Is this really a matter of the party not satisfying the left half of the left?

[Clio the Leo]

hmmm.... perhaps not in Mass.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010
Inter Party Turmoil

Here is a key fact from our Massachusetts polling: even among Democratic voters in the state there are slightly more (25%) who think Congressional Democrats are too liberal than there are (24%) who think Congressional Democrats are too conservative.

Unhappiness with Democrats from the left seems to get more attention but the unhappiness from conservatives and conservative leaning moderates is a bigger threat to the party at the polls this year.

The Democrats who think Congressional leadership leans too far to the left voted 67-31 for Barack Obama in 2008. They express an intent to vote for Scott Brown by a 69-25 margin. I certainly agree that if health care and other major Democratic initiatives don't pass it could cause some of the party's base voters to sit on their hands this fall- but the bigger problem for the party is folks who think it's gone too far who aren't going to sit on their hands but will actually go out and vote Republican.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/01/inter-party-turmoil.html

... something to chew on.

[rudy23]

1. If anybody votes Republican because they thought the current Democrats were going too far left

How would they even make it to the polls with such a horrible sense of direction?

[Clio the Leo]

3. ha ha, good point. NT

[YOY]

5. That's one f***ed up political compass.

Seems to be contagious too.

[quiller4]

10. Don't laugh too hard. When I was phoning that was what I was

hearing from blue collar Massachusetts voters. They didn't like the stimulus because it added to the deficit. If they talked about health care at all it was they compained that HCR involved too much government spending. They did not want to see a big jobs package, either.

I'm conservative compared to some of the regular posters on this board but I get "red baited" a fair bit from neighbors and even other members of my Democratic district organization and I live in one of the bluest districts in a blue state.

[Igel]

12. It makes sense.

You have to have different assumptions, but they're there.

It accounts for a lot of polling, it accounts for why we've usually had divided government in the last 40 years, it accounts for why Obama's speech that we aren't red or blue but Americans went over so well, as did his push for bipartisanship.

The opposite accounts for why the left half of the left consider Obama to be all but a traitor--just as more than half of the right considered * on most things. It accounts for why so many party warriors believe, fervently, that if the party just held to their views and implemented their agenda that whatever polls may say their party would have a lock on the US government, presidency and Congress, for the rest of our lives, and they'd be viewed as the smart, brilliant, all-wise humans they truly believe themselves to be. They key is to kick and and utterly humiliate those "in name only" dorks and to completely ignore those without any clear framework or structure to their political beliefs, those "independents."

(The problem is, I'm describing the right half of the right in late 2008 in that last bit. It just happens to be a deadringer for what many dems believe now. Just the left half of the left.)

And, yes, there is a way around it. The problem is that it requires less a reliance on strong men and controlling things and more a town-hall, small-d democratic and small r-republican attitude. In other words, it ain't gonna happen.

[dmallind]

2. Will be ignored - only disagreement from the left is pure to DU

Anybody who disagrees from the center is a traitorous DINO who should be purged.

And I speak this as someone who does NOT think Dem Leadership in Congress is too far left (or too far right - on the whole I disagree with some things both ways but think their overall position on the spectrum is fine), and who would vote for Coakley without heistation were I in MA.

The idea that the 24% is the base and the 25% are fringe faux-Dem Blue Dog scum is of course laughable on its face, but it's what you'll get back.

[Clio the Leo]

6. exactly. NT

[TheKentuckian]

4. Good luck with the rainbow Reagan platform

Move to the right and slowly the moderates will fall off over time.

Minorities are more socially conservative but pretty liberal on economics. Working folk have little interest in more corporatisim, even if they can't identify with it.

Also, never forget that for some the word liberal just means bad or something. Years worth of polling indicates that the majority of Americans identify with liberal policy over conservative.

[jsamuel]

7. this is one of those nonsense questions that gets a nonsense answer

It isn't that people think that the policies are too left, it is that the people who think they are too left have changed their minds on who to vote for. If you compare Obama's campaign promises to what is actually being implemented, the campaign promises were much further to the left.

I have been saying for a while that by not following up on strong progressive ideas, Democrats will lose progressives and independents who like strong beliefs. However, progressives will come back in time for the election. The independents will not. That is what is going on here.

[Jersey Devil]

8. Is it right to be left but is being too left also right?

Do two rights make a left?

[Armstead]

9. Conservatives have a political party already -- Let utra conservative Democrats join them

This nonsense of having two conservative political parties is a buncha hooey.

Libralism can be sold and attract moderates if the fracking Democratic Party ever decides to be the liberal party, instead of the sorta conservative party.

[frylock]

11. poll people on the issues and not some bullshit label..

i think you'll find that people are decidely more "liberal" than they will ever care to admit. chew on that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. +1000

[ibegurpard]

13. This shit is all the more reason NOT to tack right when governing

Because anyone with half a BRAIN knows this administration has been centrist at best. It doesn't matter though because they are tarred with the "liberal" brush.
So why not BE liberal if you're going to PAY for being liberal anyway?
Because you don't want to piss off your corporate campaign contributors that's why.