Center-left Country

As we all know, Republicans are very good at repeating talking points and staying on message.  In trying to spin Tuesday night's results, which include not only a liberal yet pragmatic president-elect but also significant Democratic gains in the Senate and House, Republican pundits have repeatedly described America as a 'center-right' nation.  I assume that is an attempt to box in the new Democratic majority.

Maybe it's already working, with Pelosi stating that the country needs to be governed from the center at a press conference on Thursday. Of course, governing from the middle probably makes sense, both as a starting point and as a strategy to prevent overreach, overreach that could trigger a backlash against the party in power in the 2010 mid-term elections (something that traditionally happens).  More importantly that a philosophy, governing from the center is a necessity since the government is out of money anyway.

But I have to push back against the notion that the U.S. is a 'center-right' nation. I think it's clearly center-left, more of a Clintonesque ideology.  I think culturally the country is generally left (except for gay marriage, but on gay rights it's different), and had been economically conservative since the 1980s.  But the recent financial collapse and the crash of Reagan-era deregulation may spur a shift towards economic populism and liberalism.

So culturally we're left, economically we've been right but may be shifting, and politically we've been split. However, the last 5 elections, covering a generation, show that rather than being split a center-left pattern is emerging.  Clinton won elections in 1992 (with help from Perot, but he ran a pretty lefty campaign) and 1996 - a landslide - then Gore won the popular vote in 2000.  Bush won a narrow margin four years later (by 3 million votes), and now Obama wins in a rout (by more than 8 millio votes).  And don't forget Democrats took back Congress in the 2006 mid-term elections by running left on the war. 

In four of the last five elections the center-left has won the popular vote.  And if patterns from the Obama win persist - Hispanics and young voters going 2-1 for Democrats, increased turnout by African-Americans - this trend could last for two or three more elections.  And who knows, if the economy rebounds there may be money for a national health care system, a complete overhaul and modernization of our infrastructure with more mass transit, and a shift to clean energy.

Frank Rich plows some of the same ground in today's New York Times (though for the record I posted this blog entry on Saturday night).

Hellection Update

There's a new Greek-American member of Congress, Dina Titus from Nevada. Kudos to my friend Art Dimopoulos, the publisher of Odyssey Magazine who went out to Nevada to campaign for her. She joins Shelley Berkeley, who is descended from Greek Jews, in the three-person Nevada Congressional delegation. That makes five Greek-American members of Congress: the Nevada two plus Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), John Sarbanes (D-MD), and my man Zack Space (D-OH). And we can claim Greek-in-law Nikki Tsongas, the widow of Paul Tsongas, who represents Lowell, Massachusetts who is 'Greek by osmosis.' Those six join Maine Senator Olympia Snowe in Washington. Not bad considering there are about 1 million Greeks in the U.S.

State Level Stuff

One last election review.  Hard to believe that in California voters supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage. California!  The vote was 52 to 48 percent for the ban.  Arizona and Florida voters supported similar initiatives. Specific issue aside, seems odd to me that the threshold for amending the state constitution is so relatively low. To amend the U.S. Constitution, both houses of Congress have to pass it AND three-quarters of the states have to ratify the amendment.  Fifty percent plus one seems too low to amend a state constitution.

Jon Stewart still has the best take on gay marriage: unless every one has to marry gay - mandatory gay marriage for gay and non-gay alike, why do straight people care enough about gay marriage to reject it politically?  If you are not gay, this does not affect you.

Finally, who'd a thunk it that on the same day California would reject gay marriage SOUTH DAKOTA would uphold a woman's right to choose, for the second election in a row?  Though in it's defense, California also rejected restricting access to abortions on election day.