Centering / Carolyn Kay

[Caro]

MakeThemAccountable.com

Centering

By Carolyn Kay

You may be surprised to know it is Bill Clinton’s fault that Democrats have not prevailed in the last three national elections.

That assertion does not come from some crazed right winger. It is from a study authored by former Clinton staffers William A. Galston & Elaine C. Kamarck, sponsored by a group of self-described centrist Democrats calling themselves Third Way. The study urges Democrats to refuse to succumb to “The Politics of Polarization”. The authors claim, without offering any proof, that Americans do not like polarization and that polarized politics alienates the 47 percent of Americans who consider themselves moderates. Democrats need those moderates more than Republicans do, the authors say, and Democrats therefore should tailor their message to those moderates, not to the far-out leftists who call themselves liberals...

The study shows that in the 1970s through the mid 80s, Americans favored Democrats by a 32 point (1974) to 12 point (1986) margin when asked which party represented their views and values. By 1998 and 1999, the authors claim, polls showed Americans favoring Republicans by 19 points on “family values”. The authors blame this entire change in opinion on the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. This astounding change of 51 percentage points over about 25 years is entirely because of Bill Clinton’s “behavioral flaws”, Galston and Kamarck want us to believe. “As the pollster Stan Greenberg put it, ‘… Republicans have made Bill Clinton their “poster child” for America’s moral decline.’”

The quote from Greenberg is the only hint in the entire study at the real reason Americans have come to believe that Republicans are moral and Democrats are not. It is not the Bill Clinton part of the quote that is applicable, it is the poster child part...

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http://makethemaccountable.com/caro/Comment_051011_Centering.htm

[chalky]

1. Well, if nothing else, America has learned a hard lesson:

BLOW JOBS DO NOT A BAD LEADER MAKE.

By 1998 and 1999, the authors claim, polls showed Americans favoring Republicans by 19 points on “family values”. The authors blame this entire change in opinion on the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal.