Bill Clinton saying "We're all Eisenhower Republicans here"
Obama claiming he would have been a republican before the conservative revolution
Hillary trying out her fucking GOLDWATER credentials to get elected.
And there's Biden talking fondly of Strom Thurmond (Although at least he didn't try to claim his political legacy)
Who are they trying to appeal to? Anyone who likes Goldwater isn't going to vote for a Democrat, ever, and anyone else who knows who he was would hate it.
Centrists love when their own makes efforts to befriend and appease the right. It validates their civility fetish and demonstrates how they are the smart and reasonable people for bridging the divide and seeking compromise.
As centrism is a bourgeois right-wing ideology they still hate the left more than anything else.