Taking the Democratic Party too far to the left

Although I am still very likely to vote for Barack Obama in November, I do agree with the general sentiment expressed by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, whose defection from supporting the Democratic Party is chronicled in a blog post on The New York Times Web site by Michael Falcone entitled "A Democratic Baroness Endorses McCain-Palin Ticket":

"I believe that Barack Obama with MoveOn.org, and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean have taken the Democratic Party too far to the left," she said. "I'm not comfortable there."

I just happen to be even more uncomfortable with the too-far right wing posture of the Republicans.

Actually, although I completely agree that MoveOn and Nancy Pelosi (and The Progressives in general) are too-far left, I am not completely convinced that either Howard Dean or Barack "The One" Obama are so left-wing so much as simply riding on the waves being made by the "angry" Progressives who happen to get a lot of their energy and enthusiasm from rebelling against The Centrists (e.g., The Clintons) who they feel have sold out the Democratic Party.

To me, the only real question is when the center-left and center-right will either voluntarily leave their respective parties or in fact get booted out and then form a true Centrist Party. A year ago I would not have said that such a prospect was imminent, but now it does feel as if we have at least inched closer.

In my model, the 20% of the far-right would remain hard-core Republicans, the 20% of the far-left would remain hard-core Democrats, and then the middle 60% would become Centrists. The 40% at the "fringes" can then condemn compromise all they want, while the majority in the middle can take a more relaxed view of what cannot be tolerated.

-- Jack Krupansky