RUSH: This morning on CBS This Morning, the congressional correspondent, Nancy Cordes, had a report about the disappearance of moderates in Congress. Terrible thing, CBS News lamenting the death of the moderate.
CORDES: The ranks of centrists have thinned. Most of her fellow moderates have either moved to the right or retired. Moderate Democrat Evan Bayh cited gridlock when he left the Senate in 2010. Connecticut independent Senator Joe Lieberman is retiring at the end of this year. In the House of Representatives, 22 of 54 centrist Blue Dog Democrats were defeated in the last election. To some degree, the disappearance of the middle is a reflection of the electorate. According to Gallop, the percentage of Americans who consider themselves moderate has dropped over the past 20 years.
RUSH: Now, these Blue Dogs they’re talking about, I’ll tell you what happened to those Blue Dogs. They campaigned as conservatives, but they were liberals in many ways. Pelosi wanted them gone, Pelosi wanted to thin the herd. She wanted ’em out of there because they gave the rest of the Democrat Party a bad name. So last night on Charlie Rose on PBS, he interviewed Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill. Charlie Rose said, “Tell me what you think is the reason for this –” fewer moderates around “– and whether anything can be done about it. We’re losing moderates,” Claire, Senator McCaskill. “What can we do about it? And if no moderates are in the Senate, what will it mean for how this country goes about its business?”
MCCASKILL: If we don’t begin to take better care of the moderates in both parties in our democracy, um, it’s not gonna be pretty. Because if you look through history, Charlie, all of the great work we’ve done in Congress has been around a table of compromise when it comes to the most difficult problems. The problem now is the two ends are getting all the amplification. The political system loves the extremes. It doesn’t so much show a lot of love for the moderates.
RUSH: Okay.
MCCASKILL: So it’s really hard right now.
RUSH: Senator McCaskill, I have a homework assignment: I want you to produce for me Great Moderates in the US Senate. What a crock. “All the great work we’ve done in Congress been around a table of compromise when it comes to the most difficult problems.” No it has not, in her definition of great work. Her definition of “great work in Congress” is when Republicans totally cave. That’s what their definition of “compromise” is. But it’s like I’ve always said: Go to the library (“liberry,” for those of you in Rio Linda) and find me the book Great Moderates in American History. The book hasn’t been written. Great Moderates in the US Senate? Great Moderates in the US House? They all get tsunamied at one point or another. Charlie Rose is very upset about this.
ROSE: What’s interesting about this is that elections are won in the center! Elections are won in the center!
MCCASKILL: That’s true. I think the best hope to keep moderation on the Hill is, in fact, in the Senate where you have states like mine. I mean, you couldn’t call my state a blue state (snickers) under any stretch of the imagination, but there’s a lot of independent voters that want me to be stubbornly independent. They don’t want me to say, “Yes, sir,” to Harry Reid.
RUSH: They want her to be stubbornly independent? They don’t want her to say “Yes, sir,” to Harry Reid? It sounds to me, Claire, like they don’t want you to be a commie babe liberal.