We need a new political party

I saw an item on the Huffington Post.com in which former President Bill Clinton says the "new GOP" is making George W. Bush look like a "liberal."
I also saw a recent item there where Clinton "fired back" at Rachel Maddow, who said that Bill Clinton was one of the most successful Republican presidents ever.
I think Clinton might be referring to the Tea Party candidates who are now winning primaries all over the country. Now, the strength of this movement will be shown in the November General Election.
Is the Tea Party shifting the balance of the national debate? Or is it just fracturing the Republican Party? We can't know until the party shows its teeth against the entire electorate in a county or a state. In states where the traditional Republican voters outnumber the traditional Democrats, the Tea Party might have some strength.
In most states, the electorate is usually more evenly divided. Some Republicans are going to stay away from the polls because they don't agree with the extremes the Tea Party represents. So the Tea Party's success in primaries might ultimately help the Democratic Party.
And as for what Maddow said about Clinton, I find that amusing. He was elected because he was a "new" more moderate Democrat. He tried to swing left in his early first term, but the GOP Revolution of 1994 put an end to that. He then began to work with a hostile Congress and got a lot farther by compromising than he did by running and governing from the left.
I understand why he objected to being called Republican. But I think somewhere in the midst of these two stories, there lies the future of the United States.
If there was a political party that was immune to the extremes on both the right and the left, a true centrist political party, this country could work a lot better.
That's what we needs. Most of the people in this country agree on most things. They really do. But the moderate majority is the nice, peaceful folk who live on a fertile plain in between opposing armies.  When those armies want to duke it out, they do it on our land, leaving spoiled earth behind. They divide most of us, asking us to give up on most of the things we think important because we are told THIS one issue is more important than THAT other.
I turned 18 in 1984 and got to vote for president. I think I voted for Ronald Reagan.
Four years later, my choices were George Herbert Walker Bush and Michael Dukakis. I pencilled in a communist candidate, I think, because I knew Dukakis couldn't lead and Bush was stained by the corruption in Ronald Reagan's White House. Iran-Contra, the S&L crisis. It was too much to vote for four more years of that, even though the original George H.W. Bush was more of a moderate than anyone seems to remember. (Voodoo economics.)
I've flipped back and forth. I actually voted for Mark Sanford as governor of South Carolina, for his first term. But not for his second term.
I couldn't put on any particular hat for this election. Obama talked pretty but was being pulled by the extremes. At the same time, he had not done anything of note as a state senator or as a U.S. Senator in the two years of his office he spent before actually turning his attention to running.
I might have voted for the libertarian this time around. I can't remember.
Twice now I've vote in such a way that my ballot might be described as "sending a message."
Doesn't work.
This country needs to be put in the hands of the moderates for a while.We need a moderate political party.
Any takers?

P.S, There were two columns in The Charlotte Observer op-ed today. Not quite a call for a moderate political party. But definitely cries about the extreme voices on each side causing problems.
The GOP misreads American History by David Brooks is one.

We've let the verbal bombers hijack our national discourse by Leonard Pitts is the other.