NYT Campaign Stops: Culture Warriors Don’t Win

OP-EDS & REVIEWS Culture Warriors Don’t Win By Gil Troy, NYT, 4-27-12 Associated Press Ronald Reagan campaigning for governor on Nov. 5, 1966 in Hawthorne, Calif. Mitt Romney’s apparent nomination proves that Republican voters are more pragmatic and centrist than their reputation suggests. The Republican candidates this year fought a classic political battle. Rick Santorum, [...]

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Yes Rush, Moderates Make Great Presidents — and Book Subjects

By Gil Troy, History News Network, 7-25-09 In one his many riffs this week against Barack Obama’s health care reform initiative, titled “This is a Very Dangerous Time: Socialized Health Care is Not Dead,” on July 21, Rush Limbaugh explained himself, saying: “So this is an attempt by me to keep people inspired and motivated [...]

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Yes, Obama Should Press for Consensus

By Gil Troy, HNN, 2-3-09 In a recent HNN posting, Professor John Grigg urged President Obama to stop seeking consensus, characterizing bipartisanship as “often a cynical effort to silence dissenting views.” Professor Grigg’s article is worth dissecting because he captures the current – dare I say it – consensus among academics to dismiss bipartisanship and [...]

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Response to Allan Lichtman: Obama Must Lead from the Center — Just Like FDR

OP-EDS & REVIEWS By Gil Troy,HNN, 11-19-08 I agree with three of Allan Lichtman’s four “simple rules” suggesting how Barack Obama could be another Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, among others, also knew to “Strike Early.” Americans’ desire to see their new president succeed gives an administration a great launching pad. “Bringing [...]

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On Obama in The Montreal Gazette

Barack Obama’s mad rush toward the middle The Democrat is following a well-trod path to moderation on the political stage L. IAN MACDONALD, The Montreal Gazette, Wednesday, July 23, 2008 …There’s a fine line between pragmatism and cynicism, and Obama runs a risk of crossing it, especially since he started out as the candidate of [...]

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Mr. Obama, please find the center

From an online discussion on The Power Line Forum, July 9-10, 2008 Let’s distinguish between two different questions here. One, is Obama (or McCain) a centrist? What does that mean, is that a good thing? I start from the premise that both of them, in different ways, are more moderate than most of their party [...]

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Memo to Arianna Huffington: The Middle is Good for Obama — and America

HNN, July 3, 2008 Arianna Huffington’s slam on centrism – “Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers” — proves that the struggle for the soul of Barack Obama continues. Moderate voices must stand tall and strong against the partisans pulling him to the left. Obama’s meteoric rise to national prominence — and [...]

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Transcript: Those Standing in the Center Don’t Always Get Run Down…

Transcripted from the New America Foundation It is not easy being a moderate. I have been shamelessly shilling for my book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents since launching it last Monday. Correction: I have been constructively engaging in discourse about my latest historical monograph. Sitting in my office in Washington, [...]

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Keep the Campaign Centered By Limiting the Battlefield

HNN, June 24, 2008   Despite both presumptive nominees’ rhetoric about center-seeking, if moderates do not figure out how to push from the center for centrist leadership, this campaign will degenerate into another divisive slugfest. We are all well aware of the gravitational physics of American politics, how partisans from the left and the right [...]

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Obama Should be a Muscular Moderate Overseas

HNN, February 27, 2008     Mr. Troy is Professor of History at McGill University, and the author, most recently, of Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady and Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. He is a member of the advisory board of HNN. As the Obama Phenomenama grows, many who are [...]

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