The Democratic Party is looking ahead to November ’06 and November ’08:
With Democrats increasingly optimistic about this year’s midterm elections and the landscape for 2008, intellectuals in the center and on the left are debating how to sharpen the party’s identity and present a clear alternative to the conservatism that has dominated political thought for a generation.
Read on.
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In the blogosphere, the debate isn’t always friendly — or, at least, there are often serious and sometimes harshly personal differences in perspective. Essentially, the current debate pits The New Republic‘s Jonathan Chait against Kos and Atrios. You can find Chait’s recent posts at TNR’s The Plank here and here. Kevin Drum weighs in here.
My quick view is this: I don’t think that the “left” is all that left. As I recently argued here, the rightward shift of America’s perceived center of political gravity over the past few decades has made the left seem more extreme than it really is (or, rather, extreme when it isn’t). In fact, the real center of gravity is well to the left of where conservatives claim it is. Given this, I think Kevin is right.
However, Chait’s argument that the Kossack left has come to resemble the McGovernite New Left of the late ’60s and early ’70s is quite persuasive. What worries me most is the demand for ideological purity and political conformity. The Democrats will only win by being a broad-based party that welcomes and celebrates diverse viewpoints (including, perhaps, Joe Lieberman), not by enforcing a strict litmus test that alienates so-called “moderates”. Ultimately, there is a lot that unites Democrats, and a lot that unites liberals in the blogosphere, but, politically, winning requires compromise.