Parties of Principle

During undergrad, I spent some time in the College Libertarians before I realized that I wasn't really a capital-L Libertarian, so much as a disgruntled Republican, dissatisfied with the conservatism that the party actually displayed. And that's become more true during the current administration. Joe Klein offers up a good look at how both parties are failing the public, each in its own way:

The Democrats are boxed into complicated and unpopular positions because they tend to stand on principle—although the principles involved are often antiquated, peripheral and, arguably, foolish. The Republicans, by contrast, have abandoned traditional conservativism to gain political advantage (with the elderly, for instance) or to pay off their stable of corporate-welfare recipients.