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the systems broken..............................
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Analysis: Crist's move ominous political trend
By RON FOURNIER (AP) - 48 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Charlie Crist's departure from the Republican Party is not just a Florida story, it's an American story - a tale of two parties driven by their ideologues, squeezing out moderate candidates, alienating independent voters and isolating the place in U.S. politics where most things get done: the middle.

Crist, a populist governor with a history of bipartisanship, bolted the GOP on Thursday to run for the Senate as an independent. He did so only after it became clear that he would lose his party's primary to conservative purist Marco Rubio.

No matter who wins a three-way race in Florida, the factors that drove Crist from the GOP are a microcosm of broader political and social changes contributing to polarization.

"We have a deadlocked democracy," said Pat Buchanan, a conservative commentator and three-time presidential candidate. "Both parties, held hostage by their extremes, are incapable of tackling the issues that threaten this country."

Buchanan left the GOP for the Reform Party after he twice failed to win his party's presidential nomination.

Moderate Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut left the Democratic Party after losing a 2006 nomination fight to liberal Ned Lamont. He won re-election as an independent.

Sen. Arlen Specter quit the GOP last year as he faced a conservative challenge in Pennsylvania. He found a more welcoming home in the Democratic Party.

And now Crist.

True, they abandoned their parties for purely political reasons - to save their skins. But Lieberman, Specter and Crist had viable options outside their parties because so many voters feel disconnected from the Democratic and Republican establishments.

"Unfortunately our political system is broken," Crist said in an appeal to independent-minded voters in St. Petersburg, Fla.
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