Thinking back to March

Months ago I post a piece called futureworld. The topic was populism. Not to toot my on horn too much, but this is still the future of politics for the next 8-10 years, maybe (hopefully) longer. Jim Webb, John Tester, Claire McCaskill are all examples of this king of politics. John McCain on the other side was a good example until recently, John Warner also.

Over the past 40 years I think we can see the danger of ideological politics. It seems to me that the inevitably get us into a war that is impossible to win (ie. Vietnam or Iraq.) They also sharply divide the country and force Americans to take "sides," in a political war of theory.

The future of this country would be be best protected with the elimination of the so called "wedge issues." Public financing of campaigns would assist that, but that in an of itself could spiral into a wedge issue. But the solution is to put these issues to the public. The GOP should follow along with this if the DEM's agree to do it on a state by state basis, and then they can in turn agree that in the instance of a national consensus a national regulation would be enacted.

Neither DEM's or GOP's will win all of these battles, but the idea is not for either of them to win. It is for the country to win. I'm sure that I will eventually eat my own words, but it seems to me that it would be the best compromise the parties could make, listening to the people - instead of trying to tell them what to think.