QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 26, 2010 -> 08:24 PM)

If any do, they will dive to the center like everyone else.
Then they'll face a 2012 primary and be thrown out in favor of those who won't go to the center.
Really Tex...honestly...do you look at the makeup of the current Congress and think "These people have been driven towards the center"?
2k5 and I were randomly taking shots at the California budget situation in the Republican thread, but there's an actual lesson there. In California, there are a group of (republican in this case but affiliation isn't key to the argument) legislators who have gotten by for years by being unwilling to vote for or negotiate anything on the budget. They get themselves reelected every year because they're pushing hard for their small government values and they're in districts that really like that. Occasionally one of the block from one of these districts decides they're willing to negotiate on the budget to extract a concession they really want, and they wind up thrown out of office next election for having voted in favor of the budget.
These legislators get rewarded for being totally unwilling to negotiate on anything. California though has this particular mess where you need a 2/3 majority to pass a budget...so if you happen to get 34% of the legislature that decides there is zero benefit for them in negotiating because the voters throw out anyone who is willing to compromise, it becomes 100% impossible to pass a budget.
Do you know of any governing body at the National level where a supermajority requirement is becoming engrained, and where anyone who crosses the aisle is facing a primary defeat?