Dead center Dems:

...That single-issue temptation persists, is encouraged to persist, so long as single issues are not melded into the interlocking concepts of an ideology, a coalition of ideas so to speak...

...If, say, Michael Foot represents the left-wing of European social democracy and Helmut Schmidt represents its center, then the left-wing of the institutional Democratic party has represented the far right-wing of social democracy...

...3) Isn't it possible that's one of the factors that cost the Democrats the election...

...But given our alternatives, I'd be moderately happy-moderately-if the Democratic party, shed of Carter, remained where it was, with a vaguely centrist-majority and a minority of right-wing social democrats as a conscience...

...Correction: voting ideologically, after a fashion...

...The American Democratic party...

...Consider the election four years from now...

...And it often isn't quite simply because the single-issue temptation persists...

...an attitude of largesse toward the handicapped which isn't merely over the afflictions of nature...

...a philosophy of racial justice which is more than a reshuffling of the same old deck...

...what Michael Harrington calls the democratization of the investment function, and a dozen etceteras-you get my thrust...

...If the Democrats so move, then we have even less chance than before for a sensible foreign policy balancing national defense and international modesty...

...and the majority of the Democratic party has had priorities roughly equivalent to those of the Independents of Giscard d'Estaing in France, the British Liberals, the liberal minority factions of Christian Democracy in Germany and Italy- "roughly," I say, but a little more cautious...

...William Safire somewhat more precisely defines this new center as a space where the conservatives, old and new, of the Republican party can meet the' 'new liberals" who are to arise and flourish in the Democratic party...

...For instance, a blue-collar worker (representing, evidently, roughly fifty percent of blue-collar labor) votes a conservative ticket, perhaps because he's offended that the government should pay people "for not working'' and that the "bleeding-heart liberals" approve the payment while he works an eight-hour shift and is beholdin' to no man...

...a welfare program which isn't a punitive degradation of recipients of pittances...

...This election will take place in a vastly altered political landscape...

...And the facts of life are such that an interlocking of concepts is not going to be recognizable, visible, unless it is associated with a party, and mat if parties do not represent coherent ideologies but represent instead the more-or-less same pot-pourri of some o' this and some o' that, an appeal to these and an appeal to them, the single-issue temptation remains and deepens...

...DEAD CENTER DENS A MAP FOR GOING NOWHERE SAMUEL HUX THE POLLS weren't even closed November 4, 1980, before that which passes for wise counsel was being pronounced...

...an economy free of the inflation we're willing to tackle almost any way (unemployment, recession, hard money) except by re-defining what's a "justifiable" profit margin...

...The Democrats' new liberalism will appreciate such issues as a "teen-age wage" and tax incentives which will make private industry rush to take over social programs from the state...

...don't leave me out...

...Maybe I'm only expressing the old radical, progressive, or democratic socialist dream that parties align themselves ideologically, while the popular wisdom has it that that means stagnation...

...The counsel that the Democratic party move to a new center and forego the temptations of ideological politics is at best...

...That is...

...That should concern the Democratic party if there's any honor left there...

...although only when, excuse me, it makes sense...

...a redistribution of income not trivialized by the absurd argument that in-kind transfers are really money (something you can spend at will or invest...

...a national health program which isn't merely a windfall to physicians and consequently a self-fulfilling prophetic drain on taxation...

...Coalition" of course makes sense...

...And as long as the single-issue temptation remains, it's the relatively powerless, those it's not so necessary to appeal to, who remain powerless, their powerlessness deepened...

...I have three questions, which may in fact be one question phrased three different ways: (1) Isn't it a little crowded there already...

...What is this "center" the Democratic party is being invited to move to on the assumption it's not already there...

...Perhaps blacks still may be, but would they continue to be if the Democrats made a move which cannot look to them like anything but a desertion...

...I'm stunned...

...I think, craven.I think, craven...

...he's unaware or for now unconcerned that payment is in his own best interest since the company he works for may, with no one or no institution being able to stop it, pull up stakes and move elsewhere, waving good-bye to its labor force and leaving it high and dry...

...and they vote on issues according to what they think is in their own best interest-but often isn't...

...According to one extending the invitation, Anthony Lewis, it is a rejection of ideological purism and a re-embrace of the genius of American politics, coalition...

...What has replaced the solid-bloc-which-can-be-counted-on is not caprice, but the continued existence, now more relevant than ever in the absence of the solid regional or ethnic bloc, of what pop wisdom denies: the fact that Americans do have the habit, even if the overlapping two-party structure often obscures it, of voting ideologically, if they have the opportunity...

...There are questions begged here in the most beggarly . fashion...

...The Democratic party must move to the political center...

...2) How do you move to where you already are...

...Has our Democratic party pushed very seriously, for instance, for the national health insurance which most of those European groups accept, if they did not institute it themselves...

...or under anyone...

...In other words, the "center" is what used to be called ' 'right of center.'' So the Democratic party is being counseled to move to the right from the center...

...MAYBE I'M MERELY suggesting that the Democratic party give itself half a chance to stand for something instead of agreeing merely to back up, while uttering a few cosmetic corrections, the Republican party, which sure as hell will stand for something...

...I am that put off by a move to a "new" center which is just a new conservatism...

...But ideological purism...

...That has characterized the Democratic party under Carter...

...a government-imposed responsibility on private industry to consider the human ecology and not just profit-maximizing in all it does...

...And the center is squarely where it's been...

...what is it other than a place where the frightened can run, waving arms for attention and whining "Me too, me too...

...That is, they vote on issues, not according to regional or group tradition...

...There seem to be no' 'solid'' regions any more and almost no "solid" ethnic groups either...

...Or maybe there are other considerations...

...It's to the advantage of the politically weak that a ticket mean an ideology, for among the interlocking concepts which make an ideology may ride, like a rider to a bill, some notion that enriches the lives of a few while meaning little or nothing to most although not in conflict with the interests of most, so that the most, while they wouldn't be agitated in its favor, would accept it as a part of the package...