos/dp/0060929499

[Kurt V.]

2. the old terms don't apply anymore. also, i don't see the party moving

*hard left*. these are mostly main stream policy with good polling numbers. and any candidate that thinks they can work with republicans, who are acting in bad faith out of the gate, won't get my support

[Mr Tibbs]

6. This sounds about right

The GOP are fascists with ill intent. There's no more working WITH them.

[aidbo]

3. Third Way, lol.

[leftofcool]

13. Does this mean that everyone is 3rd way except Bernie and his crowd?

[TCJ70]

4. "If there's room for a different approach"?

By “different approach” they mean “the same damn thing we’ve been doing”, right? No. It’s time to push, and push hard left. The Republicans aren’t going to work with whoever we put up there. They’ll just scream SOCIALIST and stomp they’re feet like they did for eight years under Obama...a guy who tried as hard as he could to build consensus and they just walked all over him.

We need to put up the person with the furthest left policy goals who shows they’ll push hard and inspire people to put every Dem on the ballot in office so they can get it done. Enough “let’s work together with Republicans” nonsense. They won’t do it. Why should we?

[Autumn]

5. One who won't get my support. Anyone who thinks they can work with Republicans is

an idiot, those people will not compromise and they do not care. What they call the far left used to be Democrats and moderates are what used to be called Republican Light.

[comradebillyboy]

7. Moderate Dems like Barak Obama and Bill Clinton get elected

Candidates who are viewed as extremists don't.

[denverbill]

8. Some notable extremists: Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton. n/t

[comradebillyboy]

10. So tell me which far left candidates have been elected president?

Certainly not Mondale or McGovern who both lost in historic landslides. Kennedy wasn't a leftist, nor were Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter.

[denverbill]

11. LBJ? Passed Medicare and the Civil Rights Act?

Passed Head Start, Medicaid, Food Stamps, gun control, created PBS. Yes, sounds pretty darned moderate to me.

He makes Clinton, Obama and Biden look like right-wing extremists. Clinton's most notable accomplishments were signing free trade agreements, cutting welfare programs, signing DOMA, and reducing the deficit. Obama's most notable accomplishments were implementing Bob Dole's libertarian health care plan, trying to pass the TPP and Grand Bargain, and keeping some of Bush's tax cuts.

Funny that LBJ created Medicare, but is a moderate, while Sanders wants to expand Medicare, which makes him an extremist.

[comradebillyboy]

12. I remember LBJ's presidency. I don't recall anyone calling him a leftist.

In fact the left hated him despite him remarkable accomplishments.

[denverbill]

15. Pretty sure the left disliked his war in Vietnam, not his domestic policies.

I still remember the chants of 'Hey, hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?'

I don't remember any anti-Medicare riots.

[radius777]

16. LBJ was a conservative Southern populist,

who was able to do bold things due to the tragedy and thus high support/sympathy the public had for the Dem administration. IIRC, both Medicare and Civil Rights Act were goals of the Kennedy admin, so LBJ was able to pass them "for the memory of JFK" in a sense.

But LBJ was no socialist, he simply was a mixed-capitalist safety-net Dem like any other.

JFK was an optimistic, pro-business centrist; WJC and BHO are in this mold, but they also supported the safety net like any other Dem, with certain cuts and improvements to modernize the system.

[radius777]

18. 2 of those 3 won popular vote, kerry lost narrowly. /nt

[Hortensis]

9. According to this 538 graph, @51% of Democrats SELF-identify

as liberal, @35% as moderate, and @12% as conservative.

The most valuable takeaway from this graph could be for some that "moderate" within the Democratic Party is not conservative. We all hold a variety of views from across the spectrum depending on issues. Thus moderate Democrats average out liberal overall, just as "moderate conservatives" average conservative overall. Being socially liberal more than somewhat economically conservative is a common mix among those who self identify as moderate on the left, averaging out liberal overall, which is why they register Democrat.

The 12% conservative are the "blue dogs."



The graph would be significantly more accurate, allocating more "moderates" to "liberal" if the poll spent a lot more money testing people for actual orientation, rather then depending on a very inaccurate range of ideas about what liberal is. Most people aren't at all sure.

