The problem really is in the system. Romney started off pretty moderate as well, then went whacko ultra right which led to an easy take down when his politics were compared to his record a few years before. Had he owned it, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the nomination, but his credibility slipped which may have cost him the Presidency any way. Huntsman owned it, and it also got him no where fast.

Honesty is really where its at for me. I can’t trust Hillary to not have some hidden agenda or to be truthful, but I do have a pretty good idea where she lands on issues. Trump is a wildcard on everything and that is just damn dangerous.

So I’ve made my peace and expect/hope for Hillary to win over Trump, just having a really hard time voting for her.

The political debate in this country must be really skewed when we see Hillary and Trump (or any of the other GOP candidates in this election) as opposite poles of the political spectrum.

What does a center right politician running for president actually look like? The last one I remember was Jon Huntsman, who had a short candidacy the last run-around. In fact, there don’t appear to be too many moderate conservatives out there at all. There used to be quite a few of them. The only genuine moderate conservatives I can think of who are still around are Colin Powell, Joe Scarborough (former FL congressman), Michael Steele (former RNC Chairman), Lindsay Graham, Steve Schmitt, (former McCain ’08 campaign chairman). But they, and all the rest have been run out of Dodge by the TParty and the Freedom Caucus.

As for extremist Democrats, there aren’t any any more. There aren’t even any real Socialists. Period. None. Zilch. Nada. Oh sure, there are still lefty writers, activists, celebrities a-plenty, but none are actually running or active in electoral politics. Folks like Jesse Jackson, Rev Al, Michael Moore, Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky are not running for office, nor is anyone like them likely to. You’re going to have to face it, The whole political spectrum has red-shifted to the right. All the moderate Republicans have been branded as squishy, RINOS, or (ugh), moderates.

The “far left” of the political spectrum today is somewhere between Hillary and Bernie. And to my taste at least, they are both moderates, extreme middle of the roaders.

Hillary is not the favorite of many Liberals either, but it has little to do with her politics. But to say she is too far left, as the Right is trying to indoctrinate its followers, is simply not true.

The polarization of American politics has one source, one origin, and one villain: the extreme Right. If you want to be a Conservative, fine, but no false equivalencies please. And now, it appears the more moderate, decent and reasonable conservatives are going to have to help pay the price for that.

I certainly don’t like Hillary, but I won’t ever vote for Trump. Maybe I’ll vote Libertarian as a protest vote. There are a lot of people like me who can’t embrace him and are looking for an alternative…any alternative.

If only there was a 3rd party that appealed to moderates on both sides, this could be the year of change from our 2 party holy war.

Since we have no real alternative, my prediction is that this will be the lowest turnout election per capita in recent history. Hillary will win easily by a 20% margin. Probably Republicans will dominate the Senate and House, and we will have 4 more years of the same deadlock and govt shutdowns with both sides blaming each other.

Its going to be just like Tricky Dick and the Bush Baby all over again. Remember how they made excuses for those guys? Once people see which side their bread is buttered on, they will get with the program.

If it weren’t Donald Trump it would be somebody much like him. What’s at work is the same process by which Weimar Germany brought forth Hitler, or somebody much like him. It’s happened many times before.

I’ll happily admit that my guy Bernie’s candidacy is also a product of dissatisfaction with America today. But I’ll pick the guy with the constructive solutions over the guy who promises to just burn it all down. The question is, what percentage of Americans feel that way too? At the moment it’s looking like Bernie’s boat has sailed, to answer my own question.

I’m really kind of a hard-core idealist about democracy. It’s not so much the worst form of government except for all the rest, with all due respect to Winnie. In my view, democracy is the most moral form of government because it aims to maximize self-determination.

And self-determination absolutely must include the right to fuck up, and fuck up big time. Democracy embodies its own permanent Achilles Heel: It isn’t democracy if you can’t give it away.

I can tell you, on an intellectual basis, that I’m proud of American ideals in the abstract, and proud of some the things that America accomplished in the lost past.

But proud to be one of these latter-day Americans? Not so much.