The observations one makes in politics are a lot like the ones made in physics-it depends on one’s frame of reference.

By no reasonable or objective standard would one refer to the party where the first and only permitted reaction is centralized state control, that know no boundaries. John F. Kennedy could have been called “center right”, but the modern Democrat party is of Ted’s design.

In many ways this foundational claim of ownership gets to the heart of the entire dispute. There is an old school saying: “Sucess has many fathers, while failure is an orphan.”

The main problem with republicans(and democrats!) is that they want to own the praise without owning the blame.

So in the backlash against Obama’s comments concerning not building that, everyone somehow sort of forgot that not building that is a solid affirmative defense to liability.

This wasn’t even close to the only debate on cable telivision over “quips” and “gaffes” which had two sides, or were fertile ground for “flip-flopping”.

One way of reading Mrsschiavolin comments would be to say that the GOP didn’t build that. Or as Obama might say if one were inclined to spin “clinging” more charitably…the NRL built that. How many folks disagree with Obama if we rephrase the “gaffe” as a reflection upon the trademark value or clout of the NRL and the NRA?

GOP candidates if they are as Rich as Romney can to some degree actually have a say as to what the Center Right looks like. In copyright, or in first ammendment freedom of speech you can make the center right what you want it to be (but only in this very fragile philosophical utopia did you build it.)

The GOP can’t get a grip or tone down abortion extremism because it did not build it. Abortion extremism is the property of the NRL. Just as the famous copyright “You can pry this gun from my cold dead hands”, and a good deal of 2nd ammendment extremism is the property of the NRA. Some might say that this extremism is good. As such they might quote luminaries such as Barry Goldwater: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

This Goldwater quote is not universal truth, but it is truth where non-profit ideological institutions are concerned(NRA, NRL, ACLU). The ACLU is not going (nor did it) tone down its attack upon the use of drones, or abuses of due process. That is all these non-profit ideological institutions that in many ways do and did build the center right or the center left (in the case of the ACLU) have seperate and distinct duties of loyalty and mandates.

So it is certainly possible to be a member of the center left, and rejoice that the ACLU helped deliver recreational marijuana to Colorado. (maybe also how the center left gave Obama his tipping point state!)

In my opinion for what it is worth, I think these ideological (but also highly competent and issue focused) institutions have better brands than the GOP or the DNC. As I said before Romney-Ryan stickers are comming off, but the NRA and NRL ones stick around.

The Republicans are the FAR-righters.

The GOP FAR-right ideology has dominated America ever since Reagan and absolutely controlled American government for the first six years of Bush II, to the extent that they could literally turn off the microphones of the opposition party.

And it has been a complete disaster! You ignored intelligence and did nothing while we got invaded, you used the invasion to lead us into two losing, crippling wars, you killed our manufacturing and shipped our jobs overseas, you stripped the middle class of most of its wealth and transferred it to the 1/10 of 1 percent who are destroying our country for their own profit, you spent and borrowed so much we are in debt up to our eyeballs and you crashed the US economy like it was 1929 all over again. (And took down the world economy with it.)

And then you have the gall to try and blame our situation on Obama! And tell us all we have to do is put you back in power and you’ll can fix all our problems! And you’re flabbergasted because you lost the election!! Maybe if you didn’t believe that everybody who disagrees with you the teensiest least bit is an idiot, traitor or worse … but what’s the use, you never will. As the anonymous Bush staffer said, you don’t live in the reality based world.

Well, surprise! Reality has caught up to you at last. “Getting a grip” and “toning down the abortion extremism” is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You have to face that fact that everything you believe is disasterously wrong.

Be like the Whigs and go away so we can start to repair your damage!

I would call it “surrender”. Then again, he might be trying to set himself up for a new position where he’ll have to be more acceptable to different views.

So why do we have an overwhelming majority of Latinos for Obama? We can speculate about the reasons but there is no guarantee that this will be right. The only way to know is to ask and listen. And there is no obvious way to approach them and persuade them until you know something about them.

Then there are the approximately 50% of Catholics who also voted for Obama. Why? Once again we can speculate, but we cannot know until we start asking and listening.