The left side of the graph shows what happened when Gingrich et all convinced Americans that liberal equaled radical nuts who opposed "family values," a very unrespectable, unprincipled way of being. A tragic number of naturally liberal people believed it because they knew that didn't describe them and refused to vote Democrat. The Repubs are up to it again, of course; we're all wingnut atheist socialists who hate white people and war on Christianity.

This is last year's senate, interesting because Democratic senators average significantly LESS liberal than the average Democratic voter because they must appeal to an entire state, yet look at the strong division between blue and red. These people know very well who they are and what they're for. Those who come fairly close on economic issues would be considered "moderate liberals" with a couple coming very close to conservatives, but on averaging their votes there was no overlap between red and blue and moderate liberals are strongly outnumbered by strong liberals.

Senate:

[radius777]

17. liberal and leftist are two different things though,

especially in the minds of most people. Anyone answering 'liberal' would not necessarily view themselves as a leftist or socialist, but a mainstream Dem. the poll as you said is not does not thoroughly dig into the voters true beliefs; such a study would tell us much more.

[Hortensis]

20. Oh, absolutely, adding the note that "mainstream"

is very broad and does include many liberals who support strong, bold policies, in some cases even farther left than those of radical groups. But are without the radical personality traits and behaviors that can be so problematic in achieving those goals -- the uber-righteousness of zealotry and the unwillingness to cooperate and compromise with others of similar goals that are so IL-liberal.

If liberals can sometimes be willing to compromise "too much" to achieve what they think are advances, radicals, and their reactionary counterparts on the right, often literally choose to lose everything rather than compromise. We have one once again willing to flip a coin with our nation's future, with a repeat of "tails we lose" the more likely outcome. We'd all benefit from more understanding of what kind of people we are politically.

[Awsi Dooger]

14. Someone who understands Gwen Graham has easier election path than Andrew Gillum

Here's another sports analogy: The most pathetic newfangled football coaches are the ones who stubbornly won't adjust to situation. They run their preferred shotgun 4 or 5 wide finesse offense even in short yardage or the goal line. It can be absolutely hysterical in those situations when they have no idea what to do and suddenly the defense salivates to attack. Contrast to a coach like Belichick, who will seamlessly shift to double tight end and start running counter plays like the '80s Giants or Redskins.

Against weak opponents the stubborn approach doesn't matter. But at highest level it is all the difference between winning and losing, between legend and forgotten. And likewise with knucklehead liberals who have no comprehension or mathematical competence to grasp that their preferred ideology and hence preferred candidate simply doesn't fit the state or district or situation. They actually brag about being pure, and handing massive advantage to the other side via nominating the more rejectable candidate, like Andrew Gillum who somehow broke every world record for being deemed too liberal (46%), and managed that in a swing state instead of a deep red state, and during a heavy blue year. Quite the breathtaking accomplishment.

The forced nominee is basically a spring version of Susan Sarandon.

[GulfCoast66]

19. Keeping in mind that republicans consider all democrats to be extreme,

I define moderates as a candidate who understands the politics of the possible and undstand we get nothing if not elected.

The best example of this in my mind is Healthcare. Our last platform called for healthcare as a right of all citizens and that no one should be driven to bankruptcy due to medical issues. We all agree with that. More importantly, so do a large majority of Americans, including some republicans. Medicare for all on the other hand is not supported by a majority of Americans and even democrats are split. I think it is a horrible idea. However, many democrats, especially on DU view anyone not supporting Medicare for all as a moderate. The same can be said of other issues from living wage to guaranteed income. Some of these ideas are popular and some are not. Even gun control...I would be happy to renew the AWB that Clinton signed and I believe even that is unlikely. But some consider anything less than supporting a ban on all semi-automatic weapons a moderate position.

Politics is the art of comprise to a point. Republicans just learned in 18 that not compromising cost you. We flipped several dozen red seats to blue even if the freshmen we constantly hear about do not represent that fact.

I realize that on many issues I may not reflect the majority opinion of Americans. Or members of DU!