What Moderates Want
Stan Greenberg and Bob Borosage have a smart piece taking on the notion that the larger number of self-described conservatives than liberals show that we’re a “center-right” nation. They observe that on the vast majority of issues, moderates have pretty liberal views. The difference is that moderates are skeptical that government can be made to work well. Thus, what progressives need to do is not to trim, but to govern effectively:
[P]rogressives needn’t be defensive about the majority that is dubious about government spending. Making government work effectively is at the heart, not the capillaries of the progressive agenda. This test doesn’t distract; it focuses us on our task. No progressive majority can ever be consolidated for long if it doesn’t demonstrate that government can be an effective ally for everyone.
And that is all moderates are looking for. They aren’t skeptical about the need for government. By large margins, they think regulation does more good than harm. They want investments made in education and training. They favor a concerted government-led drive for energy independence. They far prefer a health-care plan with a choice between their current insurance and a public plan like Medicare, rather than one that would give them a tax credit to negotiate with insurance companies on their own. Their concern is less that government will do too much and more that government will fail to do what it must and waste their money in the process.
Right on. Meanwhile, any incumbent party needs to govern effectively to hold on to power, so it’s not like this is some special challenge over and above the basic tasks.
29 Responses to “What Moderates Want”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
November 14th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Discussions about ‘moderates’ and ‘liberals’ and ‘the center’ have zero meaning for me, because there isn’t consense on the default definitions for any of these positions. The Republicans worked for decades to push the perception of the center so far to the right that everything is skewed and perverted beyond recognition.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
meant to say, “consensus.”
November 14th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Megadittos, as someone once said. The great success of the
Reagan Revolution was to convine the majority that “govenment
is not the solution, government is the problem”, not without
justification. I don’t think that demonstating governing
“effectively” is possible in the short term, and short of
drastic changes in the structure of government beaurocracy,
I can’t imagine how it can be demonstrated at all, given
that a strong distrust of government has been a constant of
U.S. culture since at least Mark Twain (suppose I am an
idiot, and suppose I am a member of Congress; but I repeat
myself…). Even if progressives can deliver improvments
in the lives of the voters, “everyone knows” that government
is inefficient and incompetent when not actively corrupt.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
This is totally true. That’s why Obama needs to be careful in recruiting Republicans to his cabinet, because his goal must be effectiveness, not bipartisanship. None of these “drown it in the bathtub” types should be allowed to infiltrate the top ranks of the executive branch. EVER!
If Obama can successfully deliver on some of his gov’t agenda, both substantively and in perception, Dems could well establish a long run of dominance, by shifting the debate from the role of government to who can make government work. If not, we’re back to vicious personal attacks and arguments about Joe the Plumber-type vapidity.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
This may also explain the incredibly intense nature of Administration job applications, no? It seems like he’s devoting more real attention to the whole “avoiding a scandal at all costs” element of the job than past Presidents have.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
any incumbent party needs to govern effectively to hold on to power, so it’s not like this is some special challenge over and above the basic tasks.
But the problem is that the Republican party is incented to obstruct effective government in order to drive the Democratic party from power.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
The “center-right nation” nonsense is an attempt to propagandize and change an agenda; it is not, in the least, an attempt to engage with empirical realities.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
“No progressive majority can ever be consolidated for long if it doesn’t demonstrate that government can be an effective ally for everyone.”
Oh! So that’s all it takes? An effective ally for EVERYONE? Wow. So your coalition is going to be completely effective for, say, Bill Kristol AND Bill Ayers? Awesome! If only I had thought of that!
This is fantastic. This government is going to give everything that the Hummer drivers want. And the urban commuters, too. More roads, more trains. More peace. More stability. More health care. Lower taxes. More abortion. Less abortion. Gay marriage. Bans on gay marriages.
Seriously. Why didn’t someone think of this earlier?
Next time, I’m voting progressive. All this time, I thought you were unrealistic. This is the kind of “smart piece” I hope to see more of. All that talk about zero-sum is a bunch of crap.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
It seems like he’s devoting more real attention to the whole “avoiding a scandal at all costs” element of the job than past Presidents have.
