Now, while I like Joe Klein more than many of my blogospheric peers, I also know it's true that he's sometimes susceptible to the siren song of centrism. So when you try for a sweeping bipartisan movement and he slaps down the idea, you probably should pack it in. In a post titled "Bad Idea", he writes:
New York Mayor Bloomberg's idea for a summit meeting of aging moderate poobahs to discuss an independent third party seems a bit moldy to me. Not that I'm opposed to centrism--as regular readers of Swampland know very well, I'm sort of an aging moderate not-quite-poobah myself. But there is no real potential for a moderate third party this year, and no real need for it, either. [...] Every four years, we get a group of high-minded Mugwumps who are just shocked and appalled by the messiness of the democratic process and yearn for something more pristine.
I love it! He goes on to explain why this is true, citing reasons more detailed (but similar to) mine, and I couldn't agree more.
