The Democratic center

CONSERVATIVES searching desperately for a silver lining in the cloud of Tuesday's defeats have tried to argue that Democrats only won because they ran conservative candidates. And they've gotten support from key members of the mainstream news media.

"These Democrats that were elected last night are conservative Democrats," said CBS's Bob Schieffer the morning after. "The Democrats' victory was built on the back of more centrist candidates seizing Republican-leaning districts," said The Washington Post. The press is busy preparing portraits of those moderate Democrats who may be pro life or pro gun, to demonstrate that they are the face of a new Democratic Party, one that won by becoming more like their opponents.

Coming from media that never tire of telling us that America is a fundamentally conservative country, it isn't too surprising to hear. But it's just not true.

In fact, the Democratic freshman class of the 110th Congress includes a few conservatives, but overall it is made up of candidates who held traditional Democratic positions. While some races have yet to be decided, we know a few things about the new Democratic members. All of them support increasing the minimum wage, and all oppose privatizing Social Security. Nearly all support embryonic stem cell research. All except a few are pro choice. And all of these positions enjoy majority support.

So Democrats didn't win because they moved to the right or ran conservative candidates. Many of the more conservative Democrats who ran in red states actually ended up losing. Those who won did so by opposing President Bush, questioning the war in Iraq, and carrying the Democratic banner. It was Republicans who were afraid to put their party identification on their lawn signs and in their ads.

Tuesday's election did mark a significant change to one party: the GOP. The Republicans were practically wiped out in the Northeast, with moderates like Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island going down to defeat, and major losses in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. And there were key moderate Republicans elsewhere -- Representative Jim Leach in Iowa, Senator Mike DeWine in Ohio -- who also lost.

In other words, on Tuesday the Republican Party grew more narrow: more conservative and more centered, both ideologically and geographically, in the South. In fact, the South was the only region where Republicans outpolled Democrats overall.

So, despite what the press and pundits seem to believe, Democrats did not win by moving to the center; they won because at the moment, they are the center. According to exit polls, independents voted Democratic by 57 to 39 percent. And those describing themselves as "moderates" voted Democratic by an even wider margin, 61 to 38 percent.

Even in places where more moderate Democrats won, it reflected fundamental shifts away from the right. Jim Webb won election to the Senate in Virginia because the state is moving from red to purple, as population in the more Democratic Northern Virginia suburbs has exploded. Democratic victories in states like Montana and Colorado came not because of conservative candidates but because independents and moderates have become alienated from a GOP dominated by its Southern social conservatives.

For years, the news media have told us that Republican victories showed they were the party of the "mainstream," where "real" Americans found their home. But now it is the Democratic Party that appears to occupy the center ground. It didn't happen because they changed their opinions on issues or turned their backs on their traditional base of support. With control of the White House and the Congress, the Republicans had every opportunity to implement their conservative vision in both foreign and domestic policy. The public repudiated that vision, and in the process left the GOP a smaller tent than it had been. As we assess what this election means for the future of the parties and for future elections, we might want to reevaluate what constitutes the "center" in American politics.

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of "Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success."