Word: centrists
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Then Bush fell into that trap. His campaign script called for him to spend last week wooing women and independents with education photo-ops and speeches in key states. But what was planned as a week of centrist appeals ended up being consumed by Bush's halting efforts to explain his tax-cut plan. In the first week of head-to-head campaigning after the conventions, Bush committed a cardinal sin: he let his opponent pull him off message...
...Democrats who have wandered off, maybe even warrant a second look from the fickle soccer moms. If he's artful, he can do it without sounding too much like Huey Long--just wrap the New Democratic message in an old Democratic tarp. At least that's the strategy. Centrist Democrats who are desperately rooting for Gore are watching this with their heart in their throat. Nearly everything about the Gore tack--indeed, much of last week's party convention in Los Angeles--left them scratching their head and pining for that old Clinton magic. Why does Gore have...
...tangible effect on their life--tame that HMO, get prescription drugs covered for Mom and Dad. If his base came home and the waitresses tuned in, a top Gore aide explained, Gore could tighten the race and then turn his attention to more affluent swing voters with a sunnier, centrist message, and the battle hymn could fade again to the background...
Even Gore himself is threading a fine needle: he picked a centrist running mate and shaped a centrist platform, all the while calling for the workers in the hall to unite. He's offering Clintonism in populist garb, centrism in a union suit. He never talks about issues like income inequality or the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. He talks about a prescription-drug benefit, the patient's bill of rights, targeted tax cuts, a secure retirement--ideas that speak to voters who are prospering as well as voters who are not. And his brew also includes centrist...
...time of self-protective thinking. Candidates play defensive baseball to avoid errors, which is the surest way to make them. It is regarded as unsophisticated to discuss the fundamental nature of the country--either demonstrated or wished for--so stump speeches consist of exquisitely balanced references to particular problems. Centrist politics leads to guarded expression...