1) Centrists are not traditional the Democrats from before the days of Reagan because there was plenty of room for them in the Republican Party. Because the R party has become so extreme, social liberals have switched over and changed the Democratic Party dramatically.
2) When polled on the issues, a majority of Democrats fall into the liberal spectrum, not centrist, by a wide margin.
3) The midterms where centrist Democrats get whooped and liberal Dems fare much better. Liberals ARE the base because they can define the party as different than Republicans. Centrists can't do that and so people have no idea where they stand.
4) Barack Obama ran as a big time liberal and won *twice*. People didn't flock to him becuase he presented himself as a liberal. His campaign managers knew what the people wanted and so created that campaign.
5) Hillary, O'Malley, and Sanders are all running as liberal populists. The most left sounding field I have seen in a long time. She is trying to sound much more liberal than 2008. I assume there is some kind of internal polling in the party that tells them that populism is the way to go (sparked by Elizabeth Warren).
I think there are many people who might poll as more centrists because they have bought the bullshit about deficits and tax cuts. But for just about every other centrist policy, I can't think of one that is too popular.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/166787/liberal-self-identification-edges-new-high-2013.aspx
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read