Centrism Leads Nowhere

From Canada. The analysis of the Canadian reality is somewhat flawed because the focus is on much too short of a time frame. While it is true, the existence of the third party (the New Democratic Party/NDP) has ensured three-way vote splitting from election to election and allowed Conservatives and Liberals to trade power, it is the third party's existence and their ongoing raising of left of centre issues (ie. public health care) that has forced the two traditional parties to evolve or face irrelevance. As Jon Stewart recently pointed out, the Canadian Conservative Party (our version of your Republicans) would be comfortable within the left wing gay coalition of Ralph Nader's party. Although the NDP has never held power nationally, their long history (going back to the 1930s) provincial successes and modest national electoral successes have forced left of centre issues (ie. public health care) onto the national stage and into the public consciousness every day for the last 60 plus years. Today, any party that strays too far away from this evolving and maturing politics does so at its own peril. While the traditional parties trade election victories in the short term they maintain their relevance only because they have learned to evolve, hence Stewart's somewhat accurate joke. It's simply a matter of evolving or dying. A third party movement hammering away at "people" issues everyday and over multiple generations could only be beneficial for your country's political evolution. In my opinion, the States' lack of such explains much about the current state of the union. Probably past time for many but definitely a valuable inheritance to leave your children and grandchildren. Best of luck.

We need to shape Obama? Obama waffled on progressive action, we are told, because he had to win before he could do anything. He doesn't want to be a single-term president as the first Afro-American president. So he will continue to hug the center line, grovel to the military-industrial complex, and call for bipartisanship so he can be re-elected. We can't change that; we don't get to chose who will run. There is nothing we can do, except, as Fletcher says, in the long run, if people can be stirred from their passivity. The coming depression will prevent that, replacing awareness with the struggle for survival.

Richard's account of Canadian politics are mostly correct. However, he fails to explain that there is a "Canadian consensus" on virtually all things, and that political parties here (in Canada) position themselves with respect to the consensus.

The consensus, of course, is left-of-center. In fact, far left enough that the Conservative Party here has policies which could be passably (US) Democratic Party policies, while the Liberal Party and the NDP are slight to far left of the Democratic Party, on everything from economic issues (unions, capital), to social issues (abortion, gay marriage etc).

Normally some may hope that an "American consensus" could also be developed, positioned far enough to the left to orient American policies left wing in the way Canadian policies have been.

This, of course, may or may not be achieved, but will come with some costs. Most notably, a more left wing USA will reorient its wealth towards (1) its own citizens in more social spending within its own borders, and (2) towards left-leaning overseas projects.

The result? Certainly less money for the military, and less money for overseas projects, from aid to basket-cases to the support doled out to African Tyrants (although the American Left made a fine art of supporting oppressive basket-cases, eg. Castro, Ho Chi-Minh, Che, etc, while at the same time claiming the moral high ground).

As for President-Elect Obama? He probably knows, now that he has been briefed, that Bush was right after all, and that Bush's policies will be continued. So Gates will be kept, and Petraeus will continue with his projects, while Bill and Hillary will steady the choppy international waters along more or less the same lines Condoleeza Rice did.

I note that Summers, who was felled by the Left, has also been rehabilitated. My, how time can heel even the deepest wound! And so Obama will march down the path Bush demarcated, and in twenty years, when the dust has settled, there will be general agreement that No 43 left a significant legacy, and that the initial evaluation of his presidency was not entirely honest.

And what about the people who helped Obama to get elected? Well, let us then just say that he has a way with shaking off the past.

They are the past.

Of course, this is no time for grief — in these matters one should consider the score board and note that the victories of the American Left since WWII have been stunning, on everything from social issues (abortion, capital punishment, social security, etc), to economic matters (the size of government, unions, taxation etc), to the huge victory of elevating a two year junior senator to the highest office in the land.

[W. was never right about anything. g.]