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Redstate...
Death of
the Moderate . . . Democrat
Posted by
Erick Erickson
Friday,
April 27th
It is worth
noting that on Tuesday several moderate Democrats went down in flames
in
Pennsylvania, continuing a trend that has escalated since 2008.
Liberals do not
want moderate Democrats in their caucus.
What is
most interesting about it from a conservative perspective, however, is
how
there has not been a ton of coverage about the death of the blue dogs —
more
dogs dead in Barack Obama and the left’s war on dogs. Had moderate
Republicans
been defeated, we would have major stories on pretty much every news
network
and on the front page of every paper in America.
Routinely
we hear that Republicans cannot win in New England, despite Republican
successes
in New England in 2010. Routinely we hear about the GOP driving
moderates out
of the party. Big tent cliches surround the stories. Rarely does the
ongoing
purging of the Democratic Party make such news.
In fact,
the Democratic Party has become increasingly hostile to moderates,
though the
media rarely cares to focus on this because the reporters who’d pay
attention
often are to the left of the moderate Democrats and proclaim their
position the
center. Those moderate Democrats are, therefore, well outside the
mainstream.
I do not
lament the decline and fall of the Blue Dog Coalition. The United
States
remains a center-right nation and Democrats must continue to run as
“centrist”
to appeal in swing states. Their true colors ruin their chances. The
fewer
“centrists” they have, the more difficult it becomes for them to appeal
to
voters, including Hispanic voters who continue to be some of the most
socially
conservative voters in America.
The lesson,
here, though is that partisans in both parties prefer their candidates
to stand
for something and fight for something. The media’s predominant bias is
a good
government bias and reporters hail those Republicans and Democrats who
work
across party lines to get things done in Washington. And what have they
done?
We’re at
$15 trillion and counting to what they’ve done. But it was done in the
name of
good government — a concept that is always framed as our salvation and
will
ultimately be our damnation as we go bankrupt with repeated good
government
compromises.
Read this
and other articles at Redstate
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