The Democrats and the Center

In today's Washington Post, Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford wrote about capturing the center in the Democratic Party. I heard about the piece listening to the Washington Journal on C-SPAN this morning and I just had to call in. Miracle of miracles, I got on the air. Whoopie!

My point was that the Democrats should seek the centrists on abortion using liberal means, a very generous family tax credit for families with children. The moderator asked me who were the middle ground on abortion. As readers of this blog know, the center is the mushy middle who dislike abortion but also dislike using the criminal law to stop it, with the exception of partial birth abortion. In 2000, the mushy middle Catholics voted with Bush and stayed with him in 2004, although they have recently moved back to the Democratic Party, which was their first home as ethnic conservative voters. If the Democrats do as I suggest, these voters will come back and they will STAY!

It is interesting that Richard Cohen also has a piece about what happened to the Democratic Party which stood up for the little guy.