I have seen a couple of interesting posts in the past few days critiquing the current party system.

Kevin Drum writes about the lack of a center in this country. The two parties have become too extreme. He quotes Joe Trippi who feels that the Internet could be the birth place of a new political party. Drum scoffs.

Quick: can you name any centrist blogs, for example, that get more than 10,000 hits a day? I mean genuinely centrist — moderate but clearly liberal or conservative sites like this one don’t count. I can’t think of a single one, which makes me wonder: if centrism has a future on the internet, where is it going to come from?

Cass Sunstein (I’ll try to get a link up later today) writes that discussion on the Internet is actually death to centricism. The medium forces people to extremes.

I tilt left especially on economic issues, but I try to keep an open mind. I dislike political correctism. And I’m not shy about pointing out idiocy when I see it. But often I feel that this doesn’t play well on the Internet where people like slogans and short cuts. I don’t know. I’m going to keep doing what I do, but I’ve been thinking that Cass’s argument has a lot of merit.

But that was a tangent. Drum was talking about a need for a new centrist party.

Dan Drezner also had a post which speaks of elitism of leaders in both parties.

If there is one thing that too many modern-day Democrat and Republican party elites share, it’s a mild contempt for the average American. For Democrats, Americans are obese spendthrifts susceptible to faith-based argumentation at the expeense of logic and evidence. For Republicans, Americans are obese spendthrifts susceptible to the temptations of a debased popular culture at the expense of moral probity.

Is the time ripe for a new third party? What would it look like?