No Home For Moderates

Bill King argues that moderates are poorly represented in the two major political parties in his Houston Chronicle editorial.

Let me say at the outset that I am extremely reluctant to even use the words "conservative" or "liberal." Both words have been so bastardized that they have almost no meaning. It used to be that if you were conservative you believed that traditional political and social approaches had worked well and should be maintained. It did not mean you had to pass litmus-paper tests on a menu of social issues that bordered on a belief in a theocracy. It used to be that to be liberal meant that you believed in utilizing new, progressive methods of approaching social and political problems. It did not mean you subscribed to a blind faith in social welfare programs, regardless of the fact that the programs were driving the bodies politic into bankruptcy.

But to the extent those terms have any contemporary meaning, I and many of my friends find ourselves generally supporting conservative fiscal principles but feeling more liberal on social issues. Perhaps "libertarian" would be a better word than "liberal" because the sentiment is more about government needing a compelling justification to start telling me what I can and cannot do. But if you believe both that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned and that the federal government needs to balance its budget, you have no political home in today's bifurcated partisan political landscape.

But it seems likely that the current dissatisfaction with the contemporary political landscape so dominated by bipolar extremism will find some form of expression. Whether that takes the form of the rise of a third party, more independent candidates or a repositioning of one of the two dominant parties, I cannot predict. But the great middle of America has time and again served as ballast for our ship of state, keeping her from listing too far to port or starboard. The challenge this time around will be to see if it can keep the ship from splitting apart.

King is guilty of pushing a false equivalence here since the Democrats have some less ideological moderates. After all, Republicans have opposed most initiatives by the Obama administration in unanimous lockstep while all of the Bush administration's legislation received at least some Democratic support. Hoewever, he is correct that the moderate Republican has no place in the current GOP.

--Ballard Burgher