I am late to this excellent thread. Let me throw in my 2 cents. Compromise is bad for personal ethics but good for politics. The two-party system is designed to prevent extremists from getting on scene, and that's good. The two major parties have to appeal to broad enough constituencies in order to survive. Extremists have no chance of getting into power--unless, of course, you can pretend to be broad until you get elected. But the most damage you can do is one term. And that's good. If you had four or five smaller parties competing, each of these would represent a narrow interest segment. Whoever got the power, a large portion of the nation would suffer. Because of the necessity for compromise in such system, it can be expected that no party can be agreeble to any single individual. And there is no need to defend every official party position. What irks people most about partisan politics, I believe, is not that the parties don't fully represent their view, but the constant bickering and dirty tactics that muddle important issues. I don't know how this problem can be fixed, as I understand that it is almost inevitable. My philosophy is that we should give character/integrity higher priority than positions on issues in our elections. Since every politician will make some decisions I don't like, I'd rather they make them in noble and honest ways.
