What Happened to all the Political Moderates?

[Marnetmar]

Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson.

When and why have these kinds of people, which America now desperately needs, gone away? Why can't we take a rational, pragmatic approach to our problems anymore?

[Marnetmar]

Regardless of what one's idea of a moderate is, the main point I'm trying to make here is that both sides of the political spectrum are moving further and further away from the center over time. Here's a little political compass chart I made based on ontheissues votematch scores from the following people. Unfortunately, I can't insert attachments or post links...

Left:

John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson: E -4, S -2
Bill Clinton: E -4, S -4
Barack Obama: E -5, S -6
John Kerry: E -7.5, S -8
Rocky Anderson: E -9, S -10

Right:

Richard Nixon: E 2, S 2
Gerald Ford: E 4, S 4
Ronald Reagan: E 4, S 6
Mitt Romney: E 2, S 8
George W. Bush: E 7.5, S 8
Rick Santorum: E 7.5, S 10.

[Marnetmar]

Once again guys, my point is that both both sides have been shifting further and further away from the center, not about the moderates themselves.

[Marnetmar]

After doing my homework I've concluded that Johnson couldn't really be considered a -moderate-, which I apologize for.

Relevant:



I would suppose that the American center in comparison to the rest of the world would be about where I placed Gerald Ford, and the entire American spectrum would probably be a 16th of the size of this political compass to account for the wide range of political thought outside of the U.S. Obviously, assuming you're somewhat sane, Franklin D. Roosevelt definitely wasn't a communist.

[Marnetmar]

For presidents JFK-Bush, I used their votematch scores on ontheissues.org and put them on the corresponding plot on the political compass to make it easier to read. For others, I researched their positions on the issues stated on the votematch quiz and answered accordingly. However, anything  before Eisenhower is probably extremely inaccurate since many issues that concern us today weren't even considered back then, so I looked for stances on similar/related issues back then and answered the questions accordingly.