Lamont / Chafee wins show electorate shifting LEFT (despite media's take)

[Brotherjohn]

Recently, there was a network news story (I forget which network) about how it was politically "dangerous to be a moderate" in American politics today.

The examples they chose to highlight this theory were Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman. Leiberman was a moderate Democrat, and had recently lost the Democratic primary to a more liberal challenger (Lamont). Likewise, Chafee was a moderate Republican, and he was in danger of losing his primary to a more conservative challenger. Moderate incumbents under attack from “radical” candidates! Therefore, being a moderate is risky, right?

What they failed to realize (or actively decided not to “realize”) in this calculation was that the candidates enjoying the lion's share of support in each of these races were the candidates to the left. What they also failed to note was that a while Lieberman had already LOST to the candidate to the left of him, Chafee (the candidate to the left in that Republican primary) was merely “in a race”… a race he has now won. The story even pointed out that the Republican National Committee was overwhelmingly supporting Chaffee, the moderate. I don’t recall Lieberman enjoying such national support (unless you’re also talking about from the RNC!). This sounded to me like it was pretty safe (relatively speaking) to be a moderate in the Republican Party right about now, and not so much one in the Democratic Party. Yet here is the network telling us it’s “dangerous to be a moderate”.

What this story, and the results of these two races (if you're going to choose them as your examples), tells me is that it's dangerous to be on the RIGHT. This tells me that the country is shifting to the LEFT. Now, why wouldn’t the networks want to tell us that? :sarcasm:

The Republican Party is scared of its own shadow right now, and in this case, that shadow was another far right-winger. They knew they'd lose this seat to the Dems in November if Laffey won the primary (and they may still lose it). They know they’ll lose the race if they back other radicals like Katherine Harris (explaining the “tremendous” support she’s gotten, right?).

I see no such fear from Democratic Party about the Lamont win. "Enthusiasm" and "optimism" are words I'd think might apply.

Lieberman and Chafee could now feasibly both win in November. This would run exactly counter to the news story’s theory, proving that being a “moderate” pays off. However, just as foreseeable, Lieberman and Chafee could lose (to the respective Dem challengers), proving my point above. But whatever the results in November show, what’s happening now is that each party within its own ranks is moving to the LEFT for survival. And they are following the only thing they ever would follow: the electorate.

This all boils to the facts that, for the past several years, what has been considered “radical” on the left has actually been run-of-the-mill “liberal”, and what has been considered “moderate” on the left has really been rather “conservative”. There has been no “radical left” in practice or politics. However, what has passed for mainstream “conservative” on the right has really been… well, to use the technical term… “far-right nut-job wacko”.

November will hopefully reveal a slight re-adjustment (back towards reality) of those perceptions.

(An aside, this being the first time I sat and watched the network news in some time, I was amazed and more than a little disturbed. There was the story above, a story about the Pentagon “re-calculating” the number of war dead, implying that some accidents and suicides maybe shouldn’t be counted (they just wanted to “get things right” under the guise of avoiding another Pat Tillman), and more claims from the administration that any other options besides staying the course would be just giving in to the terrorists, with little to no counter-opinion. It felt like I was watching the news on “V for Vendetta”!)