Governing from the Center

[JSojourner]

Which Republican Presidential candidate, if he should win the general, is most likely to govern from the center on more than a couple issues?

Which Democratic Presidential candidate, if he or she should win the general, is most likely to govern from the center?

I'm not talking about someone who is right or left wing on most things, but takes a middle ground on one or two issues (or even supports the opposing party on one or two matters).  I mean, of the current crop -- which Republican has the best chance to be Gerry Ford and which Democrat has the best chance to be Bill Clinton?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Hillary and McCain

[Lief 🗽]

Impossible. People don't want "the center." If a President goes to Congress and starts acting like a "centrist" whatever that means, he's going to get torn apart by his own party and the opposition and won't be able to govern at all.

[JSojourner]

Impossible. People don't want "the center." If a President goes to Congress and starts acting like a "centrist" whatever that means, he's going to get torn apart by his own party and the opposition and won't be able to govern at all.

I think Bill Clinton was pretty centrist overall.  I'm not saying that's a good thing.  I am a borderline Socialist, and I think -- particularly after eight years of Little Lord ****pants running the show -- I think this country needs a little Socialism.  That said, I know we're not gonna get it. 

For some reason, Republicans are quite free to govern from the right to far right.  Bush 2 and Reagan come to mind.  But historically, they have also governed from the center and center-right.  Ike, Ford and Bush 1.  (Nixon is another thread entirely.)

But Democrats?  I can't think of a single Democrat in my lifetime who even came close to governing from the left.  Maybe LBJ, if you focus slowly on domestic policy. 

So I fully expect any Democrat who gets elected President to govern from the center.  Some, Hillary for example, would do so quite contentedly.  Others, like Edwards, probably grudgingly.  I'm not even considering Kucinich, because he can't win under any circumstance.

I fully expect any of the current Republicans to govern from the right to far right.  But I am willing to be persuaded.  For example, McCain could return to the John McCain of 1999-2000.  But I dunno.  S'why I am taking the collective pulse of this most august conglomeration of political minds!  LOL

[Torie]

Hillary and McCain

Yup.

[Bay Ridge, Bklyn! Born and Bred]

For some reason, Republicans are quite free to govern from the right to far right. 

That's because America is a center-right, conservative country.

Which is why Republicans can nominate conservatives, and win, while Democrats must nominate centrists.

[Gustaf]

McCain for the GOP. For all his talk, not Obama for the Democrats, but Clinton.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Exactly. In terms of ruling as a centrist, I think only Hillary and Biden fit that bill on the Democratic side. Obama and Edwards are too far left to win.

As for the GOP, McCain and Giuliani could be called moderates or centrists. Romney would also have been on that list four years ago.

Although, if he does get in, he may return to his moderate governing. No one really knows.

[Gustaf]

Romney would be another Nixon, I suspect.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

For some reason, Republicans are quite free to govern from the right to far right. 

That's because America is a center-right, conservative country.

Which is why Republicans can nominate conservatives, and win, while Democrats must nominate centrists.

This is why so many democrats worry me. They nominate for what they want America to be, rather than someone who can actually win.

Those who ran from the left
McGovern
Mondale
Dukakis

Those who ran from the centre
Clinton
Carter

Those who didn't know where they were running from
Gore
Kerry

[Lief 🗽]

American is hardly a conservative country. Maybe on some social issues, like gay marriage. But economically, they're center-left and on most social issues, they're centrist.

[Ogre Mage]

I agree -- Rodham Clinton and McCain.  On the whole, I think Hillary would be slightly more liberal than Bill Clinton and McCain would be slightly more conservative than Ford.  But they would come the closest to replicating the records of those two.

I think the limits of governing from the far right have been revealed by the current occupant of the White House.  No President has maintained such poor approval ratings at 40% or below for such a sustained period of time (since the Fall of 2005). Some claim that the unpopularity of Bush is only due to his incompetence.  But the failure of his Social Security plan, even after intense campaigning and the unpopularity of his stances on stem-cell research and SCHIP is the result of ideology, not incompetence.

[angus]

Impossible. People don't want "the center." If a President goes to Congress and starts acting like a "centrist" whatever that means, he's going to get torn apart by his own party and the opposition and won't be able to govern at all.

I think Bill Clinton was pretty centrist overall.  I'm not saying that's a good thing.  I am a borderline Socialist, and I think -- particularly after eight years of Little Lord ****pants running the show -- I think this country needs a little Socialism.  That said, I know we're not gonna get it. 

For some reason, Republicans are quite free to govern from the right to far right.  Bush 2 and Reagan come to mind.  But historically, they have also governed from the center and center-right.  Ike, Ford and Bush 1.  (Nixon is another thread entirely.)

But Democrats?  I can't think of a single Democrat in my lifetime who even came close to governing from the left.  Maybe LBJ, if you focus slowly on domestic policy. 

So I fully expect any Democrat who gets elected President to govern from the center.  Some, Hillary for example, would do so quite contentedly.  Others, like Edwards, probably grudgingly.  I'm not even considering Kucinich, because he can't win under any circumstance.

I fully expect any of the current Republicans to govern from the right to far right.  But I am willing to be persuaded.  For example, McCain could return to the John McCain of 1999-2000.  But I dunno.  S'why I am taking the collective pulse of this most august conglomeration of political minds!  LOL

Clinton definitely dragged his party rightward.  Lots of Democrats complained about that in the 90s, but now they seem to have found other things to bitch about.  I agree that LBJ is definitely the most leftist president in recent history.  I guess I could say "in my lifetime" since I was born just before Nixon was elected.  In fact, I guess he was the only leftist president in my lifetime.  Carter is called a liberal, since he was a bleeding heart and opposed capital punishment, but I don't think he was a leftist the way Johnson was.  Sharpton often mentions that Johnson was his favorite president.

