Recently I’ve been noticing a new trend more and more. There seems to be a growing rift in the Democratic Party with the moderates and centrists on one side and the liberals on the other. As someone who wants to see a united Democratic Party this concerns me; while I am a moderate Democrat myself I see no reason to agree with what Senator Reid and Congressman Van Hollen that the liberal side of the Democratic Party needs to shut up. Before I go further perhaps I should explain how I see the Democratic Party. I see a party that has three different wings; a liberal, moderate, and conservative. The liberal wing is all progressive and an example of one would be Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The moderate wing is mostly progressive who are conservative on a few issues and I think an example would be President Barack Obama. The conservative (or centrist) wing is half progressive and half conservative and an example would be Senator Evan Bayh. I consider myself part of the moderate wing but think all are vital to the Democratic Party.
A good analogy for the Democratic Party I feel is calling the moderates and centrists the brains of the party and the liberals the heart. Both are vital for survival and none is more important than the other. I know a lot of moderates and centrists see the left end of the party and get exasperated, and I have been guilty of this myself, but we can’t do this anymore. We can’t continue to take them for granted. Yes we have a two party system and yes they will continue to vote for the Democrats because they are smart enough to know that if they don’t the GOP will win. But to ignore them because of this fact is wrong. While there are some issues were the sides do not agree on the majority of issues we do. I used to be a centrist back before my college days and even then I would agree with my liberal friends about 70% of the time.
I know that liberals are tired of the blue dogs in Congress but just as liberals are vital to the party so are the centrists. In some cases it does make sense to go after the blue dogs if they are in a very Democratic district and it doesn’t make sense for them to be as centrist as they are. But we need centrists in certain areas of they country and if we didn’t run centrists we would probably get creamed in elections. I also hope we can keep strong support for our President. As a moderate I was excited about Obama as I saw another moderate when I read his books and saw his speeches. I know liberals want to see more of a change from him and I think give him some more time. He’s not even 100 days into his term. But we know he will close Gitmo, stop the blunder that is Iraq and focus on the real War of Terror in Afghanistan. He is a president we can be proud of.
Anyways that all I got, I hope we can see a more united Democratic Party, with stronger efforts from all sides, because right now the GOP is a little crazy and we need to fend them off.
SD