It's a well known fact that after primaries, candidates for presidential elections in the United States will move back towards the center of the political spectrum to seem more appealing to the undecided voters that will ultimately have a big say in who becomes president. Normally, these undecided voters choose more on a balance act of issues rather than strict party lines, making them the most difficult constituency to catch.
Ever since the first presidential debate, Gov. Romney has received a lot of flack for effectively moving towards the center much too soon and much too fast, greatly encouraging his opponents, big and small, to call him out on these inconsistencies and to an extent his supposed lack of honesty. However this criticism as due as it may well be could actually be signalling a very important and perhaps necessary change to the American political landscape.
A move to the center is expected, but why should a harsh move to the center be held questionable? If it's a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, then we have a problem. But if it's part of "playing the game" in order to achieve a truly higher political ideal then could a move to the center be acceptable? If it were the case, could Gov. Romney's move to the center actually mean the start of the retrieval of a Republican party that is willing to stop treating politics like a game of chicken and more like a game of cooperation?
It is no secret that the Republican party adopted a strict anti-Obama platform coming out of their presidential loss in 2008, and that has been reflected in not only the amount of filibustering in Congress during that time and now and public comments made referring to the goal of their politics not being to serve the country but rather to remove President Obama from office (granted, they could truly believe that the best thing to do for the country is to remove Obama, but I'm no mind reader so we'll leave it at that).
This has made compromise very rare in Congress these days, something which the American people not only feel (in their pocketbooks regarding the lack of real economic growth from a lack of policies being implemented) but also judge (given Congress' abysmal approval rate). The far right is not only opposition to those to the left, but also to those in the middle. If you were even a run-of-the-mill Republican in a constituency run amok by the Tea-Partyites and Glen Beck's of the world, you were in trouble in the last two elections. By refusing to allow any wavering towards the left, this motion also stopped any wavering towards the middle, which has soured the political conversation that the United States has always had.
So, is it possible that Gov. Romney's run to the center is not a very strong come-on to independent voters but instead the re-establishment of a Republican party that is willing to compromise again? Gov. Romney has made a point (quite a few to be honest) about how he is going to base realistic policy goals off of what can be accomplished by bi-partisanship, which with some wishful thinking points in that very direction. At the same time, Gov. Romney has hosted positions in the past that not only sit in the center but also tend to lean to the left. In my opinion, the real reason why he was able to be bi-partisan in a Democratically held Massachusetts legislature was because he espoused enough Democratic ideals to defuse any real friction.
A "Massachusets Romney", if elected, could theoretically bring the Republican party away from the far-right and back into the moderate, common sense approach of American politics. A more moderate Republican party would mean more moderate legislation, and that generally means more effective and fairer legislation overall (holding the idea that moderate approaches can come from the left as well). For that to happen, Republican voters need to first have a flag-bearer that holds an American flag, not a colonial "Don't Tread on Me" flag and then vote for him, stealing away the political capital of right-wing extremists who have derailed the Republican party and subsequently ruined the progressive political debate between those who lean left and those who lean right but both understand the importance of the middle.
Understandably, this theory wouldn't be credible without some serious considerations; 1) In the public court, Gov. Romney's motives for moving to the left and back should be suspect given the amount of times they've occurred. Who's to say he isn't appearing as hyper-malleable in this presidential race the same way he might have been in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race so many years back? 2) His VP pick, Cong. Ryan, seems to follow a more extreme socio-economic position (i.e. economic rights, social benefits, abortion) and although the VP is not the president, still must account for the thought process Gov. Romney and his team went through by picking him. 3) The President of the United States, as powerful as he/she is is not the Congress, and cannot account for all of its actions. Romney may himself be moderate, but he cannot alter the decisions by those in his party who are instead much more extreme in their right-leaning natures.
The question here then becomes is America willing to take the chance on this sort of thought-process in order to salvage what is left of a broken political discussion in this country? Given that the stakes are either having serious politics once more or being suckered into thinking such things for the sake of a hard-right win, the choice is not an easy one.
All that can be said is that should Gov. Romney win the election, it would be up to the electorate to hold him accountable to his more moderate promises in order to not only get what one voted for, but also work to dampen the extreme-right by reducing it obsolete and vote-less. That way, the fate of the American political discussion is no longer in the hands of the elected, but instead where it belongs in the voices of the people that then pull the strings in Washington.