I think many former clintonians mistakenly think Senator Clinton will have a legislative agenda much like her husband's, and thus call her a centrist.  I seriously doubt that.  I do think that like Clinton and G. W. Bush, she's something of a foreign interventionist, but that isn't so much a left-right issue, as an isolationist/interventionist issue, and has more to do with foreign policy, being only leftist or rightist inasmuch as the cost borne by imperial projects take away money that could either go to tax breaks for the rich or dole for the great unwashed masses.  So you could call it either way, take your pick.  I think Clinton will pursue a legislative agenda distinctly to the left of her husbands, and doesn't have the charm to take the country with her, and will likely be as polarizing as the current president.

It's hard to say.  My gut says Obama is centrist.  He has said he will increase military spending initially.  That doesn't make him a big spender, since our military is woefully decrepit and needs an injection of cash.  He makes noises about universal health care, but in a democrat primary race you sort of have to do that.  Hopefully if he gets elected the congress will keep him in sufficient check that we won't see too much more involvement in health care.  Hillary I think would push much harder in this regard, and Edwards is obviously full of populist/leftist vinegar.  I also note that unlike most black Americans, Obama doesn't push the politics of victimization.  Of course he got his value system from the white, midwestern mother who raised him after his Kenyan father split, so that's not too surprising.  He also is likely to push for carbon caps, but nowadays I think that the political center recognizes the need to curb anthropogenic sources of infrared-absorbing gases whenever expedient, so that doesn't make him extreme.

As for the Republicans, it's an even harder call.  romney is an enigma in the sense that you don't know which Romney you'll get from one day to the next, but then that may mean he's a pragmatist in the Bill Clinton mold and would likely have the instinct to govern from the center.  I think you're dead wrong about McCain.  He's a kill-em-all, let god sort 'em out kind of Neoconservative and would have no qualms about ratcheting up spending while at the same time cutting taxes.  He talks a big game about opposing the Bush tax cuts on fiscal grounds, but in fact he has never opposed going into great debt when imperialistic projects present themselves.  Now, if you start to look at things like immigration policy, then you could make the argument that McCain is more immigrant-friendly, but then that never was associated with either the left or right.  Many country club Republicans are loathe to clamp down on the cheap illegals they hire to cut the hedges and mow the lawns.  And McCain is no different in that regard.  Huckabee comes across as far to the left of the mainstream republican party, with his constant speeches about how the government can and should get involved in minutiae, but then he has also demonstrated the ability to make calls based on political expediency, and many of his statements were later proved to be inaccurate, misinformed, or outright deliberately false, so it's hard to say how he'd govern.

Frankly, I think it's time for a non-polarizing shift to the far right.  For a candidate who remembers what conservatism in the form of small government, low inflation, federalism, and deficit reduction is all about.  That candidate is Ron Paul.  Sorry, I couldn't resist the campaigning.  But Ron Paul is decidedly not centrist, so back to topic:  I suppose Romney is the most likely, among the Republicans, based on his triangulating to govern mostly from the center.  In some ways this would be healing.  The polarization of the electorate has left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth.  On the other hand, government works best when it does little or nothing, so I'm a little ambivalent about Romney.  If they're not doing anything, then they're not screwing the country up, so gridlock isn't necessarily a bad thing.  And in many ways, Obama seems more like a do-nothing centrist than Romney, and doesn't always say the right things to the Democrat audiences.  He manages to offend United Auto Workers by mentioning stricter fuel standards when he talks to them.  He manages to offend lots of groups by talking hard truths.  But he doesn't bandwagon the way some do, and that comes across as somewhat centrist.  so, overall, I'd say that among the seven or eight serious candidates, Obama is the most likely to govern from the center.

[JSojourner]

Enjoyed your response very much!

I am not a Ron Paul hater, either.  Wouldn't vote for him just because I am not a conservative or libertarian.  But I don't see the guy as any wackier than the other Republicans.  ;-)

I really respect the conservative who views the Neo-conservative modus operandi as a clusterphuck.  Not just 'cause that's how I see it, but because the neo-con foreign and domestic policy is so anti-Reagan as to be laughable.  Reagan, for example, didn't feel the need to invade and occupy the Soviet Union...even though the USSR possessed actual weapons of mass destruction.  And even though the USSR was every bit as likely to use them against us as Saddam Hussein.  Probably more.  Reagan wisely followed the example set by Presidents of both parties before him.  Yeah, he was more interventionist than I would ever be.  But The Decider can't be called "interventionist".  He's more like a professional squatter.

I digress.  Suffice it to say, Ron Paul's message on the war resonates with me.  And, while I disagree with him sharply on most everything else, I think the GOP and the nation is a lot better off with his voice in the mix, than without.

As to your take on Hillary, you could right.  And I do readily concede that Bill had liberal intentions (not on business and trade, but on other social policy).  He was stymied and, pragmatist that he was, he took what he could get.  Hillary, I think, will follow suit.  But maybe not.  At any rate, she's my last choice among Democrats. 

[Padfoot]

I don't think any Democrat will really govern from the center if they maintain or increase their current control of Congress.  Hillary would probably be the best if she had to be compromising but i don't think Democrats will need to be.  McCain would be the best GOPer.