Stuck in the middle with ... no one Column By Ray Barrington You realize, don't you, that the election is only 12 days away, the city and county budgets are just weeks away from approval and the Green Bay Packers are almost halfway to the end of their season. This, of course, means that by January, the conversation level around here will be back to the level of "cold enough for ya?" And it will be just as well. Maybe we'll all be able to talk to each other again. My wife and I are of differing political philosophies. (We like to think of ourselves as the James Carville and Mary Matalin of Greater Green Bay - only better looking.) But we get along, for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with politics. Maybe it's our mutual appreciation of the wonders of Waffle House, or our shared joy in the healing power of small stuffed animals. When we do spar over politics, it's in a teasing fashion. Sadly, that's not the fact for the public at large. This has been the most angry campaign I have ever seen, and remember, I lived through 1968 and 1972 when candidates were shot. There is a terrible divide between the parties, left and right, rich and poor, religious and nonreligious, pro-life and pro-choice, pro-helping government and anti-big government. There's no middle any more. Time was when the middle was the place to be, where politicians went for votes, where the national consensus was formed. Now, the middle is Death Valley, empty and barren. Oh, there are still plenty of people there, but nobody's listening to them. The politicians? They know the middle can't be counted on to vote. They know their support comes from the extremists, who vote and give them money. So their pitches are to those bases, and you see negative advertising and pitches to prejudice on both sides. You see Republican ads pitching John Kerry as a traitor and Democratic ads saying President Bush is retarded. And suddenly you begin to long for a monarchy. At least King George III didn't have town criers running around town crying "Hear ye! Hear ye! The king is a blithering senile idiot! I'm Town Crier Steven and I approve this message!" For those in the middle - and both my wife and I consider us residents there, rather than at the edges - it's difficult. Those who believe in balanced budgets and security but not loss of individual freedoms. Those who support troops but aren't sure that war in Iraq was right or necessary. Those who want to help individuals but want that help to be temporary and lead to better lives. We aren't hearing much. We're hearing about Halliburton and lesbian daughters and banning the Bible and gay marriage and ketchup and guns, almost none of this affecting us. We're hearing candidates' backers snipe at each other about their wives, and that really bothers us. We don't believe liberal is a dirty word, or that conservatives are automatically right-wing nut jobs. And we are being totally ignored by the presidential candidates. There will probably be a large turnout Nov. 2 for the presidential election; this has been so polarizing an election that we'll probably have to vote, just to cancel somebody else's vote out. But we wonder what might have happened had one of the parties had the sense to nominate somebody from the middle. Unless there are changes in the system, we may never see that happen again.