The Center

Noting the unholy union of Marshall Wittman and Joe Lieberman, Matt writes:

Mark Schmitt notes the possibility of a McCain/Lieberman combo third party run peddling the line "We were each rejected by the ideological extremists in our parties, therefore we represent the true forgotten center of American politics." And, as Mark says, they'll be in the "center" if by "center" you mean "on the far, far right on national security issues."

This concept of "the center" in American politics is very weird. Which center? The one where the majority or plurality of Americans are? The one where elites are? The one where politicians judged "centrist" are? They're all different.

Take Iraq. 63% of Americans now "oppose" the war. 60% want to start withdrawal. So the center is pretty far left. It's Russ Feingold, or John Kerry, or Howard Dean. But the elite center is in a whole different spot. They regret the poor trajectory of the war, but assume, like good technocrats, that a sufficiently clever shift of strategy can salvage the conflict. Most of them don't know what this shift should be. A fair number think we need to chop the country into three, ethnically discrete states. They think that, so far as I can tell, because it sounds like the sort of thing tough-minded, realistic foreign policy thinkers would think, and it allows America to actually "do" something.

But the politicians who are in "the center" have a different view entirely. Lieberman and McCain are virtually the only voices in American life who think we need to add troops to the conflict. Why they think this isn't clear. Robert Reich believes, based on a green room conversation with McCain, that "McCain knows Iraq is out of our hands – it’s disintegrating into civil war, and by 2008 will be a bloodbath. He also knows American troops will be withdrawn. The most important political fact he knows is he has to keep a big distance between himself and Bush in order to avoid being tainted by this horrifying failure." So he's calling for more troops assuming it won't happen, but understanding that, when it doesn't and we lose, he'll have been on record advocating a different strategy.

In any case, where's the center here? Is it the centrist politicians, with their extremely far right, extremely uncommon stratagem? Is it the media elite, with their tri-state solution? Is it the American public, with their clamor for withdrawal?