In between there's an empty plain of "independents' ~ who don't participate, and "moderates" who don't exist in the numbers some believe, and otherwise it's just a fringe of political thought ~ more like a desert than something tangible.
Given the math of winning in this country each large party pretty much divides up the voters ~ which makes, on the average, all races tight ~ 50/50 almost.
That gives small groups of highly motivated partisans the opportunity to switch the vote to either large coalition party.
The way you win an election is to hold your base (even if they don't like you), and try to peel off a faction from the other large party sufficient to get 50%+1 vote.
This year we have a special situation ~ the current ruling party is so disliked that they will probably lose more seats than in their history since the Civil War. Their candidate will receive far fewer votes this time than last time, and if West Virginia is a bellweather to this, Obama should drop nearly 20%, since this isn't getting better.
The Republican candidate, good old what's his name, is not terribly popular with the Republican base ~ he could easily come in 20% under normal vote total and the professionals (we call them Establishment-e) would not detect that happening since they have their gaze FIXED on the relative difference between the two coalition party nominees.
I doubt the Establishment-e prognosticators can think about the election dynamics this year sufficiently to recognize the disaster that may befall chunks of the Republican party in this election. The Democrat eqivalent know what's coming but they try to avoid talking about it ~ which is why they want to talk about gay sex, gay marriage, sex change operations, condoms for college girls, and other items of that sort.
A rational person might ask why we end up with both major parties popping up with candidates who are in so much electoral trouble that no one knows if either can win?
An answer would take more time than I care to take and some here would call it "whining", but the fact is we have a RACE TO THE BOTTOM and the pros are not able to call it since this is literally unprecedented.
So, what to do? Where can our small faction within a faction put its limited resources to make sure WE get what we want in the end, and we also get rid of Obama.
First, the only way Romney can get our support is he has to crawl on broken glass and go to Jim Robinson and apologize for being pro-gay and engaging in actions that make abortion easier to get and for having run off to Massachusetts. Second, he needs to commit to getting Jim an appointment to the Cabinet, or maybe a subcabinet position.
Third, I get a job too ~ as do a number of others here.
America can only prosper from the insertion of real Conservatives in the government's top echelon ~
Anything short of that and I don't think we can help him.
Good thoughts there, muawiyah. But I would guess that broken glass isn’t enough for Jim.
How ‘bout Mittens entirely fund Free Republic from his campaign fund, become a Christian and let his hair go gray for starters.
Also he needs to publicly apologize to Newt and Santorum.
And I don’t like turkey subs with mustard, Gov. Next time we want mayo.
I want the position of EPA executioner.