Which candidate is the most centrist on economic issues?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

The conventional wisdom seems to be that we must pick up swing votes in the center. So which economic issues are centrist ones? Which economic issues will scare away swing voters? Which candidate is most likely to pick up swing voters on economic issues?

[jenk]

1. Kerry and Edwards

possibly Clark but I don't know his economic agenda

Kerry and Edwards don't call for repealing all of the Bush tax cuts, just those for the very wealthy. Middle class tax cuts should be kept

Gephardt wants to eliminate all the tax cuts, which is the wrong strategy imho and will hurt him in a general election. So does Kucinich but he's not a serious candidate.

[lcordero]

2. centrist on economic issues?

nobody is going to win votes that way.
The huge majority of people don't like "free" trade, despise work visas, and detest the govt giving the corporate world a free ride.
It's better to run to the left on this.

[Valjean]

4. Agreed

The key to winning is going "left" on economic issues. Pro-union, anti free trade, NAFTA, WTO. The problem here is that this will alienate big money corporate contributors. Though this is EXACTLY what the democrats need as Ralph Nader has enumerated.

On social issues, Democrats need to move back to the center. This is what alienates rural Americans. Get all the "freaky" issues out of the limelight. Offer states rights positions on these topics so that Californians can have their freakiness, and Iowans can have their traditional cultural values.

Also, something no voter hates is high quality education. Offer federal money for school districts that attain high teacher to student ratios. Any teacher will tell you that they can help children more if they have more time to dedicate to each one individually. 30 kids per class is TOO MANY!!!!

Democrats should be VERY strong in anti-terrorism efforts. But they should emphasize issues of: Border Security (helps with drugs too), Air Marshalls on EVERY flight, more training for firefighters and other first responders, higher stockpiles of anti-biotics. They should focus on Afghanistan (who attacked us) and point out that lives are being lost in Iraq without making America safer.

Finally, the democrats should not let up on the "Bush copies Hitler" motif. They should make it very clear that Bush has passed legislation that allows him to "disappear" US citizens just like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet or any other of those totalitarian states. It also allows him to turn the FBI into a secret police with broad powers to collect bribe files just like the afore mentioned police states. Americans will not take this likely. Democrats just have to make the case.

[Fovea]

3. Feel free to diagree with me

But I think the conventional wisdom is less useful in 2004 than it was in 2002. And, BTW, it is the same lame-ass conventional wisdom as in 2003.

Let's try something really radical. Let's energize the base again.
We need to look at the real situation, and be unafraid to as the essential question...
Are you better off than you were in 2000?

That is about as far as we have to go to play to the middle, IMO.

[dawgman]

5. Man, screw centrism. That is the problem with the Dems.

Every time they move further right in the name of "mainstream" voters they lose more voters. The soccer mom swing vote is a myth. There is a reason that less than half of the people of this country vote. That reason is a complete loss of faith in a BS two party system that represents no one but the wealthy and corporations. Centrism is what is killing this party. The DLC and other "mainstream" party groups would take it all the way to the right if they thought that that would give them a political "victory."

Any centrist victory is a Pyrrhic victory at best.

[sandnsea]

6. Kerry,

It isn't about being wildly left in order to make yourself different. It's kind of like young kids who all pierce themselves to be different and yet they're all the same. That's not the point of an election.

The point is to offer plans that will work for the most people. Plans that take the country forward and look to the future. Being honest with the American people and explaining to them why those plans are really the best, even if they don't sound the best at first listen. Kerry can do that, on trade, on investment in new environmental technologies, on tax cuts, on building up our local security and social structures, on health care cuts for small business, on loans and investments for small business and so much more. He's done it, he knows how to do it, and that's why he'll win not only swing voters but the far left too. The environmental left has wanted somebody to fight the jobs vs. environment battle for years and they finally have somebody who will do it. He's the obvious choice to unite the party and beat Bush in November.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

7. well I have no body piercings

I suppose that Kerry's support of the WTO is more centrist than Kucinich's opposition to it?

[cryofan]

8. Hey Hey, Ho Ho, economic centrism has got to go!

Leftism is where it is at. Check my sig url for links on social democracies