Boehner, Obama and the Budget

Anyone who has flown an airplane knows that when you land the craft the nose wheel should come down exactly on the center line of the runway.  That position allows the most room for maneuvering should it be needed.  When you ride a motorcycle, you establish your lane by riding as close to the center line as you would in a car.  And, of course, if you want to hit the target, you aim for that grand intersection of two center lines.  Evidently, if you want to have room to maneuver, establish your identity, and hit what you aim for, the center line holds a wonderful attraction. 

Welcome to my political world.  While clearly and proudly a Republican with little other than a bullet in the brain of Bin Laden to thank this administration for, I consider myself to be on the moderate end of my party.  A center line person.  This is a position that needs more delicate footwork, mental nimbleness and clear-eyed focus than you might think.  It also takes courage.  Moderates are the most maligned and least understood members of any political demographic.  Some of this difficulty represents trouble we have brought to our own door.  We are good at seeing many sides to every issue.  We try not to offend and frequently seek to pour oil on troubled waters.  Unfortunately, there are too many people who consider conciliation a sign of weakness.  They are wrong, but it doesn’t keep today’s politicians and their most rabid political supporters from trying to convince the electorate that the middle ground is anathema to party loyalty.   Even a powerful member of my own party called moderates, “dead skunks.”  His punch line was that moderates and dead skunks were both things you found in the middle of the road.  His comment was odious but time wounds all heels.  I’ve been active in party politics a long time and have been in worse company than dead skunks.  Long after the gentleman in question drifted from the political landscape, I am still here, voting regularly and trying to spread the gospel of, “all things in moderation.” 

The United States has suffered every time moderate Americans have chosen not to exercise their political muscle.  The current budget negotiations are just such a time.  The middle ground we are going to have to find is, after all, shared turf.  It requires some give and take.  Nobody gets there way entirely, but everybody gets a portion of success.  A major strength of the middle ground is that it encourages dialogue and discourages rancor.  If you want broad support for your agenda, you have to make sure that it includes items that everyone can call their own.  And you don’t encourage honest negotiation by heaping scorn on the worthy opposition.  The chief weakness of the middle ground is that change comes in small doses.  But while each success is limited, it is also legitimate. The art and genius of compromise is that victory is given, not wrested, from the hands of all concerned. 

You can’t be a zealot and be a moderate.  You can’t be arrogant and be a moderate.  You do have to have the confidence that you can hear another side, accept, reject, modify or integrate it into your own thinking and not lose yourself in the process.  The intellectually stunted need not apply.

Perhaps the rock bottom polls for both the present Congress and President are a sign that moderates are about to come into their own.  That center line of politics is becoming more attractive all of the time.