Ready to start a common-sense party

I can certainly sympathize with Jeff Saine (Letters, September 14)—an apparently thoughtful conservative who has had it with his party’s march toward oblivion behind the Pied Piper of numbskull politics. However, I am on the other side of the fence—a lifelong Democrat who started as a 12-year-old distributing “Viva Kennedy” literature in the barrios of east Los Angeles County. Later on, I canvassed for George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and several local candidates as well.

I have watched as the party of Hubert Humphrey and Eleanor Roosevelt has itself drifted in to a morass of identity politics, unscientific race-based orthodoxies, and shameless trading of promised “free” services and cash subsidies for votes.

While Republicans have foolishly politicized common-sense public health practices in a manner that is anything but conservative, Democrats have aggravated racial discord and embarked on a massive and inflationary public spending spree that would make any Argentine Peronista proud.

In short, I no longer have any confidence in either party to competently manage the affairs of our great republic. Perhaps Mr. Saine and I, along with others who’ve had enough, should get together some morning and formulate a new political movement we might call the “Logic, Reason, and Common Sense Collaborative.” The first round of coffee is on me.

— Carl Ochsner, Chico