Beating the Moderate Democratic Donkey

One of the common themes we are hearing this year - and that we hear with every Democratic Convention - is that Democrats are too liberal, constantly needing to position themselves as more "moderate" in order to win. Is this a valid argument? Is this reasonable?

Michael Kinsley writes:

Extremism versus moderation is a beloved media leitmotif at the Republican convention as well. But there's a difference, at least in tone. It is generally considered enough if the Republicans prevent their nuttier element from actually taking over the convention. The GOP is rarely threatened with oblivion if it fails to stage a public festival of contrition. And the Republicans are under no pressure to avoid the word "conservative."

You would not know from the Democrats' three decades of defensiveness about themselves and the label liberal that the Democratic candidate got more votes than the Republican one in each of the past three presidential elections. Another way of putting this is that the candidate the world labeled a liberal, whether he admitted it or not, got more votes than the candidate who proudly labeled himself a conservative. Going back to 1976, when self-flagellation first became mandatory for liberals and Democrats, the Democratic presidential candidate got more votes in four out of seven elections. Going back to 1960, the record is six out of 11.

Legal Fiction comments:

[L]et's assume the parties are arguing about whether the earth is round. If one side says it's flat, and one side says it's round, what does that say about the "moderate" position? MODERATE DOES NOT EQUAL "CORRECT." And that's true for both sides. If abortion actually is the murder of God's children (hypothetical here), then the moderate position is wrong. If the war in Iraq was pointless and for nothing - and has made us and the world less safe - then the moderate position is wrong. Again, sometimes the moderate position is correct. But can we please - please please - get away from this two-box conception where all deviations from the baseline to the center are ipso facto correct, and all deviations to the left or right are ipso facto wrong. I think it's called groupthink.

So, self-proclaimed liberal candidates win on a reasonably regular basis and the fact that a position is “moderate” doesn’t mean that it is correct. These are fact that everyone can agree on — so why the constant harping on Democrats to stop being so liberal and become more moderate? Perhaps it serves the agenda of certain conservatives to keep moving the debate further to the right and delegitimize liberal arguments?

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