Hyper partisanship is out. The American people, who largely do not obsess about politics, is fed up with those who do obsess to the point there is no answer they will accept on any issue – except the answer of the extremes. The liberals tasted this in 2006 with the Ned Lamont (far left) and Joe Lieberman (centrist) senate race, which pitted what many on the left deemed a turncoat (Lieberman) against a one of those leftists who demanded purity to the cause (Lamont). While Lamont took the primary, Lieberman easily took a three way general election race with over 50% of the vote. The people of CT spoke loud and clear in 2006 – stay out of the fringes.

The same thing happened to the GOP as the democrats put out an army of moderate, conservative democrats to take out ‘true conservative’ veterans across the country. Those Republicans who survived were devout centrists, traitors to many on the far right. And recently there have been a string of defeats for incumbents on the right in special elections this year, as once staunchly GOP districts and seats go to centrist democrats:

Republicans face tough odds, yes. But that’s because they’ve yet to prove they’ve learned a lesson, as they demonstrated again with Mr. Jenkins.

By the lazy standards of the GOP, Mr. Jenkins should’ve been a cinch to win a Baton Rouge district in Republican hands for 34 years, and that President Bush won with 59% in 2004. Their candidate was a rock-solid social conservative who, in 28 statehouse years, had never voted for a tax increase, and who wanted to erect a U.S.-Mexico wall.

Yet Mr. Jenkins was also a divisive firebrand. He was infamous for carrying around plastic fetuses, to demonstrate his opposition to abortion. He’d previously landed in a weird entanglement with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. This history made even conservatives fidgety, and crowded out anything Mr. Jenkins had to say on issues.

Another Amnesty Hypochondriac bit the dust – the one issue that lingered in 2006 and the GOP dared America to consider in the voting booth. Legislation was held up by Dennis Hastert and company in the House as they went on a tour to sell America for the 2006 election. Haster lost his job as Speaker of The House and the GOP lost his seat to another Amnesty Hypochondriac far right candidate in another special election.

All those GOP presidential candidates that were tied to the Amnesty Hypochondriac movement, which torpedoed another chance at reform under the current democrat led Congress, failed miserably this year. Is it any surprise that the one man on the GOP side who openly supported the Iraq war and comprehensive immigration reform is the GOP nominee to be President? This is not all coincidence folks.

And now this week has another Amnesty Hypochondriac in danger of losing a solid GOP seat in a special election:

Since 1994, Republican Roger Wicker has been reelected to his House seat with between 63 and 79 percent of the vote.

But with Wicker appointed to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott, who retired, Republicans are having difficulty unifying behind Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb in the northwest corner of the 1st District.

I went to the Greg Davis campaign website

Taxes and Spending
Make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Bury the death tax. Restrain spending.

National Security
Support our armed forces by insuring they have the manpower and equipment to fight and win.

Illegal Immigration
Protect the border. Enforce our immigration laws. Require proof of U.S. citizenship to obtain taxpayer-funded benefits.

Mississippi Values
Defend our values. Support the Second Amendment. Stand up for the unborn.

Business
Advocating policies that strengthen our economy by focusing on lower taxes, a simpler tax code, fewer regulations, and less government red tape.

Emphasis mine. So how could a candidate that mirrors McCain on just about all the issues except one be in trouble in a GOP district that has voted right by huge margins since 1994? Simple – something stinks and is causing the candidate problems. It is not making the Bush tax cuts permanent, that is for sure. It is not maintaining Mississippi values. Doubt it was because Davis stands for a strong economy and low taxes. Davis and McCain are the same on a strong national defense. There is only one area these two diverge, which has to be the one area that turns voters on in the case of McCain, or turns voters off in the case of Davis.

The WSJ notes today what I said last week, and that is 2008 is the year of the centrists:

In the wake of Tuesday’s primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana, it appears more likely than ever that the two presidential candidates this fall will be Sen. Barack Obama for the Democrats and Sen. John McCain for the Republicans. They happen to be the two most surprisingly successful candidates of the year, and both got ahead largely by arguing they have unique abilities to bring people together in Washington.

Change may be stirring in other areas that have contributed to gridlock. Voters are pulling politicians toward the middle of the ideological spectrum by registering as independents and calling for centrist solutions. A new cast of political players — some young, most little-known to the nation — is emerging to show that there are ways to transcend gridlock by reaching across the aisle.

…

Sens. McCain and Obama explicitly base their appeals to voters on the premise that they can reach out both to independent voters who are affiliated with neither party, and to politicians of the opposite party. A precedent for such a governing style recently has been set: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York have led the way, each succeeding largely by detaching themselves from their Republican party and governing as independents.

Voters are pushing the system in precisely this direction: The share of the public registered as neither Democrat nor Republican, but rather as independent, has exploded in recent years. In New Hampshire this year, more than four in 10 registered voters didn’t declare any party affiliation, up from just more than two in 10 in 1992. In California, independent voters are the fastest-growing segment of those who have registered; almost a quarter of the registered voters there now are either independent or affiliated with neither major party.

The article basically notes you can chase the money at the fringes or the votes in the middle, who decide who will win. Lamont and Lieberman will not be the only example of how money will not by votes the center decides to not give. Insult the middle, like the GOP did when it want after “RINOs” and Traitors and the inpure and you end up on the losing side of the aisle. The left is not any better, they just happened to be the only option to the defunct status quo in 2006. They seem hell bent on becoming the next status quo to be removed in 2008, but only if the GOP makes up with the moderates they chased away over illegal immigration. Until the mea culpas start showing up, the voters will stay away.