I'd pay money to see something like that today.
/johnny
Errrr, the Oreinstein thesis about moving to the center is nonsense. There is NO center in American politics. There are only two large coalitions that capture all segments of American society including class, income, physical location, geography, occupations, lifestyles, etc.
With single member districts it's simply impossible to create any sort of different political structure ~ it will always take 50% + 1 vote to win an election.
The losers are forced to form a coalition as well.
Consequently America's political spectrum is not laid out on a BELL SHAPED CURVE ~ rather it's best described as a bi-modal saddle!
Back to the "center", it doesn't exist. However entire factions or large chunks of factions occasionally jump from one poll to another.
E.g. blacks moved to the Democrats in two large well known events we can call ROOSEVELT and JOHNSON
Southern whites moved to the Republicans in about 4 smaller steps ~ twice with Nixon and twice with Reagan, and possibly earlier with Eisenhower, again twice. The latest movement was with George Bush.
Obama's election saw some backsliding when Southerners once again listened to the Socialists siren song of pie in the sky and new blocks for your old car parked in the side yard.
I think Souvrn'rs are over that now.
Republicans haven't dragged anybody to the Right, there being no such creature here, but they have hurt the Democrats in recent elections ~ and the TEA Party faction within the coalition has hurt the Reacharound guys ~ formerly known as bipartisans, their time has come and gone ~ about 12 years ago. Nobody is looking for bipartisanship anymore since the Democrats have been taken over by the 15% who subscribe to cold hard Stalinist socialist theory.