At the center of things

Several years ago, early on in my undergraduate studies in political science, one of my professors handed out some reading materials. The title of one of the articles was "The Disappearing American Political Center." The phrase seemed incorrect to me. "Of course there's a political center," I thought. "That's where elections are won!" These days, I still think that article was incorrect, but for different reasons: the political center wasn't disappearing. It was moving.

What reminded me of that journal article was something in the New York Times about how Democrats are moving themselves to the current center on social issues. Often times when we think about politics in Texas, we think about location, and what that means from an issues standpoint - obviously what will be winning issues for Democrats in Travis County won't work nearly so well in Hays or Johnson, and a lion's share of that discrepancy stems from social issues. What Democrats on the national level seem to be learning is how to manage a progressive social platform while still remaining politically palatable.

This makes some progressives unhappy, and while I empathize with their frustrations I also understand that outliers don't win elections. The GOP catered to the religious right for many years as a product of the much-maligned (or praised, depending) Republican Revolution, in which the electorate was told for decades that their way of life - their values system - was under attack. And over and over again, they figured out things in the natural progression of American society they could point to, and it was always a social issue - abortion, gay marriage, welfare. Along with their message about values, they swore they would provide legislation which would secure America's values forever. That legislation, save for a few notable exceptions, by and large never materialized.

So now Democrats are in control, and they are actually approaching social issue legislation in an organized and reasonable fashion. On abortion, they are promoting expanded education and birth control; essentially they are promoting abortion prevention. The Republican equivalent would have been to run a campaign based on how liberals are baby killers, put forth a bill or two far too extreme to ever be passable, and then take that back home to the districts that elected them, claiming the do-nothing Congress (or the liberals, or the Republicans that weren't conservative enough) kept it from happening.

Similarly, gay rights becomes a civil rights issue, discrimination and hate crimes are addressed, and gay marriage will probably be left alone by Democrats. This is unlike the efforts to get a constitutional ban on gay marriage which continually failed to bear fruit for Republicans. The idea here is that Democrats are able to serve a progressive foundation of ideas without seeming as if they are owned by special interest groups. Democrats did not come to power by playing on fear, but rather by being a responsible option in the face of an obviously broken process; if they continue to pursue a left-center approach to social issues, they will not suffer from the same disease as the GOP, who promised social regression with a powerful message and then barely seemed interested in pursuing that change.

If this tactic works, which I believe it will at least to some degree, it will be a worthwhile endeavor to apply it to Texas politics. Where is the political center in Texas? What statewide message would work in Dallas and Laredo? The next two years' work, properly undertaken, will tell us.