I only visit here occasionally now, and seldom see a post that I feel strongly enough about to reply to. But the subject matter of yours almost forced me to log-in and reply.

Addressing the heart of your thesis, I join you in truly hoping that the GOP somehow comes to its senses and creates a platform and puts up candidates that will enjoy success in future elections. I can't imagine that even the most committed and farthest left of the liberals would desire what seems to be developing as a one-party system. That's not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, nor is it the system that has worked best thruout our history.

I have described myself as a fiscal conservative and a social moderate--a slightly left-leaning centrist. But underlying all that, I'd like to think I'm a pragmatist. There's little sense, I think, in maintaining political objectives that are either not obtainable or so rooted in ideology that one feels that no governance is better than any that might vary from a few underlying and unchangeable beliefs. The direction that the far, far right members of the GOP seem to be taking the party has left me with little choice than to vote for the Democrats, even though they sometimes stray too far to the left for my liking. The GOP has been accurately described as "the party of NO" as the result of their unwillingness to participate in the political process, even though the result is damage to our economy and society.

I think that Arlen Specter's explanation of why he changed parties precisely describes why I left the GOP beginning in the 2004 elections. I pray that the "silent majority" of the electorate--who seem to be far closer to the center than the partisan idealogues trying to steer the GOP and the Democrats even farther towards the left and right fringes--fail and fail in a hurry. I only hope that we're presented with political choices in the future that are closer to the actual desires of a huge number of Americans. That's certainly not going to happen if the hard-liners on either side are permitted to further influence our political choices.