REPUBLICAN MODERATION IS THE ULTIMATE COMPROMISE | 2002-08-24
The Republican Party exists to obtain 1) benefits for large corporations and 2) mucho, mucho military expenditure. In hard core, real-world politics, the rumors are true. In return for more bombers and a macho foreign policy, Republicans are happy to let liberals have their racial quotas, their busing, and anything else they want on the social policy side.
So the real meaning of "middle of the road" in America is that both the military-industrial establishment and the education-welfare establishment get what they really insist on. There is no room in this compromise for the people to get anything.
Washington, DC, took over America to an unimagined extent in the period between 1953 and 1977. During two-thirds of that critical period moderate Republicans held the White House. That period began with Eisenhower creating the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and ended with Reagan being defeated by Ford at the Republican Convention Of 1976.
Liberals sponsored most of the Washington power grabs between 1953 and 1977.
But it was moderate Republicans who prevented any real opposition from forming against them.