TheCenterLane.com

© 2008 – 2024 John T. Burke, Jr.

Re-Make Re-Model

Comments Off on Re-Make Re-Model

Welcome to the new incarnation of TheCenterLane.com !

For a number of reasons, I changed to a new web host and switched over to a WordPress-based platform.  This was a big project and I am still in the process of updating links to my archived postings, as they may appear in pieces written before this changeover.  While doing this set-up, I found that WordPress resisted my initial efforts to have a two-tier blogroll with my favorite sites at the top, as was the case previously.  Nevertheless, having the list in alphabetical order makes it easier to find the links, so I’m inclined to leave it this way.

As I went through the blogroll, I gave some thought to bumping some sites and adding others.  When I came across the link to CenterMovement.org, I was reminded of something they said about this site:  that I was “not afraid of sounding radical at outrages to common sense”.  The concept of  “radical centrism” became the subject of a recent article by Gerald Seib at The Wall Street Journal.   Mr. Seib appeared to share my expectation that the rise of the Tea Party movement has inspired voters (and more importantly:  aspiring candidates) from all perspectives to escape from  the two-party trap.  Here are some of Seib’s points that resonated well with me:

Many of  those seriously estranged from the political system and its practitioners appear to sit in the political center.  They are shaping this year’s campaign, but equally important is the question of what happens to them after the election Nov. 2, and especially on the road toward the next presidential campaign in 2012.

*   *   *

Mostly they want solutions — economic and job-creating solutions — and they seem to think Democrats have failed to provide them.  They also thought that of  Republicans previously.  And they seem to think this failure to produce in Washington is, at least in some measure, the result of  both parties being in the thrall of  “special interests,” a term with various definitions.

Some of this frustration is being channeled into the tea-party movement, but not all of it by any means.  The tea-party movement is more conservative, and more Republican at heart, than many of these independent voters appear to be.

*   *   *

But perhaps the tea-party influence will push the Republican Party too far to the right for many of these independents.  And perhaps Mr. Obama will tack too far to the left in the next two years, to protect his liberal flank and preclude the possibility that he, like Jimmy Carter in 1980, faces a primary challenger from his party’s liberal base when he seeks re-election.

If that’s what happens after this year’s election, Washington may descend into true partisan and ideological gridlock, and independent voters’ frustration and estrangement may only grow.

Seib concluded that such a scenario could give rise to “a third-party challenge in 2012”.  As I have stated previously:  by 2012 I would hope to see a third, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth party, as well.

As I said when I first started this blog in April of 2008:  It’s an exciting time to be a centrist.  Since that point, we have seen a number of politicians claiming to be centrists, simply because their positions on most major political issues were constantly changing — in order to “follow the money”.  Claiming to be “pragmatists”, many of those politicians have been more than willing to horse-trade away any accomplishments made in advancing a particular cause for their supporters.  Unlike Gerald Seib, I believe that many “middle-of-the-road radicals” are peeved by the absolute lack of any ideological principles behind the actions taken by too many of those in government.  We can expect a number of diverse political groups to form after the 2010 elections.  Hopefully. the voters will have better alternatives next time around.



wordpress visitor