A Liberal Response to Lieberman’s Call to Move to the Center

In the wake of Scott Brown’s astonishing Senate win in Massachusetts Tuesday, it seems that everyone has a theory about what message the voters in the Bay State have sent. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) this week declared that the message is clear: Congress, he said, needs to “move to the center and worry about things that [independents] are worried about.”

Others aren’t so sure. MoveOn.org, for example, is joining Martha Coakley in arguing that Massachusetts voters were revolting against the Democrats’ proclivity to put corporate interests above those of regular folks (as evidenced here, here, here and here). In that vein, Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, is calling for a shift, not to the center, but to the left.

Unlike Republicans, Obama actually believes in bipartisanship, to a fault. Yet the most bipartisan of his policies — the Wall Street bailout which in policy and personnel is virtually indistinguishable from the Bush administration — is by far the least popular.

Democrats are in trouble, but moving to a mythical “center,” focusing on deficit reduction, abandoning health care won’t help.

Today, in proposing new restrictions on the Wall Street firms, Obama has taken the first step toward heeding that advice.