The moderate Republican blogger in Minnesota opines: "Centrist Republican groups have started and up and disappeared making the pitch that the party needs moderates. Why is that? Why hasn’t a strong centrist movement actually got off the ground in America? Malcolm Gladwell’s essay on social media and social change, offers some clues."
He continues: "The whole crux of this essay is the fact that social media is not as good in promoting social activism as face to face contact. Gladwell notes that websites like Twitter and Facebook are developed around weak-ties as opposed to the strong ties of social movements. I think this is interesting because much of the centrist movement is organized around the web with groups like the ill-fated Unity ’08, the Modern Whig Party and the new group No Labels as prime examples. Gladwell notes that these weak ties groups make for a weak social movement:"
More commentary from Mr. Sanders, about building a centrist movement: "How truly committed are we to building a real movement? Social media can help maintain the ties people have, but it won’t lead a movement for change. Yes, I can sign up on Facebook to say I support No Labels, but I can also sign up to support bacon as well. If nothing much is asked of people, we can’t expect that much will be given. My guess is that most centrists are not really that serious about wanting change. If they did, they would be more active in trying to make change happen. It’s one thing to create a website and get some important people supporting it, it’s another thing to work for moderate candidates and get the average joes motivated."
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Dennis Sanders on Building A Centrist Movement
