Is Leading From The Middle Possible?
I've been an observer of the ever changing political climate over the past five decades. I'm an odd person in that I spent the majority of my career in business, simply trying to do my best and excel, but my career was sandwiched - or book-ended - on either side with a political focus.
I began as a consumer advocate, literally working in a non-partisan organization on issues that today anyone could support. My job was to advocate and to get issues like the "bottle bill" legislation through the states that would promote recycling of bottles and cans and "motor voter" which would simply permit individuals to register to vote when they got their drivers licenses.
Today these are now just laws that make life healthier and simpler for Americans, but back then they were by no means easy tasks.
Here in the latter side of my career I am in Washington DC having worked as a Presidential appointee on policy and staying to affect change in the industry where I spent most of my life.
From both sides now I find myself wondering where the leaders of the future might come from. What seems so different today is a 24/7 media world were news comes from extremely biased sources that promote divisiveness and dissension whether if comes from the right or the left. There is no moderation allowed, you either subscribe to the extreme view or you are labeled a socialist, prejudiced, or un-American, or worse. If you try to be balanced, find the common ground, you get skewered from both sides.
Today the House of Representatives, with it's gerrymandered districts that draw the most unusual borders within states solely to protect the like thinking views of those within the respective borders make it all but impossible for anyone with a moderate, or perhaps more balanced set of views or policy positions to win election.
So, how then do the bulk of Americans, who truly are from the middle, ever get a President or elected official they truly support? Even more importantly, why would any balanced, thoughtful, even handed, leader ever set foot in the arena of public debate given the vile nature of the extremist attacks from both sides?
Mitt Romney's loss is in part blamed on the point that he had to go to the far right to win the party majority but in return doomed his presidential bid by alienating the middle. If that holds truth, looking ahead what happens to the true leader who we need to run our nation and bring the country together?
The question I ask is this: can America find the way to allow a candidate to lead the nation, one who can actually bridge divides and form a union of ideas, when the party debates require strict adherence to the more extreme ideology of it's supposed "base"?
Can the true majority - the middle - really be represented if the only way to get past the first round is to be an extremist? If so, how? If not, what does this mean for our future?
What are your thoughts? How serious do you think this is for our collective future?
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