Originally Posted by F.B.N.

I took extreme measures to not mention Bush and/or Iraq here. I'm thinking that keeping those 2 items out will help this discussion along on a bipartisan plane. Also, I say a MODERATE PARTY...not Candidate. I really don't see the Green Party or the Libertarian party as moderate...but they do look better than the far left and right IMO.

I feel the time has never been better for a truly moderate President. Not a liberal like Kerry or Hillary moving right and not a righty like Cheney(I said no B#$h so I use him) moving left. Because moving left means they still get the strong money from the extreme donors but they try to appease the center for votes.

Running as a true moderate would be tough to near impossible because the $$$ needed to run won't really be there. The big money comes from the PACS and their people. Two of the most famous are the abortion people donating to the left and the gun lobby to the right for example.

But, when I think of this issue it makes alot of sense. If Cheney runs he would appeal to me about 20% or so on issues and Hillary the same from the left...@ 20% of the issues.

Now take the real lefties and righties here and in America. Would a true moderate appeal @ 20% to them...I don't think so. Just guessing on my part...don't want a link heavy thread...I would rather have a discussion of real opinion...I would think that a moderate would appeal at least 50% to these people if not more. Using an appeal factor of let's say 70% to 100% for a candidate someone would really truly like alot.

So, am I wrong to say this candidate would not represent the people better?

• I would think a true moderate would never go to war without true Congressional approval.
• A real moderate would really use the U.N....even with it's inherent flaws.
• A real moderate would have a strong defense, but one that truly protects as opposed to being aggresive with manpower, weapons and the media.
• A real moderate would be forced to listen to the people...because they would not have THAT BASE TO FALL BACK UPON.
• A real moderate would need to have a balanced budget with a reduced deficit...because only a successfull budget will help re-election...no base to fall back on.
• A real moderate would enhance the chances of having a larger center in the House and Senate...this is where we would see the most benefit of representation for the people vs big business.
• A real moderate would expose big business for what it is, causing the voters to take appropriate measures to fight back.
• A real moderate would make it easier for the media to bring debate back into the news...they are just way to busy fighting for their side all the time.
  
• A real moderate would make it harder for minorities on the left and right...this could be a problem for them unless they lessen their demands...which could end up being good...I am not sure?
  
  I CAN THINK OF MORE...BUT I'M GUESSING OTHERS WILL POST MORE OR TAKE SOME AWAY.

The 4TH item...THE BASE TO FALL BACK ON...That is what allows our politicians to continually SH - IT on us all the time. Take away the base and you take away the power....the power goes back to the people, where it belongs.

MY THEORY...IN SIMPLE UNLINKED TERMS OF WHY WE
NEED A TRULY(donations come from moderates) MODERATE PARTY.

OPINIONS???

Originally Posted by NEM

Not gonna happen, dont waste your breath. What is needed more is moderate republicans. At least there are some moderate Dems, but there are, virtually, no moderate republicans.

Republicans, basically, are party first, country second...at least the current breed.

Democrats are more likely to vote for a republican sponsored bill than republicans for a Democratic sponsored bill. And, that has been proven.

Originally Posted by PatsFanInEaglesLand

You are so full of crap it isn't funny!

Look at what you say about a moderate democrat.

Joe Lieberman to destroy the Democrats .. Again.

You disagree with him so you trash him, nice, now who is party first? I believe that would be you.

Originally Posted by NEM

You dont know crap of what you are talking about. Lieberman is not a moderate democrat. He has one goal, and that is Israel, and believe me, I know exactly where he is coming from. He is kissing bUshs ass to get protection for Israel , even if it is at the expense of our military....

And, I can feel exactly where he is coming from, because I feel the lsame way as he does about Israel,k but the only difference is not at American expense, especially lives.

You are a total fool.

Originally Posted by patsfan13

Here is an article that speaks to the clash of ideologies you are observing.

As intellectual historians have often had occasion to observe, there are times in a nation's history when certain ideas are just "in the air." Admittedly, this point seems to fizzle when applied to our particular historical moment. On the surface of American politics, as many have had cause to mention, it appears that the main trends predicted over a decade ago in Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History?" have come to pass -- that ideological (if not partisan) strife has been muted; that there is a general consensus about the most important questions of the day (capitalism, not socialism; democracy, not authoritarianism); and that the contemporary controversies that do exist, while occasionally momentous, are essentially mundane, concerned with practical problem-solving (whether it is better to count ballots by hand or by machine) rather than with great principles.
.....
Far from being content with a mere uprising, therefore, Gramsci believed that it was necessary first to delegitimize the dominant belief systems of the predominant groups and to create a "counter-hegemony" (i.e., a new system of values for the subordinate groups) before the marginalized could be empowered. Moreover, because hegemonic values permeate all spheres of civil society -- schools, churches, the media, voluntary associations -- civil society itself, he argued, is the great battleground in the struggle for hegemony, the "war of position." From this point, too, followed a corollary for which Gramsci should be known (and which is echoed in the feminist slogan) -- that all life is "political." Thus, private life, the work place, religion, philosophy, art, and literature, and civil society, in general, are contested battlegrounds in the struggle to achieve societal transformation.
......
The primary resistance to the advance of Gramscian ideas comes from an opposing quarter that I will call contemporary Tocquevillianism. Its representatives take Alexis de Tocqueville's essentially empirical description of American exceptionalism and celebrate the traits of this exceptionalism as normative values to be embraced. As Tocqueville noted in the 1830s (and as the World Values Survey, a scholarly comparative assessment, reaffirmed in the 1990s), Americans are different from Europeans in several crucial respects. Two recent books -- Seymour Martin Lipset's American Exceptionalism (1997) and Michael Ledeen's Tocqueville on American Character (2000) -- have made much the same point: that Americans today, just as in Tocqueville's time, are much more individualistic, religious, and patriotic than the people of any other comparably advanced nation.

What was particularly exceptional for Tocqueville (and contemporary Tocquevillians) is the singular American path to modernity. Unlike other modernists, Americans combined strong religious and patriotic beliefs with dynamic, restless entrepreneurial energy that emphasized equality of individual opportunity and eschewed hierarchical and ascriptive group affiliations. The trinity of American exceptionalism could be described as (1) dynamism (support for equality of individual opportunity, entrepreneurship, and economic progress); (2) religiosity (emphasis on character development, mores, and voluntary cultural associations) that works to contain the excessive individual egoism that dynamism sometimes fosters; and (3) patriotism (love of country, self-government, and support for constitutional limits).

A very long article but a good read and some insight on the culture war being fought in American politics these days.