You wouldn't need C-3PO to give you the odds on whether or not Bill Kristol's first post-election column would argue that America is a "center-right" country. That he was spooked that getting a puppy would make Obama more "empathetic" after polls showing that most people think that Obama understands their problems is just indicative of how devoted he remains to the conventional wisdom. Kristol's call for a puppy surge in the GOP has to be one of the weirdest ideas of all time.
Kristol touts the number of self-identified conservatives versus self-identified liberals as proof the country is "center- right." The difference between the number of people who self-identify as conservatives versus those who self-identify as liberals speaks mostly to the right's success in caricaturing liberals and turning the word into an epithet. The fact is more Americans than ever subscribe to a traditionally liberal point of view when it comes to taxes and health care, Iraq, or even affirmative action (70%!). The reason why so many people still identify as moderate is because, as Speaker Pelosi has pointed out, the center has moved left. Conservatives have just done such an incredible job caricaturing the left that no one really realizes that the positions they hold are left-liberal positions.
But this part of the column in particular struck me:
And it wouldn’t hurt for Governors Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and the other possible 2012 G.O.P. nominees to begin bringing some puppies home for their kids.
If you're wondering why he didn't mention Mitt Romney getting a dog, you've forgotten what happened to the last one.
--A. Serwer
