Our political Quote of the Day comes via CNN contributor John Avlon who argues Obama is right in defying the left on the issue of renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. We’ll take a longer look at some of Avlon’s key points (but these are only excerpts):
The fault lines beneath the Democratic Party have been rumbling between the left and the center. Now with President Obama’s compromise on the Bush taxes, they threaten to erupt entirely.
But it’s just the newest chapter of an old fight, and despite the liberal base’s fury, it’s evidence that Obama is trying to re-center himself before the 2012 elections.
One of the strangest signs of our political times is that while the far right considers Obama a socialist, the far left thinks he’s a corporate sellout. Of course, he can’t be both. But this distorted view disproportionately dominates our political debates. And long before Frank Rich joined the liberals’ dumping on Obama by diagnosing him as suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome” at the hands of his Republican captors this weekend, the left has been saying that the problem with the president is that he’s too centrist.
Avlon is correct. If you are a centrist, independent or moderate partisans on both sides try to define you in the most negative way possible. And it is not an insidious process: a partisan who deeply believes in his party’s agenda or an ideology simply cannot believe that someone might a)see things differently b)see some good in several solutions c)think that decisions that involve consensus and compromise are good and not necessarily signs of wishy-washiness. So that other person must really be a closet D or closet R (or dumb). MORE:
This goes back to the ’08 campaign. Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman took early aim at Obama, saying, “I find it a little bit worrisome if we have a candidate who basically starts compromising before the struggle has even begun.” Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas extended the narrative from the netroots by saying that Obama might be one of those “spineless Democrats who are … afraid of controversy.”
To the left, these concerns have been validated by Obama’s recent tax cut compromises. But even during the liberal high-water mark of successfully fighting for health care reform attempted by Democratic presidents since Truman, Obama was being attacked by the left for not steadfastly supporting a public option.
And here is Avlon’s key point:
To the left, the epic election shellacking Democrats received in 2010 happened because the president and his party were not liberal enough. Those party activists made the mistake of misreading the 2008 election as a liberal ideological mandate. Moreover, they continue to fundamentally misread the American electorate.
Here are the cold, hard facts: At any given time, there are roughly twice as many self-identified conservatives in America as liberals. For example, in July 2010, the Gallup Poll found that 20 percent of American voters identified themselves as liberal, while 42 percent called themselves conservative and 35 percent described themselves as centrist.
This trend means that Democratic presidents depend on the center to keep themselves popular and in power, while Republican presidents can coast more easily on their conservative base.
Avlon then offers some history — something he does effectively in his books as well — to back up this argument. And he ends with this:
Obama needs to lead the depolarization of American political debate going forward. He will need to reach out to Republicans on substance, particularly taxes and spending and entitlement reform — all issues that run the risk of further alienating the liberal base.
But he can appeal to progressives and independents with libertarian measures like ending “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He can offer principled policy triangulation like pursuing the DREAM Act alongside increased border security and immigration reform, building off the Bush-McCain-Kennedy proposal of 2007. He can continue to pursue education reform.
By declaring his independence from the professional left and leading the nation in line with his initial promise — from the proposition that there are no red states, no blue states, just the United States of America — Obama can win re-election and still lead Democrats to victory in 2012. And no matter how much the left resents this course, it has got to be better than losing the presidency.
The problem, though, is that to some on the left it isn’t better.
If you tune into progressive talk on land radio (if you can find it) and on satelllite radio (where it is more plentiful) you will hear plenty of callers basically say there is no difference between Obama and Republicans now. You pick up some of the same emerging argument — still a bit unseemly so it is only now just gingerly peeking its head out from its ideological cave — on progressive weblogs and in comments on some blogs.
In fact, Democratic voters throughout history have been almost negligent in not keeping their eye on the real ball: what holding power means to making inroads in the beaucracy, the buildling of a strong national party — and how the very laws are impacted by a party in power…via Supreme Court appointments and other court appointments.
But what does a teeny-weeny thing like the Supreme Court mean when you’re angry and want to send a message…to your own party?
Will many on the left in the Democratic party one day wind up like the Democrats who all too late realized the huge impact of the Presidencies of a Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or George Bush?
Will they realize that they might have protected their party’s broader interests by voting for their own party as Republicans felt once Bill Clinton became President after some GOPers turned their backs on George HW Bush for breaking his “new new taxes” pledge?
In politics the players often change.
But the short-sightedness often doesn’t. In both parties.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.