One more Barnett

Why both parties blow:

I sit back at times like this and realize there is no room for me and mine in either party: I don't demonize the military or interventions so I can't be a Dem, and I don't demonize China or want to invade Iran so I can't be a Republican. And, frankly, I think that's good. I don't see how you can really be a grand strategist in this day and age and belong to either party. I think I'm going to formally make myself an independent and stop rationalizing the attraction either way.

[Also in that post is a nice critique of Matthew Yglesias, not exactly my favorite blogger/political thinker to put it nicely].

For the record, I've always been registered as an independent. Normally I think the way to deal with that in a 2 party system is have one party control the legislature and one the executive. The Dems are going to control the Congress (with a wider margin then they currently hold), so normally I would pushing for a centrist Republican for Prez. That would normally be Rudy, except that Rudy has got a Podhoretz (Norman) on his foreign policy and is talking about staying on "offense"--not resiliency. Not to mention that you expect the Republicans to be (excuse this it's too good not to use) "Law and Order" types, but they look more desperate every day.

Like Barnett I'm feeling not pleased about this current crop. Obama is caught with having to appeal to a mass of "nutroots" green-meme wack jobs on the far left. Just as the Republicans, in primary sense, have to appeal to their own far-right wack jobs.

Perhaps the song should have been: wack jobs to the left of me, wack jobs to the right of me. Here I am stuck in the middle (with the actually intelligent people).

I agree with Don Beck that if either party broke with its orthodoxy and went a Radical Middle-way it would own the electorate for a generation. The competition is an open door to be pushed on.