Not Really Polarized?

The New York times has a story today asserting that the citizenry is not really politically polarized. It claims that the mass of voters is fundamentally centrist, and in fact the gaps have narrowed. Instead, it is the elites that have become more extreme, which has presented the voters with a choice between two unacceptable alternatives.

I think that this article is almost right. Now I am a bit of partisan, but I would contend that only one party's leadership has become strongly ideological. The Republicans have moved steadily to the right over the last several decades (ever since Goldwater), while the Democrats veered left in the 1970's but moderated in the 1980's and 1990's. In other words, only ONE party is really out of the mainstream. So why don't the Republicans get clobbered in elections? Because they have systematically misrepresented their own positions and that of their opponents- because they've been lying.