Memo to Marc Ambinder: The Right-Wing Is Not the Middle

Marc Ambinder is spending a lot of blogging energy defending his peeps at CBS for this news report giving the right-wing Birther mob credit for representing concerns about health care reform from the electoral middle. He writes:

A majority of the public supports reform in principle and, broadly, in practice, but they are also worried about more government control, about the costs of reform, and whether they'll see any benefit. These aren't dumb or unfounded worries. It's not surprising that the meetings tend to attract those who oppose reform, and these formats generically attract louder, less shy voices. No doubt: some of the loudest voices were prompted to attend the rallies because they hate Obama and want him to fail and because they were asked to do so by conservative groups. That doesn't make the protests illegitimate.

I don't consider Ambinder to be a right-wing shill. He's giving sincere analysis, as he always does. Just in this case, he's wrong.

His first sentence is basically correct. There is a mix of support for reform and concern how Washington will mess it up among the broad middle of the electorate.

But Ambinder's wording makes it seem like the middle shares right-wing hysteria about "government control," when they manifestly do not.

In the most recent CBS/NYT poll, a whopping 66% supported "the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?" Clearly, it is the left and center which share the fundamental common ground, with 27 percent opposing constituting the right-wingers ranting about socialized medicine.

Now, the same poll asked a litany of questions raising various concerns "if the government CREATES a system of providing health care for all Americans" regarding cost and quality of care. Concerns were high.

But the poll also asked a litany of questions raising various concerns "if the government does NOT create a system of providing health care for all Americans" regarding cost and availability of coverage. Concerns were also high.

So yes, the middle -- being the middle -- has some internal conflicts. But those in the middle absolutely are not coming from the same anti-government, conspiracy theory fever swamp as the conservative extremists disrupting town halls.

In their wildest dreams, these right-wingers would succeed in persuading the middle to share their viewpoint. And they have every right to try.

Except for the fact that they often are trying to shut down open dialogue in these public town halls, their protests would be legitimate expressions of their view.

But it is not legitimate for the media to automatically conflate the right-wing's reflexive opposition to anything involving our government to the mix of concerns held by the plurality of self-described moderates, because moderates are significantly more comfortable with the prospect of government involvement.

Do liberals have some work to do to firm up the support of moderates? Yes, but that won't be accomplished by futilely trying to calm the implacable right-wing extreme.

It can largely be accomplished by convincing them that recent headlines -- claiming pending legislation won't curtail skyrocketing medical costs -- are wrong and based on faulty analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

Just yesterday, a group of prominent health care economists -- and CBO advisers! -- sided with the White House budget director over the CBO regarding potential savings from the proposal of an empowered independent cost-cutting commission run by doctors and health experts.

If the traditional media actually reported on such developments, that might reassure skittish moderates.

Or moderates might be calmed simply by seeing the inanity coming from the right-wing mob, and concluding, if you have to choose between President Obama and a bunch of screaming lunatics for who you trust on health care, you'll take your chances with the President.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher

Comments

[booker52]

Why should facts get in the say of a story??? Between the hacks on cable (not all) and the bogus folks on the regulare network it's a wonder any real truth gets out.

[lbrty 2112]

So with that reasoning, Reagan and Nixon both represented the middle right? I mean they both won in landslides; Reagan in '80 and Nixon in '72 .

[AnotherMcIntosh]

In a way, this is true. They both represented the middle for the time periods in which they ran.

If you go back to the election immediately preceeding Nixon's first election, you would find that Goldwater ran as the pro-war or hawk candidate.

In that election, the voting public overwhelmingly rejected Goldwater in favor of the other candidate who promised that he would never send American troops to fight on Asian soil. LBJ represented his views as being similar to those of Kennedy who was trying to avoid a hot war. Such a war could have been triggered on Kennedy's watch at the Berlin wall, in Cuba, in Viet Nam, in Korea, and elsewhere.

After LBJ overwhelmingly defeated Goldwater, the majority, the middle, the moderate view rejected war as the first choice, or even the second choice. Then we found out that LBJ was building up for the Viet Nam war and he lied about his intentions. We went to war because of those lies. Since LBJ didn't have the public support, he pretended that there was a silent majority which supported him. More lies.

During Nixon's first campaign, Nixon pretended to have a secret plan to end the war while the only Democratic candidate left standing, Happy Hubert, seemed to be willing to continue LBJ's endless war without any serious criticism. The public rejected Humphry in favor of the candidate with the secret plan to end the war. The majority wanted peace but Humphry wouldn't promise it.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

con't

During Nixon's second campaign, the public still wanted to end the war and Nixon moved to end it. He ultimately did so on essentially the same terms that he could have accepted to end the war in 1968, except that "we" ended up leaving some of our captured military personnel in the hands of the enemy. Many voters were glad to end the war. Some could still remember LBJ and promised to never vote Democrat again. There were those that kept that promise.

After Nixon and his appointed successor were out, the public wanted an honest Democrat and they elected Carter who was ultimately to be an economic disappointment because he was a neo-liberal rather than an FDR-liberal. He, like Nixon and Ford, allowed jobs to be shipped to foreign countries. When the banksters were charging rates nearly as high as loan sharks, he did little or nothing. He was also unable to free US hostages in Iran, in part, because his efforts were undermined by his soon-to-be Republican replacements.

Reagan's team was good with smoke and mirrors. They delayed the hostages release until he took office. Among other things, they also raised Social Security taxes, drained the Social Security funds, and pretended that taxes were lowered for everyone. Their bankster friends made credit more readily available and, with inflation, many people were misled into believing that they had genuine prosperity instead of a Hollywood-type facade.

[MajorKong]

This is what happens when the Right keeps going further and further to the Right. The "middle" also gets dragged to the right.

Compared to the outrageous the extreme seems almost normal.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

Most people voted for Obama. They represent what is truly the middle.

Now that the election is over, Obama ran as a Democrat but now claims that he wants to be a "centrist.­"

A "centrist" is not in the middle, but is somewhere between the middle and the right-wing.

Not only is Obama not a liberal nor a progressive, and he may not even be a bona fide populist, but it appears that he doesn't want to be in the middle either.