Any time the media presents information that could take voters' attention away to actual issues, another scandal must be created, or an old one reiterated for further consideration. The party's ramrods have the tools in place to handle any such situation, with convenient catch phrases and retorts. Thus the public's interest in the World Cup must have been a deliberately manifested diversion (by the administration) to take due attention away from things like a re-re-repeat of the now-stale Benghazi investigation(s), or the president's "obvious vulnerability" to a law suit.
After all, a party that has nothing constructive to offer, must do something with its time. But that still does not address the issue of what to do about selecting a presidential candidate for 2016 and what sort of platform to construct from which to run. The air is thick with this problem, as relatively moderate Mitt Romney seems prepared for another go at it, and the extreme elements of the party will surely have at least one or two alternatives who are decidedly farther out there to the right.
Today, courting the moderate voter is anathema to the Republican Party. Centrist incumbents are being threatened and defeated in party primaries by more radicalized right-wing Tea Partiers. Centrist elements that have moderate viewpoints, or who have demonstrated even the least tendencies toward compromise are labeled RINOS, Republicans in name only. They are being hounded out of the party in the name of more radical viewpoints that specifically exclude compromise and denigrate centrism as an evil infection attacking party purity.
Can a party such as this win a presidential election if moderate voters are needed to win? More importantly, does the party even think it needs or wants moderate voters anymore? It would seem from all outward appearances that they believe party purity dictates a candidate from the extreme right. It would seem they believe the argument that an electable candidate must attract moderates is no longer meaningful.
And the Democrats?
So, if centrist politics is dead to the GOP, what does that mean for the Democratic Party? If Republicans are truly abandoning the center as a poison pill, then Democrats are fools if they don't move into the void. On the one hand that seems to play nicely into the hand of Democrats, who will gladly snatch up whatever crumbs are left behind to further expand their numerical superiority over Republican voters. And it does seem that we are talking about far more than a few crumbs, here. Moderate and independent voters are ever increasing demographics in America in the wake of the exhausting and sometimes humiliating extremism that is prevalent today.
There can be little doubt that the Democratic Party has followed, at an admittedly slower pace, the movement to the political right. It has been stated with some legitimacy that Barack Obama is farther to the right than Reagan was. This, too, should bode well for the party's pick-up of what used to be defined as moderates who are now aligned more closely with the left. So what does the Democratic Party do to present the most electable candidate? It would certainly seem that courting the middle is in order.
Unfortunate truths
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