Tailoring Your Position For The Dollars

For John, BLUF:  Are both parties becoming more extreme?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From the Pittsburg Tribune-Review we have Reporter Salena Zito and "Extreme-left Dems pushing Middle America away".

This opinion piece is about Congressman Tim Ryan,♠ Democrat from Youngstown, Ohio, who was once on the Board of Democrats for Life in America.  He is considering a run for the US Senate and he recently wrote an OpEd in which he declares that he now supports abortion.♥

Ms Zito see Congressman Tim Ryan as having turned his back on his Youngstown Constituents.  She also attacks the Press for tagging Republicans as "Extremist" but ignoring Democrats who go toward the edge.  She is seeing a shift and wonders if it will work out well for Democrats over the long run.

Just five years ago, 110 pro-life Democrats were in the House, around a dozen in the U.S. Senate.  Today, fewer than five are in the House, and two in the Senate.

Just five years ago, coincidentally, Democrats held majorities in both chambers.

They lost those majorities because they lost touch with their districts.

Yes, gerrymandering played a part. Yet that is far from the whole story, a story no one talks about — or, if they do, they don't address the problem.  The fact is, Democrats are losing or excluding evangelicals, blue-collar types, Jacksonians and moderates, not only from feeling welcome in the party but from filling the Democrat bench to run for or to hold local offices.

That is happening not just in Ohio but all across the country.

So while the story is told, over and over, about how the extreme right wing of the Republican Party is pushing people out, you never once hear the word “extreme” associated with the left or progressive wings of the Democratic Party.

Is it because those wings' values are shared by many in the press who report on politics, so they view any move to the left as normal and sensible?  Probably.

Is that good for Democrats?  Probably not, because it forces them deeper into their party's coastal, urban and academic enclaves, and further out of touch with Middle America.

I do agree that the Democrat Party is moving toward having its locus on the coasts, abandoning fly-over country to the Republicans.  However, I doubt it will be fatal to the Democrat Party.  They still have Chicago and Detroit, for example.  But, in a game of Senators it doesn't matter how Democrat Massachusetts is, it still gets only two, and Tennessee still gets two (at this time Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker).

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Not to be confused with Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
♥  Ms Zito believes he did it for the money, for the fund raising capabilities of Democrat PACs and facilitators.