Opinion Forum

The Centrist Coalition

January 30th, 2009

The Centrist Coalition is a group of blogs oriented toward centrist politics and centrist points of view. Centerfield is the blog of the Centrist Coalition.

I consider Opinion Forum to be centrist. Of course, we sometimes take positions that are distinctly to the left or right because our authors express their views freely. I hope it stays that way so that readers will find a wide variety of opinion on many different topics.

I’ve proposed Opinion Forum as a member of the Centrist Coalition, and I hope it will happen soon. I believe that would accurately reflect our orientation and help attract readers of all viewpoints.

I’ve also begun writing for Centerfield. My first post is What’s a Centrist? and was published today. If you’d like a more detailed discussion, please follow the link.

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: centrist, conservative, liberal
Categories: Politics | Comments (4) | Home

4 Responses to “The Centrist Coalition”

Kevin | January 31st, 2009 at 2:39 am

I’ve been reading Centerfield for somewhere around 5 years now, maybe a bit longer. Just opening the blog brings back memories for me of when I first started dabbling in online politics with my own website, The Independent Voter. For example, Joe Gandleman – aka The Moderate Voice and a member of the Centrist Coalition – and I were political cyberfriends back then with a shared interest in both centrism and Independents, particularly where those two intersect.

Centerfield has fallen on hard times, that’s for sure. It used to be a really hoppin’ blog with lots of very lively conversation and debate.

Hopefully you can help turn things around over there, Tom. I’ll try to make a point of stopping by there more often and leaving a comment or two. I know from long experience that conversation tends to draw commenters in and likewise a dirth of conversation seems to be a significant bar against drawing commenters in. Everyone wants to be part of something that they perceive as interesting enough to have drawn in others.

Tom | January 31st, 2009 at 7:27 am

Kevin, I first read Centerfield in 2005, based on your recommendation. I thought then, and I still think, that it’s good to have a place where people who resist being tagged as liberal or conservative have a place to gather and speak their piece.

Opinion Forum is very new. The idea from the beginning was to have a variety of authors with different points of view and an open approach to issues. I think that makes us centrist, in the best meaning of the word. Being allied with Centerfield and the Centrist Coalition seems like a good way to keep that concept going.

By the way, if you want to start writing for us (including cross-posting), there’s a place reserved for your name in the upper left corner! 😉

Kevin | January 31st, 2009 at 2:35 pm

I very much appreciate the offer, Tom. But I’m already woefully negligent in my existing writing/cross-posting slots outside of PK. Taking on any more would only serve to increase my already existing sense of guilt. Whereas commenting completely bypasses that for some reason.

Your assessment of Centerfield is virtually identical to my own and remains central to why I personally believe that it represents a potentially valuable contribution to American politics. It’s a sort of neutral territory where everyone can let their ideological hair down and flesh out the issues or just socialize. For example (of the socializing aspect), CF used to be dominated by Sci-Fi fans (which I have always been too) and there were periodic threads on science fiction utterly unrelated to anything remotely political. Ideological adversaries would then find themselves tight-knit members of the same side – always a healthy experience IMO.

doris | February 5th, 2009 at 9:00 am

It’s good to know that there are places for opinions that don’t strictly adhere to the right or left, which is where I find myself. Sometimes liberal, sometimes, against my will, conservative. It feels good to know others struggle with this ongoing, internal pull. Thanks, Tom.