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Originally Posted by arch13
The way I read the agreement, the Dem's have agreed not to filibuster anyone broadly perceived as moderate. The problem there is the difference in what moderate is between the two current party's (And I think we need to remember that they are only the two current party's, as they have not always existed, and will not always exist.)
I worry even more that our bicameral legislature is quickly becoming devoid of moderates, or even those that vote based on their constituatncy instead of a current party line.
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This might be off-topic, but I'm not sure if the statement I bolded is true. This is the longest period (so far) where the two major parties have been the same. I was thinking a while ago that maybe the current polarization is an offspring of the parties gettting settled in. And it's not like there weren't ample opportunites for alternate parties to overtake either the Dems or Reps, yet they have maintained in power. People have been born over 3 generations thinking not just that it's a two-party system, but that it's a Dem-Rep system. This might be leading to people becoming more and more ingrained into one of the two parties earlier, and therefore less likely to change (either by accepting their parent's views, or rejecting them). It also seems that elections are less and less about convincing people to vote for your candidate, but more and more about getting your base to vote (which is one of the reasons that I think that the dems lost, and that Howard Dean might have had a better shot).
What might this have to do with the filibuster situation? Those 14 "moderates" might have just cut their own throats politically. One thing that many repubs and dems have agreed about with the agreement is that they don't like it (even though they differ why they don't like the agreement). Another is that they pretty much went against their own party leadership, which might lose them key support, or even lead to challenges internally for their seats, or important senate posts.