Richie: The way I look at it is as follows..

If the Democrats, according to their historical rhetoric, had their way, they would try to eliminate the deficit with tax hikes on "the rich" with a liberal definition of "rich".

Given that Obama has come across with cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs, that shows me a spirit of compromise.

The Republicans would like to cut the deficit entire through spending cuts. They haven't budged an inch.

So the classic example of one versus the other is that the Republicans want to cut programs for the poor and save tax havens for the rich while the middle class gets squeezed yet again.

This is why I seem to be backing the Democrats. I'm not happy with them by any stretch of the imagination. I don't believe in their base plank of government solutions. But in the past years, when a Democrat has been in the White House, they've moved to the center. The GOP, on the other hand, has moved more towards the right. Ronald Reagan would be a centrist Democrat by today's standards.