Commentary: The Myth of the Moderate Democrat

 

Our friend Deroy Murdock posted a great column about the Democrat candidates for President which we caught on NewsMax.

Mr. Murdock’s point was that while not all of those still in the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President may not be full-blown socialists, like Senator Bernie Sanders, the balderdash that they are even vaguely centrist is either desperately uninformed or deliberately dishonest.

And this isn’t just Mr. Murdock’s opinion; he backed it up by citing the legislative scorecards of various conservative and progressive organizations.

It turns out that several legislative scorecards confirm this incredible fact: Bernie Sanders’ senatorial vote record repeatedly puts him to the right of Klobuchar and Biden!

According to Mr. Murdock’s research, Americans for Democratic Action awarded Sanders a 2018 Liberal Quotient of 100%, — a perfect Left-wing score. The “moderate” Klobuchar tailgated Sanders with a 95% rating that year. But in 2017, Sanders scored a 95, with Klobuchar to his Left at 100. Biden, for his part, earned an 80% Liberal Quotient in 2008, his final year in the Senate. While not as far Left as Klobuchar and Sanders, who both hit 100 that year, noted Mr. Murdock, Biden was much closer to the liberal fast lane than to the middle of the road.

So much for the idea that Senator Amy Klobuchar is a “moderate.”

The two mayors in the Democrat race, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, don’t have legislative score cards per se, but they do have records and public positions that allow us to place them along the Right – Left spectrum.

And it should surprise no one that Bloomberg and Buttigieg fall far to the Left on most issues.

As Mr. Murdock pointed out, former New York City mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg has seconded the left’s prescriptions — from aggressive gun control to anti-“global warming” orthodoxy to robust rejection of his own mayoral law-enforcement practices. These candidates advocate steep tax hikes, a new carbon levy, lavish federal spending programs, freebies for illegal aliens, subsidized abortion — on demand, without apology, and until natural delivery — and truckloads more government intervention.

Although he was Mayor of a city with less population than New York’s smallest borough, Buttigieg is every bit as Far Left as Mr. Bloomberg, he just doesn’t have the billions of dollars Bloomberg has invested in promoting his authoritarian policies and imposing them on the rest of the country.

We’ve already told you about Buttigieg’s radical views on abortion in our article “Pete Buttigieg Is No ‘Moderate’ On Abortion.”

Buttigieg’s extreme devotion to abortion was on display last week when he told a prominent pro-life Democrat there is no room for pro-life voices in his party, prompting fears from pro-life Democrats that his extreme stance could cost them votes in November: “Buttigieg…might find it pragmatic right now to reject our overtures. It won’t be pragmatic, though, when in November the Democratic Party loses a swath of pro-life states to President Donald Trump,” said Kristen Day, Executive Director of Democrats For Life.

Pete Buttigieg’s refusal to name a single restriction on abortion – even up to the point of birth – puts him at the extreme fringe of public opinion. Indeed, Buttigieg has refused to condemn infanticide and partial birth abortion, arguing “it shouldn’t be up to a government official to draw the line.”

Like Virginia’s baby-killing Democrat Governor Ralph Northam, Buttigieg would permit abortion without restrictions up until the moment of birth, even for healthy, viable babies.

Buttigieg is as extreme on gun control as Bloomberg and the other Democrats, but to distinguish himself he has made a point of blaming mass shootings on President Trump and “white nationalism.”

According to CNN, Buttigieg supports universal background checks and argues that the Senate should pass the universal background check bill, HR 8, that was passed by the Democratic-led House in February but has yet to be considered by the Republican-led Senate.

He also supports a ban on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Buttigieg supports the so-called “red flag” laws, saying Congress should pass a federal “Extreme Risk Protection Order Act.” He supports a nationwide gun licensing system and for Congress to close so-called loopholes, in current gun laws.

Buttigieg would also allocate federal funds to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health to conduct research on gun violence, which he labels as a “public health crisis.”

Our friend Deroy Murdock summed up the Democrats’ current problem in one succinct sentence; the Democratic Party’s vaunted “moderate lane” lacks one thing: moderates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Reprinted with permission by ConservativeHQ.com

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5 Thoughts to “Commentary: The Myth of the Moderate Democrat”

  1. William R. Delzell

    Could anybody tell me why Republican-lite Phil Bredesen still lost to Marsha Blackburn despite his pandering to the Right and his snubbing of the progressive base in Tennessee’s Democrat Party? While you’re at it, why did leftist Stacey Abrams come within 50% of the vote in her bare loss to Brian Kemp? Georgia historically has been a more conservative state than Tennessee or Kentucky and yet, somebody in Georgia like Stacey Abrams, running well to the left of Phil Bredesen in previously more moderate Tennessee still did far better than he did during the November GENERAL election, not merely the PRIMARY election? Do carbon-copy Republicans like Phil Bredesen really have a chance any more with the general electorate? Stacey Abrams’ strong showing greatly discredits “Blue Dogs” like Bredesen.

  2. L.P. Barnett

    I am 67, was raised by Democrats, and did not open my eyes until probably 40 or so. I can say without hesitation that I have not spoken to a “moderate “ Democrat since my father’s time—the sixties!

  3. Steve Allen

    I define a moderate Democrat as someone who supports the right to keep and bear arms. I’m afraid they are a disappearing breed. In the last twelve months I have met Democrats who support basic firearms ownership but despise the President and “have no use for those AR-15s”. While it appears that Conservatism is coming back out of the closet, the days of Kennedy Democrats have ended. There is no doubt that the Donks have shifted to the extreme Left and that there is some global entity that has them by the short hairs. Otherwise, why, when the U.S. economy is booming and life in America is so great, would they say life is so bad, and completely ignore the American citizen in favor of the nonstop attempts at destroying the Trump administration?

    The current U.S. administration represents Nationalism, while the Liberal/Socialists are driven by Globalism. Globalists (including the UN) hate Nationalists because Globalists want to take from the wealthy developed countries and supposedly give to the poor countries, that’s after they skim off money for themselves and their corrupt organizations. After President Trump is reelected things are going to get a lot worse in America. The time to prepare is now.

  4. William R. Delzell

    Moderate Democrats were really Republican-lite. The only reason these pseudo-Democrats like former Congresswoman Marilyn Lloyd of the third Tennessee District hid behind the Democrat label was to trick liberals, blacks, and other progressive groups to remain loyal to her instead of boycotting her elections or, in some cases, either voting Republican or Independent. These progressives would become more important to her after 1984 when a moderate Republican managed to hold her down to a low winning percentage. Previous Republican who had run to the far right had lost to her by huge margins. All it took was for a more moderate Republican to finally begin the process of stealing some of the progressive vote away from her. Although she held on until 1994, all her campaigns following 1984 were no longer cake-walks for her.

  5. Russ Crouch

    While there used to be Moderate, Blue Dog or what ever name you want to give more middle of the road Democrats, that is long gone. The ones that are left have little chance of getting elected, due to their own parties lack of support. There needs to be change in the Democrat part to get back respect, and away from the far left part that it has become.

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