As usual, Thomas PM Barnett puts his finger on the exact point I wanted to make: >>Preserving the middle in American politics
I hope Joe Lieberman wins as an independent. I also hope that McCain blows his top in the GOP primary, craps out, and then also runs for president as an independent. I hope Hillary's refusal to be Democratic enough also forces her out. I'd love Newt running independent too.
I am--in short--in complete agreement with David Brooks, whose description of Party No. 3, or what he calls the McCain-Lieberman Party, is simply brilliant: refuses to drop the Long War (or Iraq), will raise taxes and cut spending, will push free trade but invest in human capital, and will skip the diversionary culture wars-without-end.
The best stretch:
The McCain-Lieberman Party is emerging because the war with Islamic extremism, which opened new fissures and exacerbated old ones, will dominate the next five years as much as it has dominated the last five. It is emerging because of deep trends that are polarizing politics. It is emerging because social conservatives continue to pull the GOP rightward (look at how Representative Joe Schwarz, a moderate Republican, was defeated by a conservative rival in Michigan). It is emerging because highly educated secular liberals are pulling the Democrats upscale and to the left. (Lamont's voters are rich, and 65 percent call themselves liberals, compared with 30 percent of Democrats nationwide).
So which main party absorbs this emerging third?
Here Brooks saddens me, but I believe, in my gut, he's probably right:
John McCain and Hillary Clinton will try to reconcile their centrist approaches with the hostile forces in their own parties. And maybe they will succeed (McCain has a better chance, since the ideologues on the right feel vulnerable while the ideologues on the left, perpetually two years behind the national mood, think the public wants more rage).
Plus, Brooks points out, we Dems are stuck with Nancy Pelosi for the next two years, which should just about kill any chance for a White House win in 2008.
Ouch! Sad but true.
The Party of Nancy Pelosi-George Clooney-DailyKos-Ned Lamont will be fun to watch, but watch it I will from the distance. Can't join a party that won't let you in.
Sad to say, I fear Hillary isn't up to that challenge, given Brooks' key notion of the Dems Left's tendency to steer by its wake.
Thus the Center is left with the routinely self-destructive temper that is John McCain.
Hmm. Maybe Esquire was right to have him on the current cover...
thomaspmbarnett.com
Link to Brook's OP-ED, subscription only: "Party No. 3: An insurgency of the rational," by David Brooks, New York Times, 10 August 2006, p. A23.
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