Oh, I wouldn’t call that “at all costs”, when you have someone, in essence, pre-vet themselves. If you find yourself entering a lot of stuff that would 1) reflect badly on the Administration splayed on the front page, and 2) could be independently dug up, then you probably shouldn’t bother continuing with the application.
Hell, we’ve had enough Administrations waste time hiring slum lords and FICA tax cheats. Time for these people to recognize the problems before the press does. This way, the applicant and the Administration can decide up front if the issues are too heavy, and if not too, decide how to get in front of them.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Well, if our money is spent in such a way as to provide good value, even many self-proclaimed conservatives would support activist government. Most opposition to activist government is based on the fact that in many cases, it doesn’t work, just as support for it is based on the fact that in many cases, it does. You’ll notice that support for activist government is higher in European countries that have a tradition of good government.
The question is, can liberals make it work? I say no, in part because in a country as diverse and sprawling as the US, there are too many competing interests and too much overhead is built into spending projects. Universal health care is going to be more expensive here than in say, Sweden, because in order to win votes for a bill you’ll probably have to do things like increase ethanol subsidies and bail out automakers. While Americans want universal health care, if it’s more expensive than what their old plan was and the quality doesn’t improve, it would actually harm progressivism to get it passed.
So to sum up, yeah, if you can make government competent and less corrupt, then you can increase support for activist government. And if you can get dogs to stop licking themselves…
November 15th, 2008 at 7:20 am
“By large margins, they think regulation does more good than harm. They want investments made in education and training.”
I am not sure this is the case. But even if it is, you still can’t please “everyone,” or even a substantial majority. Take education. There are large groups of people who want to try vouchers and other reforms that would piss off teachers unions. And there are large groups who want to increase traditional funding strategies and try other reforms that would piss off the voucher types.
All of these people will answer that they want “investments” made in education and training. Thus the “large margin.” But it’s impossible to govern in a way that will make people hapopy across the board, unless you break the bank. Which will of course rile the budget hawks.
Same is true of a “reasonable” withdrawl from Iraq. Who’s against that? No one! Can progressives achieve it in a way that proves “government is an effective ally for everyone”? If course not.
And the whole idea that people lean progressive on a “vast majority” of issues. Really? Not just a majority, or a substantial majority. A VAST majority. Come on, now.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:50 am
The problem of definitions seems huge, since it’s hard to get people to identify with a title when, for example, the name “liberal” has been used in right-wing talk show rhetoric as a substitute for “leper” for years. So along with our infrastructure, we need to fix that.
And I’ve been struggling for years with the inadequacy of the “liberal” and “conservative” terms. Again I feel it’s largely the fault of right-wing propaganda, rendering even the term “conservative” totally useless. It now seems to be synonymous (if you take the GOP as representative) with “Sarah Palin”. It’s reminds of trying to balance your checkbook while someone stands next to you going, “Six…two…eight…four…twelve…” in your ear.
How do we resurrect functioning political language to aid us in this time of change? Hopefully the success of a true progressive agenda will redefine “liberal” for a new generation. And if “conservative” ends up being hopelessly tangled in the GOP’s current identity crisis like a tangled Slinky, well, I can live with that.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
P.S. If the GOP runs on issues as if this IS actually a center-right nation, we progressives be in power for years… The proof will, truly, be in the pudding.
And there must be hay made in the fact that when the chips are down, when the country is in the deepest crisis of most of our lifetimes, people have voted for progressive solutions. That certainly says more than right-wing bloviators trying to comfort themselves as they wander off into the wilderness, holding hands, chanting, Dorothy-like, “We’re a center-right nation… We’re a center-right nation…”
November 15th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Ditto what jhaygood said re: “liberal”. The numbers are inevitably skewed because the only people willing to call themselves liberals are really REALLY liberal. Meanwhile, people that are pretty much liberal by default think the term is some kind of insult.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:16 am
levitraIf you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Amazing site! love the easy layout
March 11th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
xanax
March 17th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Incredible site!
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:17 am
tramadol
Great site. Good info
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
cheap brand pfizer viagra