Virtually every day, my friend Bill Bradley pens a column and then some on California politics. He does this over at his New West Notes Dot Com website. In the coming weeks, we’ll be talking more about Bradley.

That said, in his piece today, Bill inadvertently touched off a pet-peeve of mine. Today he glosses over the Field Poll results, to see how both candidates and ballot measures are fairing as we are about 100 days out from the election.

In his very brief descriptions of Dianne Feinstein and Dick Mountjoy in the US Senate race, he calls Feinstein a “centrist” and Mountjoy a “right winger.”

First and foremost, he is more or less correct about Mountjoy. Dick and I have know each other for nearly twenty years. He is a conservative’s conservative.

But how can ANYONE call Dianne Feinstein a centrist?? Give me a break. She is, in fact, one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate, regulalrly supporting increases in taxes, and expanding government programs — opposing any proposed reduction in federal spending with a passion. Her ratings by the various taxpayer groups that monitor votes in the Congress bear this out.

Why do people keep calling DiFi a ‘centrist’ or a moderate, then?

I think that there are three main reasons for this:

1). Contrast with Boxer stylistically. Dianne Feinstein is stylistically (not ideologically) moderate compared to the strident and schrill mannerisms of her colleague and fellow liberal California Senator Barbara Boxer.

2) The media loves (a la Bill Bradley) loves to perpetuate this myth, making a big deal of it when DiFi differs with Boxer, which is about 1% of the time.

3) Republicans have chipped in. Every six years when Barbara Boxer is up for election, a host of Republican ‘strategists’ are out there trying to play up Boxer’s vulnerabilities – and one thing that is said a lot is that “Unlike Feinstein, Boxer is an ultra-liberal” or phrases similar. A quick google search finds quotes like this from GOP party leaders, and Republican strategists like my friend Ken Khachigian.

I’m sure Bill has never had someone pen an entire piece criticizing one individual word he has written. Perhaps he and his other media colleagues will qualify the word ‘centrist’ where it concerns Feinstein in the future, as more descriptive of her personality (I won’t hold my breath). As for her voting record, she is just about there with Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee.

(I penned this via Blackberry, so my apologies if there are layout or grammatical issues with this post.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 5th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.