Ramesh Ponnuru writes about them.

When the National Review is pointing this stuff out, you know that the elephants are in trouble. I hope they can get their act together, because the thought of the donkeys being in charge, given their recent (and not-so-recent) behavior is (still) even more frightening. It's depressing, really.

Personally, I do not want either party "in charge"

Maybe they aren't "in trouble" maybe they are a "big tent?"

Parties, even Jefferson said was an insult to democracy, even though he was the FIRST nominee of the FIRST political party, but that is beside the point. Parties, DO remove the authority of the people from government, but in a lot of ways, thats not exactly a bad thing, I know more really really stupid people, I don't mean people who are less intelligent than me, I'm not that arrogant, I mean REALLY stupid people, who get to voice an opinion. Democracy in it's pure form is the QUICKEST path to autocracy.

"Personally, I do not want either party "in charge""

thats why people need to vote democratic in 06. any sort of balance to the power is a good thing.

"Parties, even Jefferson said was an insult to democracy, even though he was the FIRST nominee of the FIRST political party, but that is beside the point."
Parties are a natural consequence of political competition. If you need to push an issue through a legislature, you band together a lot of political allies to do this. The opposing side does the same. Bam - two parties.

I think some of this stuff stinks too. I support the Republicans because they're not suicidal. The Democrats are incapable of responding appropriately to an enemy. They're in love with anyone that stands against America (Stalin, Castro, Chavez, Arafat...).

I also support them because they appear to be the least opposed to letting capitalism work (though it seems they can't restrain their own pork spending).

But then they go and focus on stupid stuff, like gay marraige, and they support unconstitutional measures like "campaign finance reform".

I suppose this is a case where if one dominant party is loony, suicidal, and anti-American, the other party can get away with anything because, hey, we're not unhinged.

I want both parties in charge. Simultaneously. Gridlock isn't as good as libertarianism, but it's about as close as we can hope to get these days. Gingrich v. Clinton was nice.

I don't know if it is so much they percieve themselves in trouble as they are finally adopting the Democrats Dirty Tricks Playbook and using it against them.

From the article:
"For a majority to restrict the freedom of others to try to boot them out is pretty much a textbook definition of the abuse of power, isn't it?"

He seems to be getting here a little late, huh? Just what exactly does he think McCain-Feingold was other than an effort to protect those in charge? And did he think it was a good thing when Congress intervened in the Terry Schiavo case, or on the issue of baseball steroids use?

I believe in the seven year rule for power--no government official, and no political body, should be allowed to rule for more than seven years. That's the point where they run out of ideas and either get stale or power-crazed. Bring in fresh blood at that point and you keep things working.

I've also come to the conclusion that Republican control of the White House and Congress has actually been a _bad_ thing for Republican values. Does anybody believe that we would have gotten the prescription drug plan--all hundreds of billions of dollars of it--if Bush was not able to force Congress to approve it? Bush was able to push through big spending legislation because Congress would not oppose him. Divided government is a better way to restrain government.

Between corruption and active treason, I'll vote for corruption any day. Anyone who disagrees can consider the spectacle of President Gore's SOTU address on September 12 ("It's all our fault for not passing Kyoto..."), or what the Democratic-majority Congress would'be done about the War on Terror by now ("What do you MEAN, impeaching Bushy McHitler didn't convince the Iranians to stop their nuclear program!? Oh well, we'll just have to get used to the Great Glass Lake of Los Angeles... because fighting back is warmongering and that's baad.")

If you want to change the party you're registered in, do it in the primaries; that's what they're for.