DAVID BROOKS: Well, my first reaction was that there are a lot of people like me -- that is good, I guess, for the country, yes, oh yes -- people who support Bush generally but who are angry with him now.
I actually think he may be able to come up again. I mean President Reagan in '82/'83 was way low, 20s and 30s. Carter, Clinton went way up and down in the way this president hasn't. But the crucial question to me is something frankly I'm not quite clear sure about, do, -- you know we're in an emotional period, a passionate period and things are going to be moving around.
Do, in two months, -- do we snap back to essentially the political structure of the past six years, really, which is this big hunk of Republicans, this big hunk of Democrats and very few people in the middle -- in other words, the polarization that we've seen - and if that is the case than the parties will continue to play their base -- or has something fundamentally reshaped and we really begin to see a center?
I begin to think that something has been fundamentally reshaped. That is my instinct but so far you wouldn't say there is a lot of evidence for that.
As much as I am intrigued by Brooks' suggestion of a move to the center among the electorate, I see two basic flaws with his theory. First, contrary to Brooks assertion that there are "very few people in the middle," approximately 50 percent of the electorate are moderates. The real question is whether the existing center can shape the debate and cause an increase in the number of centrist elected officials. Second, why would the government response to Katrina cause Democrats to start sounding more like moderate Republicans?
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