Trying to define liberal and conservative and lefty and righty is kinda like nailing jello to wall.

Is a conservative a guy who wants a small federal government and for it to stay out his personal life? Then why is being against Roe vs. Wade a conservative position? There are a lot of conservative or righty positions that include big government invading our lives.

Is conservatism defined by being anti tax and spend and all of that jive? Then why are allegedly conservative Republican presidents the ones creating all of these budget deficits and spend, spend spending?

And what are lefty liberals nowadays anyway? They aren't very big into personal freedom and the individual having primacy over the government.

Both sides believe in government control over pretty much as much stuff as they can Taxes, fees, regulations, OSHA all of that stuff. Both sides are all for it and more.

I personally don't think there have been any real liberal lefties since the New Deal and the Great Society died. And their haven't been any real conservatives since Eisenhower.

I don't think the political spectrum is a straight line going from left to right either. It's more a clock shape with moderates being right around high noon. And if you go in one direction far enough (either clockwise or counterclockwise) you become one with the radicals on the other side.


I'm pretty much an independent thinker, neither Republican nor Democrat, neither liberal nor conservative. I believe the Federal Government has a responsibility to care for the weakest members of our society. I also think the Federal Government doesn't do a very good job of it. I think the Federal Government is responsible to provide for out common defense. But I think foregn adventures should be severely limited.

I think out best government is a President from one party and a House from the other party. And the Senate has 50 of one party 49 from the president's party and one independent who doesn't like either party.

Then maybe the only stuff that gets done is stuff we really need.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It's about tactics more than issues. Saying it's about nothing was snide, but it's not exactly a battle for the heart and soul of the party (issue wise) like the GOP nomination was for a while.

I'm not sure what the "heart and soul" battle on the Republican side was, unless you see it as "everyone against Ron Paul." And I did like that Thompson stood up for federalism--figuratively speaking, of course. Fred didn't like to exert himself.

The rest of them are/were all for the major tenets of Bushism as I defined it above, with the exception of torture where McCain and I think Huckabee took the other position. I guess immigration was kind of a dividing line, but there too you had the nutzos (Hunter, Tancredo), the hypocritical opportunists (Romney and Rudy), and the relative moderates who blurred or switched their positions enough to more or less neutralize a bad issue (McCain and Huck, again). That's my take, anyway.

Well, the Rudy thing was a referendum on whether it's possible for someone who is pro-choice to win the nomination. Apparently it is not.

With Huckabee winning Iowa, the question arose whether we're a primarily evangelical/social conservative party, to the extent that they could completely dictate the nomination process. Again, apparently not.

By nominating McCain it's not like anyone won the "war" for the heart and soul of the party. It's just we punted it down the field for 4 or 8 years.

I would probably be more right of center if right of center didn't include the christian agenda which is basically the main priniciples of main line republicans.

jerseyhoya wrote:By nominating McCain it's not like anyone won the "war" for the heart and soul of the party. It's just we punted it down the field for 4 or 8 years.

seems like party adherents would be relieved merely to shed whatever you want to call the soul (& heart) -sucking mantle of hypocrisy of the past 8 yrs.

Disco Stu wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:If poli sci classes, the media and people who work in politics aren't good sources for coming up with the make up of the political spectrum, what are? You and Stu?

What did I make up? How would you draw a simple line with conservative on one side and liberal on the other. I understand these are terms without definition, but we have pretty good estimates.

Left----------------------------Center-------------------------------Right

Am I far left? Does that mean that nobody could be further lef than me? Like I said before, communism and socialism are probably as far left as you can go. Those are markets completely controlled by the government. Ron Paul is as far right as you can go (presuming there is a government after all) on the economic side. On the social side, control by religion is about as far right as you can go. On the left side I am presuming that social libertarian is as far left as you can go.

I am certainly left of center, but I am a lot closer to center than you are. The media is closer to center than either of us are and I am willing to say that they lean conservative. Just because they disagree with you doesn't make them far left.

I didn't say you were making anything up.

And we're clearly never going to agree on this, so there's no reason to keep arguing.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:If poli sci classes, the media and people who work in politics aren't good sources for coming up with the make up of the political spectrum, what are? You and Stu?

What did I make up? How would you draw a simple line with conservative on one side and liberal on the other. I understand these are terms without definition, but we have pretty good estimates.

Left----------------------------Center-------------------------------Right

Am I far left? Does that mean that nobody could be further lef than me? Like I said before, communism and socialism are probably as far left as you can go. Those are markets completely controlled by the government. Ron Paul is as far right as you can go (presuming there is a government after all) on the economic side. On the social side, control by religion is about as far right as you can go. On the left side I am presuming that social libertarian is as far left as you can go.

