Governing the U.S. from the Center

What do I make of the political scene? That's a long story, I suppose. But, alas, I'll try to consolidate it into a short one.

Specifically the Obama transition appears to be exceeding my expectations in terms of the choices he's making and the signals he's sending regarding where in the scheme of things he will govern the country. This remains true, even after the inauguration.

For the past eight (8) years the U.S. has been governed from the neo-conservative right, which, viewed another way, is like taking your coffee black with a double dose of caffeine. "Thank God, Almighty! We're free at last!"

One of the things that annoys me about American politics is that the center for the past thirty years, more or less, has not effectively been represented. Bipartisanship has been looked upon with disdain, not by most of the voters, but by those in power.

When you think about it, especially with a two party system (as opposed to a three or more party system, i.e. the non-Democratic and Republican parties have no realistic chance of winning a national election) the tendencies, the passions and the money all tend to gravitate to the left and right ends of the spectrum. I think this has its roots in human nature. People in general tend to think that the purest form of ideology is wherein lies the answer.

Looked at from both ends of the spectrum, that would be an infinitely strong socio-economic network, which included a net for everyone who needed a handout vs. (yes, versus) those at the other end of the spectrum, who believe that eliminating (yes, eliminate) all forms of social welfare, such as Medicare, social security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and public anything is the way to go.

Those are the economic poles, the rest—abortion rights or criminal penalties, gun rights, gay rights, and such are just non-conflicting (with the socio-economic) issues that allow the parties to reach a majority.

Add to that the overwhelming influence of special interests and you have American politics pre-January 20, 2009.

Has that changed completely? Of course not. Has it changed substantially? That’s what I’m hoping.

Those of us, swing voters, and independents, always hope so, anyway. We always hear lots of lip service, but get very little love once the die is cast and the winners and losers have been declared.

With a few exceptions, such as global warming and Constitutional rights and privileges, which I believe should be non-negotiable, I think that the correct answer(s) usually lie much closer to the center (sometimes right-center, other times left-center) than what we’ve been offered, certainly for the past eight years.

In a way, this shouldn’t be a surprise. I mean, how do you build passion for a middle of the road position? Did you ever know anyone rooting at a football game, who was cheering for a tie? I don’t usually root for ties. But, I do often root for sensible answers to complex questions that require consideration of valid viewpoints from both sides of the political spectrum—maybe a little less Detroit auto-union influence (resulting in unsalable / overpriced / inefficient cars), maybe a little more social inclusion (providing a decent education to anyone who is qualified to learn and demonstrates the energy and diligence to do so; allowing people to reach their potential.)

For the past thirty years, what we’ve seen are politicians wooing voters from the middle during campaigns, only to govern from the left or the right, once they found themselves in power, hoping that our memories would be short enough to exhaust themselves prior to the arrival of the next election cycle. Then, we hold our collective breaths around inauguration time only long enough to find that we’ve just elected the s.o.s. (first two words = same old.)

I will credit Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe for the following quote, which has over the years accurately captured my mood without providing much encouragement, “If God wanted us to have a democracy, He would have given us candidates.”

The early returns from Barack Obama’s approach to governing tend to indicate that at last we may not only have our first African American president, but may also have the first candidate, reflective of calling ourselves a democracy, in a very, very long time. (And, not a second too soon.)

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