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Ever since the first presidential debate, Gov. Romney has received a lot of flack for effectively moving towards the center much too soon and much too fast, greatly encouraging his opponents, big and small, to call him out on these inconsistencies and to an extent his supposed lack of honesty. However this criticism as due as it may well be could actually be signalling a very important and perhaps necessary change to the American political landscape.
A move to the center is expected, but why should a harsh move to the center be held questionable? If it's a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, then we have a problem. But if it's part of "playing the game" in order to achieve a truly higher political ideal then could a move to the center be acceptable? If it were the case, could Gov. Romney's move to the center actually mean the start of the retrieval of a Republican party that is willing to stop treating politics like a game of chicken and more like a game of cooperation?
It is no secret that the Republican party adopted a strict anti-Obama platform coming out of their presidential loss in 2008, and that has been reflected in not only the amount of filibustering in Congress during that time and now and public comments made referring to the goal of their politics not being to serve the country but rather to remove President Obama from office (granted, they could truly believe that the best thing to do for the country is to remove Obama, but I'm no mind reader so we'll leave it at that).
This has made compromise very rare in Congress these days, something which the American people not only feel (in their pocketbooks regarding the lack of real economic growth from a lack of policies being implemented) but also judge (given Congress' abysmal approval rate). The far right is not only opposition to those to the left, but also to those in the middle. If you were even a run-of-the-mill Republican in a constituency run amok by the Tea-Partyites and Glen Beck's of the world, you were in trouble in the last two elections. By refusing to allow any wavering towards the left, this motion also stopped any wavering towards the middle, which has soured the political conversation that the United States has always had.
So, is it possible that Gov. Romney's run to the center is not a very strong come-on to independent voters but instead the re-establishment of a Republican party that is willing to compromise again? Gov. Romney has made a point (quite a few to be honest) about how he is going to base realistic policy goals off of what can be accomplished by bi-partisanship, which with some wishful thinking points in that very direction. At the same time, Gov. Romney has hosted positions in the past that not only sit in the center but also tend to lean to the left. In my opinion, the real reason why he was able to be bi-partisan in a Democratically held Massachusetts legislature was because he espoused enough Democratic ideals to defuse any real friction.
A "Massachusets Romney", if elected, could theoretically bring the Republican party away from the far-right and back into the moderate, common sense approach of American politics. A more moderate Republican party would mean more moderate legislation, and that generally means more effective and fairer legislation overall (holding the idea that moderate approaches can come from the left as well). For that to happen, Republican voters need to first have a flag-bearer that holds an American flag, not a colonial "Don't Tread on Me" flag and then vote for him, stealing away the political capital of right-wing extremists who have derailed the Republican party and subsequently ruined the progressive political debate between those who lean left and those who lean right but both understand the importance of the middle.
Understandably, this theory wouldn't be credible without some serious considerations; 1) In the public court, Gov. Romney's motives for moving to the left and back should be suspect given the amount of times they've occurred. Who's to say he isn't appearing as hyper-malleable in this presidential race the same way he might have been in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race so many years back? 2) His VP pick, Cong. Ryan, seems to follow a more extreme socio-economic position (i.e. economic rights, social benefits, abortion) and although the VP is not the president, still must account for the thought process Gov. Romney and his team went through by picking him. 3) The President of the United States, as powerful as he/she is is not the Congress, and cannot account for all of its actions. Romney may himself be moderate, but he cannot alter the decisions by those in his party who are instead much more extreme in their right-leaning natures.
The question here then becomes is America willing to take the chance on this sort of thought-process in order to salvage what is left of a broken political discussion in this country? Given that the stakes are either having serious politics once more or being suckered into thinking such things for the sake of a hard-right win, the choice is not an easy one.
All that can be said is that should Gov. Romney win the election, it would be up to the electorate to hold him accountable to his more moderate promises in order to not only get what one voted for, but also work to dampen the extreme-right by reducing it obsolete and vote-less. That way, the fate of the American political discussion is no longer in the hands of the elected, but instead where it belongs in the voices of the people that then pull the strings in Washington.
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