Liberal priorities and centrist policies

While I largely agree with the argument made by Matt Yglesias that the liberal base has not been getting either the policies it wants nor the support of the Administration in prioritizing and pushing for these policies, I do see some merit in the claim made by "centrist" members of congress that the left wing of the Democrats have been driving the agenda. The point though is that while liberals haven't been driving the policy agenda, they've been driving much of the priority agenda.

Yglesias points out none of the key liberal priorities that he lists (below) have been enacted, and that the administration has only even bothered pushing for one with any consistent effort (CFRA).

— A $1.2 trillion stimulus.
— The forcible breakup of large banks.
— Universal health care with a public option linked to Medicare rates.
— An economy-wide cap on carbon emissions, with the permits auctioned.
— Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
— A path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
— An exit strategy from Afghanistan.
— An end to special exemption of military spending from fiscal discipline.
— An independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
— The Employee Free Choice Act.

But I think the relevant point to ask is not whether liberals have achieved their priorities or even whether the White House has expended serious political capital in defense of their priorities, but rather, what are the priorities of the "centrists" democrats that could plausibly have dominated the agenda. Yglesias might see nation-wide Romney-care as a "centrist" priority, but I would disagree. The liberal priority was health care; the left preferred single-payer, but that wasn't feasible and so near-universal coverage became its priority. And that has been a consistent feature of the health care policymaking process, albeit one that was narrowed to 'near-universal' but only for American citizens, and that was constantly paired with cost control. It is a "centrist" policy, but largely because the "centre" is defined as a policy space in which the priorities of the left or right get sufficiently bastardized to get through Congress.

Same thing with cap'n trade (I much prefer cap'n crunch). The "centrists" as far as I can tell (and I've never really followed this one too closely), didn't really have a priority here. But the liberals had a priority of doing something, anything, on climate change and so accepted that this would have to be watered down, and will probably be paired with give-aways to corporations and nuclear power. I think that with the exception of citizenship for undocumented immigrants, this has been pretty much the case with all of the policies Yglesias lists. Liberals had priorities to deal with specific societal problems, knew that their desired policies wouldn't be feasible, and so pared back their proposals to something that would have a chance of passing. And Obama followed a strategy of "where's the pivot and what do they want?" And so we get a deformed list of policies, but one that reflects in broad terms liberal priorities.

I guess there are two basic points here:
(1) the priorities are different from preferred policies, and liberal priorities (but certainly not policies) have been a major factor in the legislative activity of Congress over the year.
(2) many "centrists" don't really have priorities, or even policy preferences. They are not in the "centre" because they have strong preferences about "centrist" policies (they are not militant compromisers) but because they don't have strong preferences about all that much except continuing to get elected from what are often highly competitive districts.

My currently cynical suspicion is that had the "centrists" been setting the priorities, there would have been a whole lot of "votes against evil" and symbolic support for puppies, namely policies that reflect valence issues rather than a coherent and organized agenda of priorities about in what direction our society should be moving.