If We’re Center-Right, Why Did McCain Lose?

Posted on 11/11/2008 at 8:15 am by Bob Cesca

Eugene Robinson gets it:

So much is wrong with this analysis that it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the basic premise, that of a center-right American polity. To the extent that such a vague label has any real meaning, that may once have been the case. But if ours were a center-right electorate now, one imagines it might have been kinder to a center-right politician such as John McCain.

Robinson continues by suggesting that we “oscillate” between center-right and center-left, which is a little easier to buy than the far-right’s ridiculous ‘center-left’ meme, though I think Gene is being his usual generous self. Opinion polls on the issues as well as congressional make-up in the last 50 years shows a pretty clear oscillation between center-left and center. I would suggest that the only time we swing center-right is shortly after an attack and in the early days of a war. But that’s fleeting and rare.

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  • Poleezz

    Link isn’t working Bob.

  • Poleezz

    Now it is.

  • Poleezz

    WTF? Is anyone else able to make this work?

  • Groobiecat

    Poleez, yep, worked.Bob, yeah, I agree with you about Congress. Perhaps it’s not an “either/or” issue, considering that we’ve had a Dem presidency for just 12 of the past 40 years (the rest of those years were dominated by dim presidencies). But, we’ve been in control of Congress, as you say, for a longer period of time. Maybe we tend to be center right with the presidency until the the country and the office becomes hopelessly FUBAR. I disagree that wars are rare; hot or cold, we, as a country, can’t seem to get enough of ‘em (see “Military Industrial Complex”)

  • jasperjava

    By the standards of other industrialized democracies, the United States is center-right. Many of the conservative parties of Western Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, etc. are to the left of the Democrats.The Democrats are mostly a centrist party with some left and some right elements, while the Republicans are extreme right. In any other country, the GOP would be a fringe lunatic party with single-digit support.I would suggest that the only time we swing center-right is shortly after an attack and in the early days of a war. But that’s fleeting and rare.The bloodthirsty jingoism we see then isn’t “center-right”, but quasi-fascist.

  • Teaflax

    Thanks, jasperjava. I’ve been trying to point this out here, but you say it far better than I do.

  • Poleezz

    Well put jasperjava.

  • Teaflax

    And I see Bob has yet to address what jasperjava and I have been saying. I’m not saying that the US isn’t as a whole a lot further to the left than conservative pundits and politicians would like to make it out to be, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s not-center-right, either.