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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (146128)	10/3/2010 2:02:44 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540820

Looks like the center in the electorate is roughly 15-20% not strongly allied to either party; they alternately get enamored with then disgusted by one side or the other, rushing back and forth like frantic passengers on a sinking ferry. Obama had a majority of them when his approval rating was 60% then lost them with the healthcare mish-mash. The ranks of moderate politicians shrink with every election, and sensible journalists are definitely a minority in a media world where volume and extremism get the best ratings. Put all those together and you are exactly right, there is no starting point for a viable centrist movement. People like Friedman are engaging in wishful thinking by default.

To: JohnM who wrote (146128)	10/3/2010 2:18:04 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540820

John; Whew, it is hard responding to you who is responding to Benen who is responding to what Freidman said, but I'll try. I think you via Benen are missing Friedmans point when you say; All Friedman's problems point to government solutions--more government, not less; yet the tp types are simply angry at government. Read Freedman again as this is what he said in conclusion; “These two parties are lying to you. They can’t tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world’s leaders, not the new Romans.” This isn't about the TP - in fact I don't think it was mentioned in either article. It's about a broken government that is being held hostage to special interest, ....We need to stop waiting for Superman and start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now. Pretty good is not even close to good enough today. .....You can blame the TP all you want but that isn't the problem. As Friedman says, Obama did as good as he could and even with good majorities in both houses was unable to get much done that the angry middle want accomplished.