Because Obama recognises that America is a centre-right nation, he balances calls for withdrawal from Iraq with tough talk about stepping up US military efforts in Afghanistan, even threatening to invade Pakistan if that country fails to do enough to hunt down Al-Qaeda. He doesn’t emphasise his call for tax increases or income redistribution, but masks his policy as “a tax cut for 95% of Americans”. His adverts savage McCain’s health-care proposals as a tax increase and attack “government-run healthcare” as “extreme”. Obama has wisely used his financial advantage to press these points in “red states” to try to diminish the traditional Republican edge among evangelicals, military families, gun owners and small business owners.
Rove last assertion is observed by the Democratic Pollster Peter Hart to explain the results of a new WSJ poll on taxes:
Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster, said Sen. Obama is winning the debate because he is significantly outspending Sen. McCain on ads. "The only reason we're seeing a shift here is that's the difference money makes in a campaign," said Mr. Hart, who conducts the Wall Street Journal polls with Mr. Newhouse. "Democrats have gotten through tactically versus philosophically
If Rove is indeed correct, then the wisdom of avoiding besmirching the Republican label is obvious. It insults the "centre right nation" that Obama has succeeded in convincing is well-represented in his policies.
But are we a center right nation?
The Blog "RedBlueRichPoor" presents statistics that make it seem we are, well in the middle. The Pew Research Center substantiates these findings:
Americans cannot be easily characterized as conservative or liberal on today's most pressing social questions. The public's point of view varies from issue to issue. They are conservative in opposing gay marriage and gay adoption, liberal in favoring embryonic stem cell research and a little of both on abortion. Along with favoring no clear ideological approach to most social issues, the public expresses a desire for a middle ground on the most divisive social concern of the day: abortion.
So where does this idea that America is a center right nation come from? Newsweek offered the following tidbit:
are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one? I think the latter, because the mean to which most Americans revert tends to be more conservative than liberal. According to the NEWSWEEK Poll, nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals (40 percent to 20 percent), and Republicans have dominated presidential politics—in many ways the most personal, visceral vote we cast—for 40 years. Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label. "Is this a center-right country? Yes, compared to Europe or Canada it's obviously much more conservative," says Adrian Wooldridge, coauthor of "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America" and Washington bureau chief of the London-based Economist. "There's a much higher tolerance for inequality, much greater cultural conservatism, a higher incarceration rate, legalized handguns and greater distrust of the state."
The Poll provided Newsweek is not necessarily a contradiction to the findings of surveys like the Pew. Although American may call themselves Conservatives, in practice, a label like conservative or liberal is exactly the type of ambiguous smear that can obscure a much more complex true. In other words, people may think of themselves as actually Conservative, but not realize all that entails. They are Conservative in name only, an reality Obama has seized upon by blasting Conservatives (Bush McCain) without actually calling them by their "proper" names (Republican).
1 comments:
I'm not sure I buy Jon Meacham's argument, and I suspect it's colored by his own political leanings. The Red State Blue State argument feels much more valid - but again, without evidence, you could really make an argument you want. Like this one:
"This country is a radically left-wing one. What's my proof? That I said so."
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