Populist Group Post: Our friends across the pond have a view of centrists, too.

[merrily]

On our side of the Atlantic:

George McGovern lost an election to an incumbent who had served 4 years as President and 8 as Vice President in an otherwise unusual election. Conservative US Democrats used that as an excuse to repeal the democratic reforms to the Party that McGovern had instituted and also as an excuse to try to institute super delegates. They failed to institute the super delegates then, but succeeded when they used Mondale's loss to another unusual candidate as an excuse for both super delegates and turning almost the entire party Third Way, even though winning the Presidency was their target.

(Before some clown chimes in to disrupt and tell super delegates can't decide a primary, they get almost 20% of the primary votes in a nation of 350 million people, more or less. I'll let readers decide how helpful that is or isn't.

Anyway.....

Bill Clinton did become the first Democratic President in a while to win two terms. However, three things probably had something to do with that. Incumbency is a huge advantage. Yes, Bush 41 blew re-election, but that was its own story. Another thing was a strong "Southern strategy:" among other things, both the President and the Vice President were from Southern states. Someone even made up campaign materials bearing the confederate flag.



Last (for this post, anyway--there were more factors than 3), but far from least, two words: Ross Perot. Both in 1992 and 1996, but more important in 1992.

However, the DLC took full credit and many either fell for that or pretended they had fallen for it.

The 1994 midterm, however, resulted in Republicans holding the majority in both Houses of Congress for the first time since the Eisenhower administration and holding on to at least one house has been iffy ever since. As we know, the 2010 midterm enabled the Republicans to gerrymander. Inasmuch as incumbent House members also have an enormous advantage in elections, despite Congress's low approval ratings, there is a good chance they will get another shot at gerrymandering in 2020. Meanwhile, the party that went right to improve its chances at the Oval Office saw more losses in 2014 than it had since 1928.

The response of the Third Way think tank was to promise to work even harder to compromise with Republicans. (You tanked. Think again.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025769052

So, merrily, get to the point already: what DID happen across the pond and how did they react to a centrist election debacle?

Across the Pond:

Liberal Democrat activists say leaders took them down a centrist blind alley
Abandoning ‘radical progressivism’ resulted in the worst result since 1970

.........

The Lib Dems were reduced from 56 MPs to a rump of just eight on a dreadful night that saw them routed in former strongholds in the south-west, and across large swaths of the rest of the country.

......

On Friday, Steel, who has given his backing to Tim Farron as the next leader following Clegg’s resignation, said that this strategy of splitting the difference between the two main parties had “set back the progress of Liberalism for several decades”.

........

“I think presenting ourselves as a coalition party rather than setting out our values and where we come from was a serious mistake,” she (Baroness Hussein-Ece, a Lib Dem peer) said. “We should be the centre-left party that this country desperately needs.”

..........

Lucas said: “The system is wrong and we should have electoral reform, but that could be some time coming. So we need other ways to work together in a progressive alliance. Where it is appropriate, only one progressive candidate could stand in a seat – a sort of electoral pact. Cooperation during the EU referendum campaign could be the start of it."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/10/liberal-emocrats-clash-over-serious-mistakes-in-election-strategy

I had to chop when I copied and pasted because of the 4 paragraph rule. I recommend reading the entire article. There isn't much more, but it's choice.

ETA: Some of the readers' comments below the article are choice, too.

[Enthusiast]

1. People often (almost always) see what they want to see.

But any Democrat in this election that suggests more buy-partisanship will be DEAD in the WATER.

[merrily]

2. I think they all got that message for the primary. Will they remember it in

the general, though? More importantly, will they govern according to what they seem like in the primary?

[merrily]

3. Heh.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/128051988 (Borosage: Sanders and Corbyn: There Is An Alternative) An important populist victory in the US and an important populist victory across the pond seemed highly relevant to this thread.