Posted by
Steve on Monday, January 22, 2007 11:06:33 AM
Dick Morris is reporting that the Democrat candidates are trying to run to the left for the primaries. That is undoubtedly true. They need to run to the left in order to win the nomination. The voters on the left will determine the next Democrat candidate for President. The voters in the middle do not vote in large numbers in the Democrat primaries. The voters on the far left vote in large numbers in the Democrat primaries.
This poses a big problem for the Democrat candidates that hold elective office. If they vote the way the election in November will be, they will have a difficult time winning the nomination. If they vote to appease the voters on the left for the primary, they will have a difficult time in the election in November. That does give an advantage to those candidates that are not holding elective office or hold offices in state positions. The two front runners are Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. They both are US Senators and are caught up in this dilemma.
The talk coming from the Democrat candidates is leaning heavily left. So far, the actions have not mirrored the talk. But, it is still early in the game. There have not been any votes taken on important issues in the last month. These votes are coming. They will be interesting to see. There are a number of people, some are even Democrats, who do not want Hillary Clinton to be President. If they are Democrats, they cannot say or face the consequences. When dealing with a Clinton, the consequences could be permanent.
I like this dilemma on the left. Of course, we have a similar problem on the right. Our candidates have to run to the right to win the nomination. Running to the right is not as big a problem as running to the left. The right is a larger bloc of voters than the left. The problem on the left is that the left believes that they are really the middle. If you are the middle, you do not have to make changes when it comes general election time. The candidates know the difference. The voters are caught up in their own importance and fail to recognize the problem. Richard Nixon used to say you ran to the right to be nominated and tack to the center to be elected.