MyDD :: Proof of the Ideological Coalition Shift

MyDD :: Proof of the Ideological Coalition Shift

The blogs are still scratching their heads about democrats.

While Chris Bowers makes a couple of good points in his thesis and study of former poll numbers regarding ideology and its plac on the political forum, I thought I would share my own comments.

Here is what I wrote:
What about those Indi stats?

Chris its not a bad thesis you are writting here. However, what you tend to ignore and the real problem with having an idealogical debate based on a two party system is that even if the Democrats and the Republicans really truly represented the left and right respectively, what do the people in the middle do.
Sound familiar? This is supposedly where elections are won right? because the middle doesn't have anywhere to go. They get torn apart during an election because of one stance or another that either party takes on a variety of issues.

Both parties are really truly moderate in their own way. Idealogy is either strong or weak. By virtue of the stats you cite, it seems that moderates are torn down the middle, and we lost this year because of republicans getting more of the democratic vote.

It is a combination of many things and to think that it is solely based on idealogy is simplistic.

I am a firm believer that media has a whole lot to do with it. The fact is that more moderates listen to conservative talk radio. If those people vote they will vote Bush based solely on Hannity's cute way of stating that he is right and common sense tells you to be a republican.

Finally, if you are stating that idealogy is behind voters intentions, then I don't think the Democrats have a chance with Liberals. Most liberals, like conservatives, don't like to compromise (i.e. safety from terrorists for human rights like the Patriot act). If that is the case, only a truly liberal candidate on all fronts can be proper for liberals, ie. Nader. Kerry may have been liberal by Washington standards, but in no way was he liberal by definition.

A strong third party would be the best thing to happen to this country, because what we trully all want and the only way we would truly be happy is if legislation was geared more towards the middle of the political spectrum. Otherwise we are just better off seceding from the union.