Here we go again. David Broder proposes, in a column published in today's Albuquerque Journal, that the moderates in both major parties are "reasserting themselves."
Well, you can make that case where the GOP is concerned. (Though for the sake of precision you would do better to say GOP conservatives - not moderates - are standing up.)
Broder goes on to argue that Democrats ran to the left in the last election, as liberals, not to the middle of the road. This amazes me.
If that were the case, Dean, not Kerry would have been the candidate. Or Kerry might have said the Iraq War was a terrible diversion from the war on the 9/11 terrorists, that it was pre-planned, etc. etc. He didn't.
Domestically, Kerry would have proposed national health insurance. He didn't.
And the Democratic candidate for VP would have proclaimed when tort reform came up in his debate with Cheney that the Democrats side with individual Americans against corporate power. He didn't. He ducked.
I could go on but you get the idea. Broder doesn't define "moderate," but it's clear he means the Democrats need to find the middle no matter where the middle has moved. There's no bedrock here. If the argumnt is between the Fascist Right and the neo-Fascist Right, Broder would, like Clinton, find the space between them. It's triangulating. It's all tactics, no beliefs.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if editors demanded that columnists define their terms?