The political pendulum

Barry Ritholtz wrote a scathing political article the other day, entitled 'The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations'.  If you intend to vote then you owe it to your country to take a minute and read that article.  If you identify yourself as a Democrat or Republican then Barry and I think that you are still in denial.

If you think that one party is 'for the people' and the other party is 'for business' then you need to get your head out of the sand and go look at the voting records.  Both parties are for business, because it is business that donates missions of dollars to their slush fund campaigns.

I'm not a big fan of the tea party.  Mostly what I see from the tea party is knee-jerk reactionary rhetoric, and little to no substance.  My biggest concern about Obama was that he sounded great but had very little in the way of realistic substantive policy ideas.  The policy ideas he did relate were impossible (close Guantanamo, leave Iraq and Afghanistan, universal healthcare, etc.)  The tea party is reacting to Obama by trying to sound as smooth and offering the similarly (but generally opposite) vague and impossible policies.  There has to be another way.

I ran into a website from a guy who is trying to establish a third way: Moderate Voters.org.  Here's the description from the About page:

Too often our political parties and elected officials have been unduly influenced by the extremes of the Far Right and the Far Left.  We'd like to change that.

We are Americans who believe our elected officials should be less concerned about the welfare of their political parties and more concerned about the welfare of their nation.  We should be Americans first and Democrats / Republicans second.

We are voters who believe our government can serve a valuable purpose in our lives.  Americans should be guaranteed every opportunity for success.  However, Americans should not be guaranteed success for every opportunity.

We are aware history has shown candidates of the major political parties often catering to the extremes of their respective parties during the primaries and then aligning their views more with moderates when approaching the general elections.  Unfortunately for moderates, this has left us with a choice of the "lesser of two evils".  We want to develop a greater presence during the primaries so that more moderates are selected as candidates.

We have less need for public masters and more need for public servants.  We are a well-educated, compassionate group of men and women of all ages, races, colors and creeds.  We are knowledgeable of today's events and are able to generate informed opinions.  We expect our elected officials to heed the voices of their constituents rather than the voices of special interests.

We have learned from our friends of the Far Right and the Far Left that we need to be as vocal and passionate about our views as they are of theirs.  For our views are no less reasoned than theirs.  Our goals, no less important.  Our beliefs, no less honorable.

We are moderates.  And we vote.

I'm not positive that this is the right answer, but they are on the right track.

By the way, if you care about the economy, business, and politics then Barry's blog needs to be on your daily reading list.  His only bias is that he wants the market to perform better.