What Is A Centrist?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General PoliticsThat’s what The Skeptical Centrist asks, and I think his frustration frames it perfectly.
What does it mean to be a centrist? I consider myself a centrist because, as noted in another post, I both embrace and reject different ideals from the left and the right; for example, I’m in favor of lesbians marrying and adopting kids while stockpiling guns in the basement of their house. But what about the person who opposes gay marriage and favors gun control? By my definition, that person is a centrist as well.Socially liberal but fiscally conservative? Sounds like a centrist to me. But so is a person who’s socially conservative but fiscally liberal. I’ve written that being a centrist is not about marching in unison with a group, but about forming one’s own opinions based on one’s interpretation of the evidence. What do you do when you gather a bunch of people who agree on some things and disagree on others? How do you form any sort of a platform? How do you sell this? Part of the mass appeal of the 2 party system is that, for the most part, everyone in the party agrees on things (the current state of the GOP notwithstanding.)
And this passage in particular struck me as true.
Then you run into the issue of campaigning. Say you’re a socially liberal, fiscally conservative person running for office against a Democrat and a Republican. How do you stand a chance of winning? Voters who identify with one party or another are going to love some of your ideas but hate the others. And socially conservative, fiscally liberal centrists are going to dislike you outright. So how does a centrist win an election?
Ask Bill Clinton. He won two Presidential campaigns this way.
The key will always be the hot button issues. If you know how to talk to your base in such a way that isn’t pandering, but still effective, you can get the faithful to follow a moderate agenda. Where that breaks down is when you have the other side shouting so vehemently for pre-emptive war. If you disagree then, you’re not fit to defend the country, which is obviously BS, but that’s how it goes.
So, what do you think a centrist is?
(HT: The Mighty Middle)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 and is filed under General Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 18th, 2005 at 8:02 am
“In favor of lesbians marrying and adopting kids while stockpiling guns in the basement of their house” is a libertarian sentiment, not a ‘centrist’. By contrasts, the “socially conservative, fiscally liberal” stance, taken as a mirror image, is a communitarian.
If however you’re willing to entertain a reasonable idea or policy, even to the point of abandoning a previous conviction on the basis of new evidence, then yes, you’re probably a centrist. The centrist is in a tense position. He must be able to balance varying positions regarding different policies, especially if those positions appear to ideologues to contradict each other, firmly hold that those positions have merit, and demonstrate that they are not, in fact in opposition to each other.
October 18th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
I am not a centrist. I’m extreme in a different direction. Always hated the left-right concept. It’s much more complicated than that.
October 18th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
Oh yes. Much.
October 22nd, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Maybe I’m being snarky, but a centrist is someone who holds positions that have no coherent political philosophy in common. Take the quiz at http://www.theadvocates.org/ for a different political map.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:00 am
I’ve seen the Nolan Quiz. I’ve posted about it elsewhere, and have seen a sample of how influential it appears to be. Here’s a link to an earlier post about it:
http://theleotest.typepad.com/the_leo_test/2005/07/of_the_most_pop.html
A sample of related links appears on the left side of the page under “Other Models”. Some of them are Nolan variants, some are not.