I am certainly left of center, but I am a lot closer to center than you are. The media is closer to center than either of us are and I am willing to say that they lean conservative. Just because they disagree with you doesn't make them far left.

I didn't say you were making anything up.

And we're clearly never going to agree on this, so there's no reason to keep arguing.

Might as well close congress and not get married or even leave the house then.

"I am hoping to unify the country," Clinton said. "But to unify it to do the work of the country, not just to unify it for the sake of saying, 'We're unified.' ... We need to be unified with a common purpose. The purpose is progress."

Nothing too terribly surprising here:

Obama wins Nebraska (75% reporting, beating Clinton by 40 pts.)

Obama wins Washington by a similar margin

I'm a poli sci guy. Except as a quick shorthand to cover a set of issue positions, I don't think the terms liberal or conservative are useful.

In poli sci, liberal and conservative aren't even opposite points on a spectrum or a compass. Hayek, darling of small government free market types is not a conservative. You can mention the most important conservative thinker of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott and draw nothing but blank stares from even well educated American conservatives.

David Hume? Forefather of important strands of American conservatism and post-modernism.

What about William Graham Sumner and social Darwinism? A nasty piece of work to be sure. Conservative? Liberal? Both?

Obama is ahead in Louisiana too according to exit polls..

Thank god.

CNN projects Obama winning Louisiana, too.

Nice 'lil 3 state sweep, yo

For all this talk about race, dude sure does pick win a lot of "white" states by HUGE margins.

EDIT: Just won Virgin Islands, too fwiw

The McCain campaign started acting as if the nomination was wrapped up after Romney dropped out. He pulled his advertising off TV in Virginia.

Huckabee has already taken Kansas today and is way up in Louisiana. If he gets 50% he gets all the delegates. He's ahead in the Washington Caucus. There are around 450 delegates up for grabs through March 4. Almost all the states are winner take all. John McCain is way up in the polls in the six big states that have polls. But that can change with Huckabee winning big today. If Huckabee were to sweep through then he'd pretty much catch McCain. The McCain campaign needs to actually compete to win it.

Huckabee might have been boosted in LA by the way Arkansas (like Houston) responded to the evacuees from Katrina and Rita. He justly received high marks for how he handled things. It's certainly the case that Arkansas's role was providing shelter, food, medical care, and comfort rather than rescue. But Arkansas social services really did a great job when the feds were busy losing their heads.

TenuredVulture wrote:You can mention the most important conservative thinker of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott and draw nothing but blank stares from even well educated American conservatives.

For curiosity's sake, how could he be important if no one knows who he is?

Russell Kirk is the name I read reference to most often, along with Hayek.

VoxOrion wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:You can mention the most important conservative thinker of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott and draw nothing but blank stares from even well educated American conservatives.

For curiosity's sake, how could he be important if no one knows who he is?

Russell Kirk is the name I read reference to most often, along with Hayek.

Andrew Sullivan loves him. Don't you know Andrew Sullivan is the most important conservative pundit? He's a real conservative. Everyone else is misguided.

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:You can mention the most important conservative thinker of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott and draw nothing but blank stares from even well educated American conservatives.

For curiosity's sake, how could he be important if no one knows who he is?

Russell Kirk is the name I read reference to most often, along with Hayek.

Andrew Sullivan loves him. Don't you know Andrew Sullivan is the most important conservative pundit? He's a real conservative. Everyone else is misguided.

Is that what it is?

VoxOrion wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:You can mention the most important conservative thinker of the 20th century, Michael Oakeshott and draw nothing but blank stares from even well educated American conservatives.

For curiosity's sake, how could he be important if no one knows who he is?

Russell Kirk is the name I read reference to most often, along with Hayek.

Andrew Sullivan loves him. Don't you know Andrew Sullivan is the most important conservative pundit? He's a real conservative. Everyone else is misguided.

Is that what it is?

Oakshott is Sullivan's boy. I think he was his prof at Harvard or something, and he's who he wrote his thesis or first book about.

I think David Brooks loves him too. I'm not sure why Paul thinks he's more important than many other conservative thinkers who are more famous and, er, more important.

LA Exit Polls for the Dems:

White (46%):

Clinton 72
Obama 26

Black (49%):

Clinton 18
Obama 82

Yeah, shocker that voting in the south would be more racially divided than elsewhere. The whole "whites won't vote for Obama" thing doesn't seem to be borne out by all his wins in the interior states.

Besides, it won't be an issue since we all know the Republicans would never try to win with implicit appeals to racism. Right?

well, supposedly McCain wont run negative against Obama...