Is there a way to the middle ground?

The American political process is well underway for the 2013 elections and it is readily apparent that the two parties are being pulled more and more towards the extreme positions on what should be the fringes of their ideologies. On the one hand the so-called conservative party is moving rapidly towards a form of theocracy that we take such delight in lambasting in the middle east and on the other side the line between liberalism and socialism is getting more blurry.

The so-called “litmus tests” for both sides have hardened and pulled further apart. Both parties are acting to reign in or disown members who stray to far away from the purity of their strident positions. Positions on social and fiscal issues have become dogma. Out of this stiffening of resolve over positions has come paralysis in Congress and an increasing level of vitriol and finger-pointing.

Having lived through more than 6 decades and many changes in political power, I can state unequivocally that our current set of lawmakers is the worst that we’ve ever had and that the situation in Washington is at its low point. There is no middle ground left, no room to compromise. It’s not just the fault of the Republicans or the Democrats. In fact both must share the blame and both need to be replaced.

In other countries (certainly Great Britain comes to mind), when things get this polarized, new parties spring up to fill the void lef tin the middle. Perhaps it is time for that here. Let the religious extremists on the one side and the socialist on the other side take their parties down those paths to destruction. It’s time for a middle party, a party of moderation and logical compromise, a party more interested in doing what’s right for the country and all of the people than just for an elite or noisy minority.

I know that we have some alternative parties right now – the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and others – but we really don’t currently have a party with a mission statement (probably a platform in political terminology) to be inclusive and to work towards compromise for the good of all. Certainly the current Republican and Democratic parties can’t claim those attributes.

I can see names such as the America First party or the American People’s Party for this centrist new party. And, I can see the possibility of defections by legislative members from both of the extremist parties, as legislators whose beliefs and values reject being forced to toe the line of dogma that both of the traditional parties have adopted.

The interesting thing is that it would take only a very small number of defections or outright wins by centrist candidates to change the balance of power in Washington and force compromise and change. A big part of that change would be the need to negotiate, to compromise, to reach out to others to get anything at all done. Imagine if you will a Senate split 47-48, with5 new members of the centrist party or Congress with a relatively even split and 15-20 centrist party members. The only way to get things done would be with the help of the centrists or with a few defections by traditional party members with a center-leaning bent. Things would change.

As long as we’re imagining things, we might as well tackle how this scenario could happen. The main hold that the political parties have on candidate members is money (no surprise in that). So, now imagine that someone like Warren Buffet, or Bill Gates or some other Bazillionaire decides that enough is enough. Remember that Ross Perot took this route when he ran as a third party candidate. Now suppose that one or two or more of these superrich people decided that enough is enough and decided to provide the seed funding for a new centrist party. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you have real money and with it a real chance to elect those 4-5 Senators and 10 – 20 Congressmen.

If that happened, I suspect that this would become the proverbial snowball rolling downhill, gaining momentum through traditional party defections and continued election successes. Remember t6hat it doesn’t really take that many to break the hold that the traditional parties have on the legislative process. Changing the ingrained, old-boy rules that prevail in the Senate and House would take longer, but what counts is that the votes still need to be counted and add up to majorities to get legislation passed. As soon as you take away the purse-strings as a control mechanism things change.

So there you have it. A modest proposal in this new year to change things, We won’t need to “throw the bums out”, at least not all of them – just don’t elect any new bums on either side. Instead let’s elect people who care more about getting this country going again than testing the religious beliefs of opponents or challenging everyone’s belief in capitalism.