Centerfield

Shame Kerry couldn't get him to cross lines and speak at the Democrat convention, like Democrat senator Zell Miller did at the Republican Convention.

It's an even greater shame that moderates of both parties couldn't get together and call both candidates out for the stiffs they are, and then join together behind a bipartisan unity ticket committed to ideals the broad center supports.

it might even include something responsible and adult like telling the people some things they don't want to hear. Even if such an effort lost, if it gained 5 or 10 percent of the vote, it could help set the presidential agenda by making it harder for the president to ignore centrist priorities.

Well said, Brian.

So much for moderates in the GOP. This just shows how little impact moderates have in the GOP. He clearly can't expect to run as a conservative in Rhode Island and have any chance and, by the same token, he is pretty much acknowledging that his future in the Republican Party is limited at best. So, he is basically running his own party in Rhode Island. The rest of the party is probably laughing at him.

MWS,

Susan Collins, Christie Todd Whitman, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel are not moderates? Give me a break, one guy jumps ship and your ready to declare that moderates have no power in the GOP. This is a guy that most moderates consider to be a liberal, BTW. FYI, I have worked with the Governor of Rhode Island who is very conservative on economic issues although liberal on social ones and he came from nowhere to beat a Democratic office holder. I think the theory that Republicans can't win in Rhode Island without being Democrats is flawed, at best.

Mathew,

You are correct about the GOP in New England.

And you know what I think is a major difference that moderates show: they reject the politics-is-war, winner-take-all, damn the libruls and full speed ahead politics of DeLay, Norquist, Gingrich. Me? I live in Texas. Guess which group dominates here?

Pssst! I hear Zell Miller is going to vote for a Republican. Don't tell anyone.

I honestly feel your pain, Erasmus. Dallas area, right? The GOP down there annoys me too. It always feels to me that if the party there got any whiter and more rabidly evangelical it'd turn into a giant tent revival. Not big moderate country of any stripe. Not as much big hair country as it used to be, though.

I grew up near Houston (at NASA). That's in Houston now.