Just wondering: There are days that I wonder if the GOP is beyond saving. With reports of bribing and forcing members to vote a certain way, the loss of the core principle of fiscal disciplne, the increasing anti-gay rhetoric and the embrace of instrusive government, all I can see is a party that has become corrputed. This doesn't mean I'm going to be a Democrat any time soon. While I agree on the ends with my fellow Democrats, I don't always agree with the means. I still adhere to fiscal disciplne and to the belief that government must stay out of certain aspects of our lives.

What if moderate Republicans finally showed some back bone and left the party? What if the remaining number of moderates in Congress walked out and stated to either form a new party or sit as independents as James Jeffords did in 2001? The only that the far right has been able to get so far is because we have allowed it. We voted for Bush in 2000 thinking he would run a moderate ship. We never really questioned Bush or forced him to uphold certain policies like the environment. Instead we took him at his word. Well, we see how far that got us.

I do wonder at time if the time is ripe to start a new center-right party. I'm not talking about a Reform style "we're not Republicans or Democrats, but we don't know who we are" party, but one based on some solid principles. In short, to be a party based on traditional Republican principles espoused by Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt. What if there were a party based on the center-right Christian Democrats most well known in Germany and Chile?

The Republicans have become synonymous with narrow-mindedness and callousness. They have dropped the conservatism of Edmund Burke and became a nationalist party more based on a southern-style "old boys" politics based on the power than it is based on principle.

It's nice to think about, but part of me thinks it is just wishful thinking. I don't think moderates have the fire in their belly to strike out on their own.

I would love to be proven wrong, though.