One of the things that bothers me most about the Washintgon Establishment is how clueless they are on what the American 'center' is. If you let any inside the beltway pundit tell it, centrism basically goes like this: Find a Republican position on an issue and a Demcoratic position on an issue, pick a solution midway between the two that neither party likes, and whammo...declare that position to be the 'center' and therefore the most acceptable and reasonable position. Third Way is one organization that claims to represent the center by following exactly such a path. Considering that its executive staff is made up of run-of-the-mill DC social climbers, one cannot be shocked.
So let me correct the record for these folks: The center is wherever the majority is.
Pick a position on an issue. Does that position have majority support from the voters? Yes? Then that is the centrist position on said issue. It really is that simple. People can't just pick a center out of their ass. The center has to be based on something politically meaningful, like a public majority. Just because some Washington elitist thinks a position is centrist does not make it so. It does not matter how many media pundits agree, because media pundits aren't politically meaningful. Nor is a board of trustees chock full of East Coast financiers 'centrist.'
Third Way claims to have the 'centrist' position on Social Security. But, what does a majority of the voters think?
PPP has a recent poll:
Our results confirm that on Social Security, many congressional proposals and much media punditry have been far from aligned with the voting public. Though altering the cost-of living adjustment formula to decrease benefits in Social Security continues to be suggested as a potential outcome of ongoing budget negotiations, in all but one of our surveys, more than 2/3 of respondents oppose reducing benefits. The outlier was in Scott Peters’ CA-52, where 66% oppose benefit reductions, and, on average, 65% of respondents support increasing Social Security benefits.
Ok. Says here about 2/3rds of the public in these districts and states not only are opposed to cutting Social Security, but strongly in favor of
increasing Social Security benefits. Hard to argue that a position of cutting benefits somehow represents a vital center. That seems, to the public, a fringe extreme position way off in the corner over there.
PPP too Democratic for you? How about the Associated Press. The found similar staunch opposition, and a 61-25 majority for raising taxes on rich people for making up for any shortfalls in Social Security. Or try Establishment-approved National Journal's poll. Same thing.
Third Way should just call itself what it is: an organization of socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative New York bankers. They support Civil Rights and Reaganomics. Just be blunt about it, because I'm sure there's about 4% to 5% of the voting public, mostly white collar middle managers on the coasts, that actually agrees with such positions. But don't claim to represent the center.