By middle I mean they believe in different parts of both parties.
Some might think the left is crazy the way they are spending money, but are prochoice.
Or some might believe that spending money to try to get the economy going is the right thing to do but are prolife. "like my mom"
There is middle ground.
The party that appeals to the middle ground is the one that gets in office.
But the middle ground shifts and changes as events occur and times change.
I don't think I'm in the middle.
I lean right.
Never have voted anything but republican.
So your right we would agree on most issues.
I do feel that the party is leaning soo far right that they don't appeal to the middle.
Thats why the left has the power.
Fossten made a good point. In many ways, the GOP has been dominated in more recent times by less then conservatives. Bush was a quazi-conservative at best, and McCain had a few conservative values, but could hardly be considered conservative. Amnesty, excessive spending, etc. all show that. Yet, when the "moderates" dominated, we start to suffer. Conservative principles have been shown to succeed at the ballot box (Reagan, contract with America). It is when conservatives start to sacrifice their values that that they start to lose. In fact, the two biggest issues that killed the GOP were Amnesty and their excessive spending in Washington, with the bailouts leading up to and including TARP that were the tipping point in the 2008 race.
You need to understand that there is a lot of mischaracterization of Conservative ideas, both by the pervasive left wing culture (through the MSM, academia, pop culture, the entertainment industry, etc) as well as more moderate Republicans. For instance, the abortion issue, and specifically how conservatives view it has been rather mischaracterized. It is made to seem that conservatives simply want to ban all abortions by any means necessary at the federal level. In fact, the left is working to do the reverse; enshrine abortion as a "right" by any means necessary. Conservatives want that decision made by the American people, not politicians. Preferably at the individual state level (in keeping with the concept of federalism that is in the constitution) but even a national amendment process would be better then through judicial fiat. Conservatives want to have the debate over it and let the people decide, but liberals have imposed their will unconstitutionally through the courts and then want to avoid and honest debate. But that aspect is lost in the debate and the conservative position is oversimplified to the point of mischaracterization. The same holds true for many conservative positions, especially the social ones.
You are right that, most often, the middle does decide the election (though the 2008 election was a possible exception). But, if a party attempts to gain their vote by simply pandering to them, then that is disingenuous and shows a lack of conviction. It is simply the easiest way to get someone's vote, but says a lot about the lack of character in the politician and/or party. Instead, make your case and convince someone of your position. Most of these people are in the middle because they haven't decided and, at least in my experience, are not as familiar with the various issues and, more importantly, the history and competing philosophies involved. If they are truly interested in making an informed decision, then they are going to be receptive to what you have to say, so you have an opportunity to convince them.
That was a large reason why McCain lost. He has a history of saying what he needs politically to gain favor. His political convictions are, in most cases, not very strong and can and will be cast aside for political expediency. Consequently, his overriding vision is not to coherent and seemed to counter some of his past.
Obama's overriding vision, while vague,
was coherent and there wasn't the scrutiny on his past (nor the record) that there was for McCain.
The thing is, while many voters are not in one camp or the other due to, frankly ignorance of the philosophical underpinnings behind the competing points of view, the same is not true of politicians. There are few people more familiar with the competing philosophies then federal level politicians. So, when they start taking positions from one side of the isle or the other (like McCain, or Specter) that is philosophically inconsistent and goes against some of the principles they espouse by claiming to subscribe to one ideology or the other. So, the question comes down to this; would you rather vote for someone with the strength of their convictions, or someone who will throw away their convictions at a moments notice for political expediency? When it comes to "moderate" politicians, those usually tend to be your choices.
There is also the fact that there is not overriding philosophy that an actual ideology, and thus party could form out of that is "in the middle" of conservatives and liberals. At best, you could get an ad hoc coalition of special interests that function as a party for a short time (the Reform party for example) but that wouldn't last due to not having an underlying philosophy that holds the group together.
