She was a political blogger before she added the Chronicle blog. As I expected, PoliMom, Too is a Centrist on the political test. On political parties, she says she is Independent. She and her husband disagree rather she has a slight lean to Republicans or to the Democratic Party.
She is also prolific. It is nice to see her on the website.
One thing I check is what memes from the GOP noise machine she has bought into. So far the only things I have seen her write that are really "out there" are that impeaching the President would throw this country into internal chaos! The other in the same post is that she's "positive that Iran's recent display of apparent insanity is absolutely connected to our utter lack of confidence in our elected leadership"!
Say what? Iran's rhetoric is connected to their internal politics and their crazy religious fanaticism just like Bush's crazy rhetoric is connected to our internal politics and our crazy religious fanaticism. Does centrist also mean a lack of understanding of other cultures? Is everything considered from the false understanding of the United States as the center of the universe?
I think that she may have a hard time remaining a centrist Independent. People are choosing sides in politics and as Mark Schmidt says we're all partisans now.
This November, even if the Democrats fall short of capturing the House, we are likely to find a Congress made up of two parties that are more ideologically homogeneous and more regionally based than ever in history. There will be no truly conservative Democrats (some opportunists, of course), but that's been the case since 1994 and the party-switches that followed. But there will also be no significant number of Republicans who are pro-environment (simple measure: the 34 Republicans who voted against Rep. Pombo's near-repeal of the Endangered Species Act includes all of the NY, CT, PA representatives mentioned [as endangered.])I used to call myself a moderate independent instead of LiberalGuy, the latest alias I use. I feel one party has moved way in the wrong direction. On the other hand, I was firmly anti-Nixon and was not a supporter of Reagan. I voted for the best person and sometimes voted for a Libertarian or a Green. Even increasing partisanship is not necessarily a bad thing. At one time the Texas Democratic Party [history] was locked in battles between the liberal wing and the conservative wing. Those conservatives are mostly Republican now. It is convenient to have all the people whose ideas you oppose choose one label. I better quit before I get started on how "liberal" was redefined by the conservatives.
This will be an enormous challenge for, for example, environmental activists, because they are accustomed to operating across party lines, and in general it means that those trying to move any good policy will find themselves, through no choice of their own, more deeply embedded within the Democratic Party and more consistently opposed to Republican policies.
The political debate blog I tried to get the Chronicle to start died. Jeff and I sometimes get into it in the comments as a replacement.
Tags: politics, Texas, history, PoliMom, liberals, centrists, Chron, partisanship, bloggers, political test, meme
2 comments:
Well, it's good that chron.com has a political blogger; maybe the chronicle will discover that political blogs bring more traffic.
I used to be tolerant of people who identify themselves as conservative or even centrist, but the dividing line for me is whether they voted for Bush in 2004. Yes, people made errors in judgment in 2000, but a vote for Bush in 2004 was a knowing endorsement of an anti-human rights and anti-intellectual agenda.
I use an online dating service, and am surprised by how many educated Houstonians describe themselves as conservatives on their profiles. I generally avoid these profiles, but I don't try to apply a litmus test. But in the few encounters I've had with people who identify themselves as conservatives, I have difficulties with them within the first few minutes.
Most recently, I'd been exchanging emails with an woman who had an background in art history/architecture and had traveled around the world. Interesting in many respects, but then she mentioned that she was conservative because she didn't like all the people here who were "moochers" and wanted to preserve what is American about American culture.
Maybe what passes as "conservative" differs along gender lines. For this woman, cultural issues were paramount; she hardly cared (much less knew about) Dilawar, NSA, extraordinary rendition, political manipulation of science agencies, budget cuts, etc.
After three divorces, I only date raging liberals!
And I mean, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, social justice, environmentalists, Feinstein-for- president supporters.
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