That’s because the Tea Party has moved the goalposts. Blue Dog Democrats when they were formed in the '90s were so conservative that when the Republicans won Congress in 1994, they wasted little time in switching parties. Calling their stance the “moderate” stance now just shows you how the press and the public has bought in to the constant barrage of the Republican propaganda machine.
The most conservative Democrat in Congress right now is more liberal than the most liberal Republican.
Yes, so? That’s because many of the Blue Dog Democrats switched parties. “Blue Dog” is a term from the 1990s, when there were Democrats well to the right of many Republicans. It has almost no meaning now.
[url=]RationalWiki sez, FWIW:
Based on the above divisions, I would envision the Progressives and maybe half the Liberals going to the Moonbats; the Dixiecrats to the Wingnuts; the Libertarians to the LP; the New Democrats, Blue Dogs, and the other half the Liberals to the Mugwumps; Populists wherever.
It would if every typology-group were a separate party, but I’m not assuming that. I’m thinking the Wingnuts would form around a Staunch Conservative core that would recruit some Libertarians, some Main Street Republicans, some Disaffecteds – no Postmoderns, they go with the Mugwumps – but a minority of each group, and I still don’t see it absorbing more than a third of the electorate, probably less.
Ummm … no. They didn’t retire the label, like some super-star’s jersey number. It’s still in use today. Cite:
BrainGlutton, you’re a good man and I love you and I love RationalWiki, but please stop quoting that fucking article every time someone brings up party composition. It’s just some shit that someone decided sounded good. It isn’t a valid source for anything. I mean, why the fuck should I accept it as an authority?
And, by the way, guys like Ben Nelson would comfortably fit into the right wing of the Republican party.
It’s in use today as a relic of a time when it had meaning.
4 years ago, 54 Democrats called themselves “Blue Dogs” and they were a factor in the negotiations on ObamaCare. Calling it a meaningless “relic” might make you feel better, but it’s not accurate.
“When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers”.
A more important question is whether multiple parties and attendent minority government deliver better governance rather than their ideology. That’s far from clear.
Certainly the first fosters plurality, the second does not. Am unfamiliar with the third but it has the essense of preferencing, which can be benign or be manipulated to either ensure or obliterate minor parties.
The near inevitable result of minority government is (IMHO) is inertia with all parties having excessive capability to blame shift any and all shortcomings. You have a car with a lawn mower engine and Rolls Royce brakes.
Now this might well be suited to the US viewpoint of government. Experience on this side of the puddle would be it is better to make a clear choice, allow them (nea expect them) to deliver on their platform with conviction, not compromise, and when what they deliver is not longer the majority view chuck 'em out. Repeat periodically and the centre gets it’s way most of the time, and sometime the dragon wins.
We’re talking about the same Ben Nelson that voted for ObamaCare, right? The ObamaCare bill that not a single Republican Senator supported? I’m not sure you know where the right wing of the Republican party is …
The American Conservative Union, when they put out their 2012 Congressional scorecard, gave Ben Nelson a 20, meaning that he voted their way on flagged bills 20% of the time. His lifetime score with them is 42.93%
In comparison, the two most liberal Republicans in the Senate in 2012, Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, have lifetime ratings of 48.10 and 48.85. respectively.
The same Ben Nelson who extracted significant concessions for the private sector, by the way (Omaha being home to some large insurance companies). If anything he drove the bill further right from the original Heritage Foundation version.
I support this [del]Pitting[/del] proposal.
BTW, American democracy has “evolved” to the point where a majority of voters is not 51%, but rather just 8% of voters have control – and usually the most lunatic 8% ! A party with 60% of the seats in House of Representatives is controlled, due to the “Hastert rule,” by its crankiest 60%-sized subset. They were elected from a 60%-Republican District where the real selection was in the Primary election, where they needed only 60% (usually the most moronic 60%) of exclusively GOP voters. Less than 60% of eligible voters (usually more radical) bothered to vote in the primary. 60% x 60% x 60% x 60% x 60% = 8%.
I think a lot of it happens due to tighter party discipline on the part of the GOP- rank and file centrists have a lot more pressure applied to vote the party line than the equivalent Democrats.
So as a result, everything kind of shifts rightward.
Absolutely not.
“This just in. We have news, and I wish to stress that this is unconfirmed. But we have news that in negotiations on a key bill, a leading Senator used his leverage to get pork for his constituents. Again, this is unconfirmed, but if it’s true, this will be the first time this has happened in the history of the Republic.”
Is compromise necessarily the democratic or best way forward though?
Currently the UK has a coalition and many were delighted with this as a means of watering down some of the less savoury policies of the parties through compromise. The Lib Dems and the Tories have decided that compromise means parcelling off departments between them based on their passion and letting each party have a lot of leeway in their areas of concern. So Tory policies on health and education, which are just horrifying, are permitted in exchanged for the Lib Dems having licence to play fast and loose with constitutional ‘reform’.
I appreciate that America’s system is very different and may not play out that way, but I’d be cautious!