Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan
Centrist is the median of any given electorate. The electorate's attitudes to a bevy of issues determines what the centre is.
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The assumption that political beliefs can be plotted along a one-dimensional line is one of the least helpful metaphors ever conceived. The related idea that there is a "centre" around which political parties maneuver is baseless - you cannot plot voters along a line as if the distribution has any meaning when the line itself is overly simplistic.
There is no single reason the Liberals have been the governing party for the majority of the last 40 years. One certainty, though, is that it is not because they appeal to the illusory "centre", unless by "centre" you mean Ontario and Quebec regional interests.