Terrific Article on Governance in the US

I have found very few articles that cut to the heart of what's wrong in today's political environment better than this article by Clive Crook of Bloomberg. Please take the time to read it. Some relevant selections:

• Lately the ideological center in Congress has thinned, and the distance between the parties has widened. Compromise has come to be seen as surrender -- and the U.S. government has all but come to a halt.
• One school of thought says that voters only think they want compromise. If they saw it, they wouldn’t like it...... I don’t believe it. I have a higher opinion of voters. Most of them, I think, would support the Simpson-Bowles approach if it were offered to them and properly explained. Somebody ought to try it, at least.
• My own theory of U.S. political paralysis is not that a deeply divided electorate is getting what it asks for, but that the balance of power between party leaders and activists has moved too far in favor of activists. This leaves the center disenfranchised. Activists are not ordinary people......The insurgents have pushed a modern Republican Party that was conservative to begin with much further to the right.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-23/paralyzed-congress-better-than-self-destruction-commentary-by-clive-crook.html