One of the many unfortunate effects of the journalism of "balance" is that when one party is taking actions that are legitimately extreme -- threatening the lives of judges, trying to eliminate the filibuster, etc. -- the other party will also be described as "extreme" no matter what it's doing. In responding to this Ron Brownstein column about the potential for an independent, centrist candidate in 2008, "moderate" liberal blogger Kevin Drum reads "The result is that both parties are offering policies and messages aimed primarily at their core supporters" as "both Democrats and Republicans are pandering...heavily to their extreme wings these days."

Honestly, I found the Brownstein piece through Drum's post, and I initially presumed the column would be yet another polemic about how those Washington insiders Just Don't Get It. Instead, it was a reasonable, though highly flawed attempt to examine the lay of the land for 2008 (the flaws come in finding John McCain and Bob Kerrey either "centrist" or "independent"). Brownstein's idea is that the Internet would allow such a hypothetical candidate to find his or her constituency directly, quickly and cheaply. Step 1? Start blog! Step 2? ???! Step 3? Profit!

Drum is rightly skeptical, but his skepticism is based as much on what he perceives as the general lack of centrist grassroots and the nature of the Internet as anything else. To support his "pandering to the extreme" thesis, Drum shows us that the center has been abandoned: "regardless of their actual policy positions, Howard Dean and MoveOn succeeded on the internet by pushing strident political rhetoric, not calm moderation."

Regardless of the actual policy positions? Wouldn't centrist policy positions be the hallmark of a centrist candidate? I highly doubt Brownstein is using "centrist" and "moderate" to refer to somebody who will be less than strident in proposing immoderate policy positions. Here, as usual, Drum is showing everyone his bonafides as the self-appointed conscience of the liberal blogging community. Has he really drunk the "Howard Dean is an extremist" Kool-Aid? It seems unlikely, but what else explains a post like this?

If the center has been abandoned -- and for all intents and purposes, it has -- it is because Republicans have succeeded by abandoning it, and Democrats are trying to ape that strategy. The GOP has moved as a bloc to the right, and drug the rest of the spectrum with it; liberal Democrats have held fast on the left, while conservative and corporatist Democrats have occasionally crossed the abyss to try to make peace. But those Democrats are crossing all the way, back and forth; they're not setting up camp in the middle.