And that’s the best you have to contribute?
-Joe
What do you have to contribute? Because I haven’t seen it.
He’s not really citing his post as evidence for something, just linking to a relevant debate in another thread. It’s handy if people are interested in the other topic, makes it so BG doesn’t have to repeat arguments he’s already writen out at length in the OP in his other thread, and also serves to keep this thread from being hijacked by a repeat of a debate that’s already been done elsewhere.
With BrainGlutton’s limited experience at the Dope, he is apparently in need of suggestions on what is appropriate and what isn’t. 
Hang in there, BG! You might want to lurk for a while to see how it’s done.
It is also annoying to make irrelevant ad hoc complaints about other posters’ styles. The reason for his citation has been provided. Had you included a swipe at BrainGlutton as an addendum to a thorough refutation of his point, I would not much care, but posting only to complain about a reference does nothiong to promote the discussion, here.
If you need to criticize other posters instead of their posts, take it to the Pit.
{ /Moderating ]
I’m undecided about whether a multi-party system would truly be better as far as the current debate is concerned. Parties in such systems have to build consensus with other (usually similar-minded) groups, buts it’s entirely possible for a once moderate party to align itself with a more fringe party in order to garner a majority. It would possible, for example, that a Moderate Republican-like Party would join forces with a Moral Majority-like Party to win elections and thereby make a lot of fatal compromises in doing so. It wouldn’t be all that different in effect to the current situation.
I agree that the Democratic Party is diseased to some extent as well, but it hasn’t lately made the kind of “deals with the Devil” that the Republican Party has made in recent years in order to achieve hegemony. The Democratic Party suffers from some degree of corruption and disunity, but I don’t see that same degree of pandering to the fringe, which has characterized the GOP for the past decade+.
It should be very interesting to see whether Giuliani can hold the top spot through the primary season, since he would seem to be at odds with who the Republicans had been courting as their base. I’m guessing that the Bible Belt Christian right is ultimately not going to like the fact that he was (and perhaps still is) an abrasive New Yorker, that he supposedly can’t make up his mind on hotbed wedge issues like abortion, or that he committed marital infidelity in a rather embarrassing public scandal. And there are yet a good number of New Yorkers who STILL aren’t that fond of him for his tenure as mayor. He has a lot of name recognition for 9/11, naturally, but how far that will get him in the long run is anyone’s guess.
None of the other leading GOP candidates appear much more conservative, that much is certain. Perhaps the time of the centrist has indeed come.
If there is indeed a long-term demographic shift for the Dems, this lends some credence to the notion that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen and that Karl Rove’s strategy of creating a permanent Republican majority is a response to that shift. Rove’s knowledge of demographic data and political polling are legendary: surely he cannot be unaware of these trends. He feels his conservative ideology is at risk in a truly democratic system, therefore he attempts to subvert the system so consevatives may politically impose their will on a more liberal majority.
Republican attempts to impose unverfiable, easily hacked electronic voting systems and to replace Federal district attorneys with party hacks thus becomes more obvious for what they are, within these lights: further attempts to subvert the electoral process to Republican, hence conservative, ends.
OTOH, it is possible that under a multiparty system (which would require electoral reforms such as proportional representation) the two or three most centrist parties would form a more or less stable coalition, freezing out the extremes of right and left except as shrill-but-never-to-be-silenced dissident voices. And it would be a more or less stable coalition, since most voters are self-identified centrists.
Would that be different from the current situation? I think so. A centrist coalition would push our political center-of-gravity considerably to the left of where it is at present.
Put another way: If the UK ever does move to PR like Tony Blair promised back in 1997 (well, he did at least promise a referendum on it), the LibDems might be in a more influential position than they are now – but they still wouldn’t be running the show.
More’s the pity. Of course, in the eyes of the right wing, the Dems have no need to make any deal with the Devil. 
Agreed. Perhaps this thread should have been titled, “The demographic collapse of the conservative movement.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2007/March/partyAffliationMarch2007.htm
I see Bush and Cheney as Thelma and Louise, and the Republican party as a 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Although in my ending, the final shot is much more noisy and explody.