Again, I could go on. And I addressed this point in the first paragraph, BEFORE pointing out that the Republicans are lunatics who are wrong on every single issue facing America today.

Consider the things the Democratic Congress is doing, and it’s approval ratings:
Stem cell research: 58% approval, 30% disapproval.

Iraq escalation: 6 in 10 oppose it (and 47% oppose even funding it).

Minimum wage increase: 80% support.

If this isn’t “governing from the center”, what is?

The problem is that the Republicans of today are of a different breed than the Republicans of 50 years ago. These aren’t your daddy’s Republicans. So many of the positions being taken by the Republcians these days are, I would argue, fundamentally un-American. Torture. Unlawfull dentention. Mass, warrantless surveillance. The unitary executive. Disagreement is treason. These aren’t just ideas and positions taking by George Bush- they’re positions adopted by basically every national level Republican out there (McCain included).

There are ideologies so odious, so dangerous, that I don’t think they deserve to be in power, not even a little bit. Communism is an example here. Facism is another. I don’t support banning these ideas (that doesn’t work, BTW). But no damned way should they be given any crack at power. “Well, what works best is a goverment half composed of Stalinists, and half not.” No. Wrong answer. Not half facist either.

A fundamental requirement for becoming a Catholic priest, let alone a Catholic Bishop or the Pope, is that you are a Catholic. Not just accepting Catholicism, but actively supporting it. By the same principal, to become an official of the US Goverment, you have to be an American- which means not just accepting the Constitution and rule of law, but actively supporting it. *All* of them. Not just some. Not half. Not even most. All.

This is the problem we’ve gotten ourselves into. The Republicans- by their actions and by the implications of their words- do not accept nor support constitutional democracy nor the rule of law. Note that this was not true of the Eisenhower Republicans of yore, who very much did.

Brian

Your rant epitomizes the exact tone that Unity08 party was formed to oppose. In your entire rant against the Democrats being characterized as a wedge issue party, you focused exclusively on how crazy the Republicans are.

The 06 elections were carried by the Democrats not because of any positive platform plank, but because people were sick of Republican screw-ups and lies over the course of the last 6 years. The closest you got to an actual positive position coming out of the Democratic camp was “earmarks are bad” — everything else was “The Republicans f*ed the war and the economy. Don’t vote for them.” When people asked how the Democrats would handle the war, you basically got no positive response (I never heard one, and I pay attention to these things) — and when asked how the Democrats would fix the economy, you got “Roll back Bush’s tax cuts.”

If we accept the two party system as an inevitability, the best case scenario is a split legislature and executive. That was demonstrated with how much more successful Clinton was when the legislature was Republican-controlled, and we’re seeing it here in MN with Pawlenty and a Democrat-controlled legislature.

The fundamental misconception of the “bipartisan moderate” dream is that there is a “moderate” middle ground between Democrats and Republicans these days. There isn’t a sane middle ground between Republicans and REALITY anymore. The party has become completely, utterly wrong on EVERY SINGLE ISSUE. Wrong to the point of flat-earthism. At best, they pay lip service to one side of certain ambiguous issues (abortion, “small government”), but in those cases, the actual actions of six years of Republican rule in Washington flew in the face of the things they said - out of control spending, and zero progress on banning abortion or gay marriage or any other “moral” issue. Speaking of which, they get their moral compass, such as it is, from pandering to religious extremists that represent less than 20% of the American people, and again, they only pay them lip service.

“Moderate” is not someplace halfway between sane and insane. And taking umbrage at those who call you a traitor for not agreeing with them is not partisanship.

This party is out to build positive campaiging and a genuinely less partisan political party. The irony of that statement is something not lost on me, and part of the reason I’m so torqued about parties in general.

But (back on topic), this is basically three beltway guys with big wins in their pocket trying to return to the political environment that they worked in. That wasn’t a glorious time, and they know it, but that was before both parties defined themselves in terms of wedge issues. The result is that the parties manage to get into power, but don’t have any real constructive plan as to how to move forward.

The Republicans are certainly good examples of that, and the Democrat’s will demonstrate it shortly when they fail to put forward a better plan to address Iraq.

Note that the Washington cocktail circuit is atwitter about this possibility. Of course, the war in Iraq is still real popular on the Washington cocktail circuit, as is Bush, which should be warning signs of how out of touch the Washington cocktail circuit is with the rest of the country. Of course the talking bobble heads are for it, but that doesn’t mean it’ll play in Peoria.

Also, this would require McCain to leave the Republican party. Which I don’t think will happen. Lieberman splitting from the Democratic party? No problem. But I doubt McCain would.

I doubt many Democrats would defect to a McCain/Lieberman ticket on the war issue alone. The 28% or so of people who still support the war either 1) live inside the beltway, or 2) are rock-red Republicans. The fact that they’d be painted by the puppet theater as the “real moderates” would simply tarnish the image of the puppet theater that much more. People are waking up and realizing they’ve been lied to about the war in Iraq and the true nature of Bush and the Republicans, and then the media will come along and say that two of the biggest war supporters outside of the Whitehouse are moderates?

This means that McCain defecting would sink Republican chances. McCain would steal maybe 10% from the Democrat, but he’d steal 30% from the Republican, turning a 50/50 race into 40$ Democrat, 40% McCain, 20% Republican. And I’d say this is a best-case scenario for McCain- a neck and neck race with a Democrat and an also-ran Republican. If McCain couldn’t steal 10% from the Democrat (say, because his pro-Iraq war stance was so odious), or if he couldn’t steal 30% from the Republican (say, because the 30% religous right vote didn’t split, leaving the Republican with 30% of the vote), then the Democrat becomes the shoe-in.

If McCain was even seriously mulling over the possibility of a Unity08 bid, he wouldn’t be wooing the Religous Reich nearly so hard. He’d be going to their leaders and going “You’ve got two choices: support me as the Republican candidate, or face me as an Independent candidate.” The fact that he’s not doing this says to me he’s not thinking about an independent bid.

One other comment I’ll make on this idea. Personally, I think too much bipartisianship is a bad idea. Consider the phrase “single party state”. Quick- name a couple of countries that have had single party states. Can you name some from both sides of the ideological spectrum? How’d they work out? What sort of goverments come out of single party states? Now, explain to me, with these examples clearly in mind, why a single “centrist” political party is a good idea in this country?