re: #237 acacia

I suspect (wishfully think?) we may not be too far away from a realignment that may be the end of the GOP as we know it. (At least I hope so.) If the religious right completely takes over the GOP then I can see a centrist fiscally conservative party emerging made up of the saner GOP people, fiscally conservative Dems who hate the more socialist policies that party promotes and Independents who want to get involved. The Dem party will then be more consistent in its left leaning views. The new centrist party then could be effective by siding with the GOP or Dems depending on the issue - a bit of a European model. If that doesn’t happen then we’re in big trouble because I see no end to the polarization of the two parties and the widening gaps in views. It may fracture us for a long time.

I suspect this is why the Tea Partiers are keen to jump on the third party concept, except they are not much better than the religious right in that they are still far from centrist. It’s as though they not only want to hurt the GOP, but damage the concept of a third party as well so any future ideas about fiscally conservative Independents is tainted by their past (currently present) association with tea party weirdos.