| thranx said: When Obama was elected for a second term I was pretty dissapointed. But I did see the silver lining. I hoped that after 8 years of his "rule" people would be awakened and see what the dems are all about. Here we are 6 years in, and the people have lost more faith in the dems than I could have imagined. Just as bush blew it for over spending over reaching repubs, Obama has done it to the Dems. So will americans start going back to the center, and not to the xtreme left and right? What are your thoughts on the electon results? |
I was not suprised, the midterm elections are a very different animal in terms of voter turnout and the demographics of those who do turn out, and is usually a sort of critique on the administration. Congress, which has a small fraction of the job approval of the current president, is seldom punnished in a midterm election. Congressional districts are so gerymandered that the Republicans can win a house majority with less than 50% of the vote (when you exclude the small percentage of votes that go to the minor parties such as the Libertarians). When they have a slight lead in public opinion prior to a midterm, they win big.
As a card carrying social democrat (in Canada that is the New Democratic Party) or socialist, I don't find either name derogatory, I can assure you from this end of the political spectrum Obama is anything but a socialist. He is even on the American political spectrum a fairly centrist figure in terms of policy. There are much more left wing factions of the American Democratic Party (I liked Kucinich more than Obama when he was running for nomination, in the grand political scheme not overly left but definately towards the progressive side of the party).
Left and right only define a few aspects of the political spectrum, a better model is the political compass http://www.politicalcompass.org/ which lets you see where you stand on both economic and social issues. You can use the tool to see where you stand relative to candidates and parties. For the record I am at a -9 in both axis (so very left and very socially libertarian. Obama is somewhere around a 5,5 or fairly right leaning and fairly authoritarian. It is not the only tool out there but a very useful one and much more useful than simple left right labels. Political parties also change position over long periods of time, the GOP of today is very different from the GOP of Lincon on the scale.
When will Americans (en masse) move to the political center? Not in my lifetime.
