Liberalism as a strategy and philosophy is a failure. Progressivism is meeting a similar fate. To continue to govern as a majority in California, the Democrats have had to again redefine their agenda. The easiest path is to redefine centrism leftward. The Governor is coming right along. He used the word "centrist" several times in his inaugural speech today. Unfortunately, it no longer has the same meaning.
It wasn’t that long ago when Governor Pete Wilson was known as a "moderate" or "centrist" leader. He ran balanced budgets, applied entrepreneurial solutions to the State’s problems, rejected extreme environmentalism, funded education sensibly, avoided excessive borrowing, and demanded accountability in State Government. A similar strategy today would be characterized as "right wing extremism".
Up until November of 2005 one could easily argue that Governor Schwarzenegger was indeed a centrist from the Pete Wilson mold. But in fact, with the defeat of his four reform initiatives, Arnold has now in fact moved well to the left of Pete Wilson, both in policy and future planning. Even with this strong lurch leftward, he is touting his polices as centrist, and they aren’t. Quite simply, the definition of centrism has drifted leftward.
Truly centrist policies would involved balancing the State’s budget, minimizing borrowing to protect the State’s credit rating, resisting the idiotic compulsion of a State "solution" to the "uninsured" problem, demanding accountability in education and an actual relationship between education spending and student enrollment, maintaining a competitive tax code, fixing the time bomb of underfunding public pensions, and maintaining successful public policy, such as the Workers’ Comp reforms of 2004.
Little of this is on the Democrat’s agenda. Some if it is on the Governor’s. All of it is centrist, and should be the Republican agenda for 2007-08.
Let’s have a vigorous debate over the question of what centrism really is. If the Democrats successfully portray their leftist policies as centrist, California will go back to the dark days of 2002-03 in a very big hurry. Our GOP leadership needs to engage on these issues, and soon.