but not moderate, either.
I found the characterization of former New York Mayor Giuliani’s views in this post as moderate puzzling at best. Rudy Giuliani is a New York Republican, a style that has been characteristic of Republicans in the Empire State for decades: socially liberal, conservative on a few issues, distinctly not moderate.
Moderation in politics is emphatically neither tepid i.e. neither hot nor cold, mechanically seeking the middle ground, nor is it a grab bag of policies. As I’ve written before here it is simultaneously composed of a series of policy preferences that encourage consensus and a philosophy of looking for agreement among apparently disparate groups.
If you’d like to read how a genuine political moderate approaches politics and issues you could do little better than reading this post by Mark Daniels, a new associate blogger at The Moderate Voice.
In terms of substantive domestic views, Giuliani and Schwarzenegger represent a fair chunk of largely ignored voters- fiscally conservative & socially liberal. But Rudy’s immoderate in tone and persona- he’s unnecessarily divisive- and his overly-aggressive foreign policy views is out of touch with the country’s mood right now.
(Happy holidays, Dave. I’m up north of Rockford.)