I tend not to pay too much attention to off term elections. It is difficult to make much of local elections and apply them to a national scale. Undoubtedly, many pundits will be doing that today. However, yesterday was a good day for moderate Democrats. Much like 2001 was a good day for moderate Democrats. A pro-life Democrat Tim Kaine won election for governor in Virginia. Kaine replaced the very popular Mark Warner who is a very likely candidate for President in 2008.
Warner, meanwhile, owes his success to the new Democratic model – seek the middle, build concensus. ?I’m very proud of the fact that I had a united Democratic Party behind me,” writes Warner. But I would not be governor of one of the reddest states in America — Virginia — if I also hadn’t been able to get support from a lot of independents and moderate Republicans. If Democrats are going to become the majority party in America again, we’ve got to do that all over the country.?
I have never been fond of the Democrat Republican labels. They mean different things to different people at different times in history. It is impossible to compare a Democrat or Republican today to a Democrat or Republican fifty years ago. If the Democrats become a majority party again, it will not be a liberal party. To win Democrats must run as moderates. If that is the case, the conservative movement is winning. If the country is moving to the right it would make sense that the opposition party is moving to the right as well. A fiscally conservative Democrat party would be a great opposition to the status quo in this country
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