Sunday - November 04, 2007

Even the Germans Know Elections are Won Right of Center

Even the Germans know you can't win an election running to the left or even to the center. There is a lesson in this article, not only for the Democrats, but for the wishy-washy Republicans in Spiegel Online's coverage of the U.S. presidental race.

The U.S. media's mantra is that the Republicans have to move to the center to win. Yet, this German reporter sounds more like Rush Limbaugh than CNN or CBS in his political advice. This would never be written at any mainstream American media outlet. Their bias is obvious. It is just too bad Republicans listen, much too often, to the conventional wisdom of America's "leftstream"news organizations to move to the center.

However, when it comes to individual politicians, similarities abound -- particularly when one looks at Kurt Beck, leader of Germany's Social Democrats, and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: Both men want to shift their parties to the left.

Expansion of the social welfare state is on the wish list of both Beck and Obama, the democratic candidate looking "for the best way to strengthen Social Security." This is an issue, he says, where it's important to stick to your principles and not, as his latest campaign ad argues, to simply put your "finger out to the wind and see what the polls say." Beck, too, has encouraged his party to expand welfare payments, particularly to the aging unemployed.

These are the kind of proposals that energize their fellow party members and get die-hard leftists behind them. But do the two candidates (Beck was confirmed last weekend as party leader, putting him in line to go against Angela Merkel in the 2009 elections) know where their voters live? Voters happen to be harder to reach than most people think, and that's because they all live in two different places at the same time.

In short, elections are not won at the center, as is so often claimed, but slightly to the right of center. In Germany, the conservatives have won 10 of the 16 parliamentary elections in the country's postwar history. In the United States, the Republicans have won seven of the last 10 presidential elections. In the US, the Republicans are simply better at promising a brighter future, as former President Ronald Reagan showed with his simplest of pledges: "It's morning in America."

What the Democrats and their presidential candidates are saying about their country these days has little to do with optimism and visions of the future. Some of their favorite words are: poverty, inequality, health insurance and tax increases. Read the entire article....

Trackposted to Pirate's Cove, The Amboy Times, CommonSenseAmerica, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Author: The Machiavellian
Technorati Tags: Clinton Rush Limbaugh
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