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[quote=Anonymous][quote=TheManWithAUsername]I think there are two different things going on. There will probably always be a bunch of uninformed people (or even informed people - say, Jon Stewart) with vague fantasies that all we need is compromise, i.e., policies somewhere between those espoused by the two major parties. Since both parties keep moving right, that position keeps moving right, and since the right's propaganda machine is so effective, people keep thinking that the Dems are much more aggressively left than they are.

The other issue is that the Dems in office aren't doing nearly enough to improve things - "improving things" now being nearly synonymous with "oppose Republicans." The WaPo guy suggests that that criticism is just a rhetorical ploy by those fantasizing about a third party, but I think even most Dems agree with the criticism since the debt ceiling bludgeoning.

There are at least as many Dems convincing themselves that their leaders are doing everything they can as there are uninformed people blindly wishing for compromise.[/quote]

Hmm.  I'm not sure this is exactly right.  There's a difference between Dems "convincing themselves that their leaders are doing everything they can", and Dems (and others) believing that the sorts of centrist policy proposals that "everyone agrees on" are the ones the Dems are pursuing--successfully or unsuccessfully.

Obama and the (largely) centrist Dems may not be very effective at pushing the centrist agenda, but that's a different argument from saying they're not pursuing it at all.  It could well be that the Broderesque dream of a "centrist third party" is not only infeasible from a electoral perspective, but from a governing one as well.

It's just too easy in our existing government for radical elements to shut down the process--especially with a Senate where miniscule rural minorities are allowed super-representation.  (The Dakotas have *four* Senators with 1.2 million people.  California, in contrast, has half that number of Senators with 37 million voters.  Frankly, this holdover from the slave-states demands is a criminal disgrace, even without the filibuster.)[/quote]

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