The Arianna Sideshow

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Now she anticipates yet another new politics, born of a wide and deep disgruntlement with the status quo. Her evidence for the coming revolution is thin. The low voter turnouts she and her shadow conveners bewail as signs of disgust might just as plausibly be taken for the sleepy indifference of a fat and happy populace. But her larger charge--that the two parties, in thrall to a self-satisfied elite, have become homogeneous, to the detriment of a robust political debate--is far more plausible. Anyone who doubts it should be forced to explain the difference between George Bush's "compassionate conservatism" (or is it "conservative compassion"?) and Al Gore's "pragmatic idealism" (or is it "idealistic pragmatism"?) in 300 words or less. With both parties staking claim to the same territory, she sees room for something new and, of course, for herself.