Waiting For The Man In The Middle
by digby
Oh please just shoot me now. This is from Tuesday night’s Spitzer Parker show. The round table was asked who they would like to see run for president in 2012. Here’s noted “centrist” Matt Miller:
MILLER: I would go for Mike Bloomberg and a billionaire to be named later because I think we need a kind of third force in this country. And I think once we get past November, the polarization and the sense of finger pointing and unproductiveness and sort of partisan pickiness is going to —
(CROSSTALK) SPITZER: But the motion is the plutocrats (ph) have not been represented — the threshold in that 100 million is clearly the billion dollar threshold.
MILLER: It would be nice if that wasn’t the case but in the system we have today, because of the lock the two parties have on ballot access and being able to actually get traction in the system, it would take somebody with a lot of money to try and get —
(CROSSTALK)
SAM SEDER, COMEDIAN: But what is a theory that somehow a third party president is going to be able to do more than any other president? I mean, what makes you think that the right is going to accept Bloomberg any more than they would accept Barack Obama?
MILLER: And I don’t know if they’re going to accept them yet. But right now, there’s such a vacuum in the debate because I think most of the country is not in the sort of 20 percent on each sides that both parties are locked into. And there’s such a wide open terrain for somebody who’s a common sense person who’s going to synthesize the best of liberal and conservative ideas. That finds no expression in public —
SPITZER: I think that’s the point as a matter of political analysis is right. There is a desperate need for somebody in the middle who can disregard either fringe that traditional politics would suggest. Sometimes —
SEDER: That’s not Barack Obama?
SPITZER: Look, I think that’s the debate. I think many of us think Barack Obama was trying to do that. But why would a third party candidate be able to get anything through Congress at all? That’s the real question.
MILLER: I think the first question is what would the campaign and the debate sound like? Because I think that would change the country. Perot in ’92 fundamentally changed the direction of the country because he showed there was a 20 percent constituency. And Bloomberg, look, I’m not counting for Bloomberg, but the idea of a candidate like that —
SPITZER: And Bloomberg who is a very popular mayor here in New York City, I think the problem he has is on many of the issues he is to much of the country way left, and frankly to much of the country his views about Wall Street are far right. So I’m not sure if he actually brings that constituency the way you’re articulating it.
Spitzer sort of tried to point out how utterly obscene it is to tout a billionaire for this wonderful Man in the Middle who’s going to come and save us, and Sam Sedar rightly noted that the idea of someone who is without party getting anything through congress is a joke. But by what measure does anyone believe that the country is 20% too hot, 20% too cold and 60% just right? Why are so many people convinced of that?
I guess it’s that it is just too painful for many people to grasp that the country really is full of people who vehemently disagree with one another on a host of political issues. That just can’t be true — deep down the majority of this country is in agreement and we all really love one another and this whole thing is just an awful game being perpetrated by terrible folks who want to make everyone else miserable for their own selfish reasons. If we could only find a politician who could represent that great silent majority of pragmatic, friendly, apolitical people who just want to buckle down and get the job done, we could solve these problems in a flash and go back to shopping and TV watching.
It’s childish nonsense. And it’s time people got over the notion that it is in any way realistic. There is no consensus. If there ever was one (and that’s highly debatable) it was lost decades ago. We are engaged in an ongoing philosophical battle that waxes and wanes in intensity but never completely goes away. And it’s one in which nobody can declare victory in real time — only history shows who won.
This is just the way it is. You can dream of a savior who will bring us a glorious day when everyone sees the light and we can all sing kumbaaya, but that is very unlikely to happen short of a horrible catastrophe, so it’s probably better not to wish too hard for it. This is American politics. We fight. We have serious, fundamental differences about the way we think this country should be governed and we always have.
There is no great, moderate middle of America who think the same way and reject the so-called fringe. That’s a pipe dream for people who hate conflict or see themselves as superior to all the down and dirty warriors in the trenches. Basically, there are just fighters and civilians. The only ones who are truly above the fray are the owners — they don’t care who wins as long as they get their theirs.
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