Curmudgeon's Corner

Anti-Democrat, Pro-Republican?

Posted by Al Campbell on Jan. 19, 2010

Political, Quality of Life, U.S.

Many of us who are politically attuned await the outcome of today’s vote in Massachusetts.  All the latest reports suggest that Scott Brown, the Republican, will best Martha Coakley, the Democrat by as much as double-digits.  The actual outcome is probably less important in the long pull than is the fact that Americans are signaling they desire change.

Does that suggest that Republicans should be dancing in streets or that Democrats should be finding hidey-holes in which to crawl?

To the contrary, this race, more likely than not, simply says that America does not like to be governed from either the far-left or the far-right.  It suggests that the liberals in Washington over-reached after the election of President Obama; it suggests that they just couldn’t help but think they had finally been rewarded for being so in tune with the ‘heartland’ as well as the east coast and west coast power centers.

Both major parties are tone deaf when they have too much political power.  They cannot bring themselves, it appears, to understand that there are more ‘independents’ than members of either party for a reason.  The middle is the anchor in our country.  It can be coaxed to lean in one or the other direction a little, but it refuses to be forced to shift positions in what it senses would be the extreme.

Liberals could be a successful force over a long period if they learned to limit their reach.  Conservatives could be a successful force over a long period if they learned to limit their reach.  Neither is ever successful for a long time if they over-reach.  That is the new reality.  Voters are too-well connected today to be fooled into the era of an FDR.  Reagan rode a wave and governed more moderately than he campaigned; he hit his stride when he developed a well-reasoned approach to his period of governance.

President Obama is as much to blame for what may be happening in Massachusetts as is the liberal cabal that is now in control in Congress.  He over-reached both personally and politically.  He misread the tea leaves.  We made him misread the tea leaves by falling in love before we knew him as well as we thought we knew him.  He misread the tea leaves because he was consuming the far-left Kool-aid that was so readily available in his campaign.

Massachusetts has become the Bellwether even though it is decidedly a liberal bastion.  When the public in such a state decides it has seen enough, it sends a signal that the rest of us pick up on very rapidly.  Many of us had already made such decisions but we were waiting for the mass to shift as more and more came to the same or a similar position.

The real danger in all this is that the conservatives can easily over-estimate their perceived dominance as the political pendulum swings to the right just as did the liberals.

Most of us are neither anti nor pro Democrat or anti nor pro Republican.  We are the independent middle that is comfortable in a moderate left or a moderate right world.  As we get the feeling that we’ve been taken too far in one or the other direction, we seem to sense that it is time to let our governing body know that we feel that way.

If President Obama gets this message, and if he can rein in the further-left element in Congress, and if he tones down his “change everything really quickly before they figure it out” approach to governance, he has the chance to be a good president who will serve two terms.  If he doesn’t, he won’t.