Greenspan offers his two cents on politics

On my flight from Atlanta to San Francisco yesterday, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal and was surprised to read about Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, making comments about politics... and specifically that the ground was ripe for a third party presidential candidate.

A member of the audience asked Mr. Greenspan if he would endorse a candidate for president. Mr. Greenspan said he would not, "for now." But he went on to describe the two American parties now as controlled by their extreme wings, even though the voting public is far more centrist, the people who were present said. He described the leadership of the parties as "bimodal," meaning clustered at the extreme ideological ends, whereas the voting public was "monomodal," meaning clustered near the middle.

Such situations, he said, create an opening for a third-party candidate who appeals to the center. That, he said, could prompt the candidates of the other two parties to move back to the center, for fear of losing.

If only!