Yes, well that pendulum swings, and sometimes it just stops. I'm fascinated to see what a coalition government will bring, and wish David Cameron and his associates well in building it.

I would suggest, Saturn, that your inability to see it stems from a lack of interest and openess to looking for it within the Republican party. I worked in a presidential campaign and later in a congressional campaign. My grandfather ran as a republican in Massachusetts for congress before I was born, losing by 300 votes.

The rancorous subset found on the television and talking head shows no more represents the general interests of center right individuals in this country anymore than some of the nuttier statements coming from Nancy Pelosi on her bad days or some of the other, more colorful characters.

Main Street America might not be sexy or provocative, but it is fairly temperate. Lots of small business owners or folks leading pretty simple lives trying to raise families, save a little for college and retirement and be left alone. They do not like the debt load. They do not mind helping folks in need, but they bristle a little at those they perceive as not doing much of their own initiative to strengthen their lot in life. (That would be the personal accountability component and WHY the right should applaud Obama any time he starts talking about the value and need for strong family ties.)

And there's a great concentration of those folks in the middle who are tuning out the extreme rhetoric of both sides. Dismissing parties based on the lightning rods given air time on content-starved 24/7 news channels without looking more deeply into the composition of the less affiliated electorate underestimates many, many aspects.

The more the left thinks in this dismissive fashion, the better the prospects for the right. (And vice versa.)

GW, I'm not saying I think it's impossible -- but I really can't see a plausible path for this current group to make the change. The membership of the party would have to change radically; the definition would have to change. But I'm open to the possibility that they'll find a path, or a David Cameron of their own. In fact, I think that's what would have to happen -- new leadership of the Cameron variety.

It only took him 9 years to become the party leader.

Saturn: Those types are generally going to be rummaging around at the state level. Governors typically do make better presidential aspirants as they HAVE actually run something as opposed to being one of 435 or one of 100.

A guy like Romney just might be able to resonate as he is a businessman first and a politician second. Yeah, yeah, he has had the flip flop on social issues, showing 1) he gives two hoots about them and 2) just how politically tone deaf he can be on those matters.

But, get him going on economic matters and he is fascinating to listen to. When he ran against Ted Kennedy, Ted managed to hang him with some of the layoffs he had had to do at companies Bain bought and took private to turn around. It was a cheap shot, frankly, but an effective one. I would have loved to have seen him respond with something along the lines of "Yeah, I laid of 2,500 on short notice, but I saved 10,000 by getting the cost structure in line. It was difficult. It was messy. It was painful, but it was necessary. And, with our government deficits, we need to ...."

Social issues such as gay rights cut largely along age lines, with mid 40s a real delimiter on support or opposition there. So the aging boomers and WWII guys are going to be dying off.

Who knows who's coming up the ranks? Where was Barak Obama 7 years ago?

This time around is NOT an anti republican or anti democrat sentiment, this time around is an anti incumbent sentiment. There was high hopes when obama got in. (Ridiculously high and unrealistic.) And now that hope has turned to frustration. It doesn't really auger well for either side. Doubtful a centrist party can emerge marginalizing one or the other, although that is what happened with the brits in the 1970s, (*I think* as I recall from my Poly sci classes in England from my year abroad in a beer fueled haze). Labour and Liberal Dems have jockeyed back and forth as the relevant party.

Put bible thumpers clamoring for creationism on one side and left leaners arguing for 90% top tax rates and a social program for every ailment on the other, and let some pragmatic numbers counters with a sense of policy fairness take a crack at it in the middle with ear muffs on while the two extremes keep yelling at one another.

We already have a Tory-LibDem coalition in the United States. It's called Obama Democrats.

Just between you and me, I think gwool doth protest too much. I know many people who in an older day might have been called "mainstream Republicans." And what I find is a profound sense of alienation from the Tea Party rabid dogs and the Christian fundies.

I would love to see the return of new Nelson Rockefellers. However, until such time as the GOP wingnuts get hosed in every part of the US except for the Bible Belt and Mormon country, I fail to see how the vast right wing conspiracy will be disloged from the Grand Old Party.

Personally, Being a British person..I don't think that this will last..The fact that the Liberals are already divided on this and that the Conservative backers are already at odds with Cameron because they agreed a power sharing deals is going to kill this county.

The hung election showed that the British public..might I add the ones that managed to get the vote in as hundreds or thousands got turned away in Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, etc no British person actually believes in any of the parties.

What would have been better is Brown staying in for another 6 months until a leader could prove themselves that they were the right person to take it forward

I guess time will tell however.

The fiscal and military realities and social realities too, all point to a really reactionary America in which people like me are at home, sorry.

Can't see the repubs going Cameron anytime soon. They'd need a hell of a long time out of the White House with minorities in the Senate and Congress before there was impetus to try something other than rabble-rousing, pandering negativity. These conditions won't be there anytime soon.

Labor was in power 15 years. That gave the Tories plenty of time to think about what their values were, what the Brits wanted, and how the twain could meet.

The Republicans, more particularly the more rabid ones are still high on the last 8 years. They want to extend power. One they are left out in the cold for long enough, they'll figure out how to dump the toxic elements.

Although I must say, the US has a very different system from the UK. In the US, the party plays a lesser role in picking candidates.

Very good article. The current political atmosphere in this country seems to be toxic. We will see what November brings us. I made a post titled "Bridge Over the River Patriot" that addresses where I believe we are in this country politically. If you get a chance, take a look at it and give me your comments. Thanks.

It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to make the cover of OS.

All you have to do is bash anything that isn't liberal, and you can make.

A simple copy and paste job with some whining at the end.

The "editors" should be embarrassed.

The Republican Party in the USA is little more than the puppet of the wealthy corporations . I suspect the same of the Tories in the UK. While corporations are pragmatic enough to be financially involved in any major political party, they are more than contributors to the GOP, they are the GOP. They have been successful with a small but vocal segment of the American middle class that we know as the Tea Party. These individuals are convinced that the same policies that have decimated their numbers since the 1970's will somehow provide them with renewed prosperity - if they only work hard and get the government out of the way. What they are missing is that without the government "in the way", the corporations will continue to devour them.
The Democrats in the USA have failed to protect our middle class, labor in particular, and I suspect the Labor party in the UK may have done the same, giving rise to the Liberal Democrats. The question becomes, in both nations, how do the wealthy controllers of government appease the disenfranchised? Our American and UK middle class has been supported by economic bubbles for the past 30 years. Now that the bubbles have burst, the challenge for the GOP and Tory parties is to find another way to con the middle class and retain their support. The GOP is doing it with propaganda to the Tea Party. Will the Tories do the same with the Liberal Democrats?

Relatively conservative people in this country always overinterpret changes in Europe, both when they move right and when they move left. The right wing in Great Britain, after all, got less than a majority and is in power only because they were willing to cut a deal with the left-of-center Liberal Democrats, promising them an election law referendum so they can translate their one-fourth-of-the-votes performance to something better than one-in-ten representatives.
Labour (Labor?) got a drubbing as the party in power during the disastrous days of the Great Recession, the bailout of the banks, and the Tony Blair/Gordon Brown involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps the major result was, Hallelujah!, a significant Third Party.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum has never been a good choice.
Now if election law changes allow this wonderful result to continue.
Just think if a Third Party could "make it" here in the rigged political system of the USA.