quote:

ORIGINAL: MissSCD

My opinion is this as far as my party is conserned.  We lose either way we go.  Both parties are so far to the right and left that they have lost touch with reality. 
They really need to use focus groups again to regroup.

Regards, MissSCD

quote:

ORIGINAL: ArtCatDom

quote:

ORIGINAL: MissSCD

My opinion is this as far as my party is conserned.  We lose either way we go.  Both parties are so far to the right and left that they have lost touch with reality. 
They really need to use focus groups again to regroup.

Regards, MissSCD

I think the problem is exactly the opposite. Neither party is very far to the left or right. Instead, they are both keen on some blasphemous hybrid baby (that people generally call neo-conservatism or post-trotskyist socialism). They differ in rhetoric on a few mainly social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.), but are not so different when it comes to the "moderate" voting pattern on those issues. Democrats, for example, generally support the mainstream Republican restrictions on abortion, just with a few more exceptions for women's health. On the other side, Republicans generally support the mainstream Democratic restrictions on gun ownership, just with a few exceptions excluding silly cosmetic rules (like the assault weapons ban). The rhetoric tends towards the extremes (it's called "rallying the base"), but the practice makes them very often non-distinct. They both, in practice, support a large centralized and intrusive federal government. As another example, examine the foreign policy positions of the Dems and Reps. The Dems talk "soft" and the Reps talk "hard" about Iraq, but there is little practical distinction between the parties. Does anyone with half a brain actually take any Dem seriously about their "bring the troops home" rhetoric, when that homecoming is several years off?

Ron Paul on the Republican side represents someone truly far to the right and Dennis Kucinich similarly represents the "real" left with the Democracts. Nearly all of the other candidates are fairly indistinguishable from each other, in that they all have essentially the same policy platform with rhetorical but not practical differences.

*meow*