Politico "Centrist"-izes Conservative "Democrats"

Corporate press outlets ubiquitously privilege Clintonite-right Democratic politicians with favorable labels like "moderate" or "centrist," tags that make them sound pragmatic, intemperate, reasonable, not ideologically rigid, and that generally camouflage motives that are significantly less than virtuous.[1] It isn't a neutral characterization; gifting this class of elected official with such descriptors is just as much an ideologically partisan decision as this author's own description of them as "the Clintonite right," but this is never acknowledged.

Politico recently offered a great example of why this is so problematic.

Under the headlline "Centrist Democrats scramble House drug pricing effort," Alice Miranda Ollstein and Sarah Ferris write,

"A trio of centrist House Democrats threw their party's health care agenda into disarray Wednesday by blocking a plan that would have authorized direct government negotiation of drug prices and help pay for a $3.5 trillion social spending bill.

Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) joined Republicans in voting against leadership-backed drug pricing language at the end of a three-day House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of the sweeping package. The 29-29 tie vote meant the provision could not advance."

What "center" are these members of congress representing? At what "center" do they sit?

Like most major progressive proposals, allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices is incredibly popular. A quick Google search yielded two recent polls on the matter, both released in June. In one, a Gallup poll, 81% of respondents supported it, including a whopping 97% of Democrats. The other, a Kaiser poll, found 88% support, including 96% of Democrats. Both polls showed the proposal draws overwhelming support from even Republicans.

When it comes to Americans, support for this policy is the broad "center" position, and these members of congress are profoundly out of step with it. The Politico journalists specifically referred to them as "centrist" Democrats, but those numbers make plain that, among Democrats, they're a marginal fringe--practically a margin-of-error--faction. Every one of the Democrats' many presidential hopefuls last year--including the eventual winner of the presidential race--ran on this policy, and it has been the official position of the party, enshrined in its platform, for 17 years now. One need proceed no further than the Politico story itself to establish that, among their House colleagues, these congressmen are, likewise, no "centrists"; all of the other Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee--29 out of 32--voted for the policy. Last year, House Democrats actually passed a bill that would have allowed Medicare this leeway; 228 out of 231 Democrats voted for it (none were against it; the 4 non-yeas didn't vote). All three of these congressmen who just voted to kill the proposal voted for it as well. Because back then, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans controlled the Senate, and there was no danger of it ever becoming law. Ollstein and Ferris do note that Scott Peters said he voted for that measure "because he knew the plan would die in the Senate..."

In short, it's impossible to justify positioning these congressmen as politically "centrist" in the context of the broader public, their party or even their congressional colleagues. And there ain't any more contexts.

Pulling out another of those warm-and-fuzzy words, Ollstein and Ferris call the dissenting congresspeople "moderates," writing, "the moderates have argued the drug pricing plan... would hurt innovation in the pharmaceutical industry," and spend 4 paragraphs letting these "moderates" repeat this, presenting this as a legitimate argument offered in good faith without interrogating it and--perhaps more glaringly--without noting that this is propaganda from the industry itself, long deployed against this proposal, as it threatens to cut into the sky-high profits the companies make at present. Much deeper in the story, Ollstein and Ferris note that the industry is preparing to launch "a seven-figure ad blitz" carrying this very message but those dots are never connected.

Another such dot left free-floating: Ollstein/Ferris write that progressive advocacy groups vowed to "draw attention to the sizeable donations [these congresspeople have] received from drug companies," and quotes a statement from the group Social Security Works condemning them for this but that's the end of the discussion of money.

A quick trip to OpenSecrets shows that the Big Pharma is one of Scott Peters' biggest campaign contributors.

And $743,255 of the $860,465 donations he's taken from the industry come from PAC contributions (meaning they're from the companies, not the janitors and secretaries that work there).

With Kurt Schrader, the story is the same:

Not only does most of his Big Pharma money come from PACs, the larger healthcare industry is his major contributor.[2]

Politico doesn't include any of that and certainly doesn't tie it to the rest. It's journalistic malpractice to devote space to quoting these congressmen parroting self-serving industry propaganda as if it's good-faith argumentation by what are favorably described as "centrists" and "moderates" without detailing the fact that that Big Pharma owns a significant chunk of them.

--j.

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[1] The press often unjustifiably does this with Republicans as well, but that's a story for another day.

[2] Kathleen Rice's contributions from the healthcare industry are much smaller. She has actually campaigned on this very policy; now, with this flip-flop, she seems to have her hand out.