NEW SECOND PARTY, ANYONE?

The Republican party has died and gone to hell. Now the question is whether it will take America with it some day.

You have probably seen the recent Harris poll on Republicans' beliefs: the one showing that 67% of them think President Obama is a socialist, that 45% of them think he is foreign-born, that 57% of them think he is a Muslim, etc. That the leaders of such a reality-averse outfit should assume national responsibilities is a frightening prospect.

Americans must have a third alternative: a second party that is realistic and can engage our better instincts. We dare not be left with a choice between a party that is more liberal than most are comfortable with and a party of lying soreheads and heedless crackpots.

In the 1950s what was called Modern Republicanism was such an alternative. It was put forward by President Dwight Eisenhower and the Republican national leadership. Its mood was cautious and a bit skeptical. It was wary of big enthusiasms, suspicious of sweeping new answers. It was pro-business but not anti-labor. Withal, it aimed to be reasonable, open-minded, pragmatic. It preferred to unify Americans rather than divide them.

Ike was dismayed enough at the far-right attitudes in the Congressional wing of the GOP that he pondered starting a new party. Today he would be kicking himself for not having done so.

Does anybody remember Arthur Larson? He was a minor figure in the Eisenhower government but was known as the chief theorist and exponent of Modern Republicanism. He thoughtfully worked out and defended a rationale for what he and Ike believed in.

Larson was a blandly handsome Midwestern law professor of Scandanavian ancestry who seemed the personification of a Modern Republican. He was decent, smart, attuned more to details than to overarching generalizations. He would have made a good candidate for something - maybe even for president.

But then in 1964 the Goldwater forces took over the GOP and extremism became its chief "virtue".

Arthur Larson fought that, debating and writing and doing everything he could to promote centrism. He rejoiced in signs that strong middle-of-the-road Republican candidates were winning in some places. But today the Moderate Republican is all but extinct.

Larson could never see why, when most people are in the center and are turned off by extremes, there could not be a thriving and even dominant party that represented their point of view. But polarization is what galvanizes the activists and the donors, so it is what we get whether we like it or not.

Can there be a third pole that defines itself against the other two? Maybe. New party movements are emerging. There is the Modern Whig party, which means to claim the center. (That name may have to go.) There is also a nascent Moderate party. These are attracting followers, though so far not enough of them to get widely noticed.

Third parties have tended to build around individuals - George Wallace, Ross Perot. They have not lasted.

Below the national level, centrist independents have sometimes caught on in races for governor in recent years. Jesse Ventura won in Minnesota. So did Angus King in Maine and Lowell Weicker in Connecticut. This year former senator Lincoln Chafee, who was a Republican, is the frontrunner for governor of Rhode Island. Another ex-Republican, Joe Schwartz, formerly a Congressman, is in the race for governor of Michigan.

There is no evidence yet that any party of the middle will become a big deal. But I can't believe that most Americans want to see today's Republicans running things. So we must look ahead with some urgency.

Arthur Larson's thinking remains pertinent. If the centrists can unite themselves and come up with charismatic leaders and good organizers, perhaps the displacement of the Republican party by something unifying and practical-minded can finally occur.

Otherwise we may be in tremendous trouble whenever the people feel ready to replace the Democrats.