Where is the Book on Great Moderates?

One of my favorite radio commentators is Rush Limbaugh. I remember entering my car one day after school in 1988, turning on the radio to WAEB 790 and hearing this booming voice expressing conservative views. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Over the years I heard more and more people talk about the need for moderate politicians. That led Limbaugh to talk about the need for someone to write a book about the Great Moderates. It was a bit tongue and cheek on his part because it appeared that those who wanted to discuss and engage in compromise or moderation were fewer and fewer as time went by.

But if we are unable to compromise, we will never resolve or solve our problems. So where do we go?

"Revolutionaries" is a work by Jack Rakove. I do not know him and have no financial interest in the book. I do, however, have an educational interest in it. The book is set in the period when we and the British were going at it hammer and tongs.

Early on in his book, Rakove introduces John Dickinson, John Jay and Thomas Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin would come to join their group. They were business men of sorts and their livelihood was tied to doing business with England. They had ties to England -- like Dickinson, who had spent time within the walls of the royal family and thus had close ties to the Crown.

The objective of the above group was to work and negotiate with England so that their business relationship would continue.

Those were difficult times for our country and for the people that lived here. Compromise was not a word that one used lightly. If you spoke of compromise you might find yourself losing friends. Yet the above gentlemen did not hesitate to maintain and improve their relationship with British officials, friends -- or the British government. They were able to do that because they were principled men. They let it be know to their families and associates that if a resolution with the Crown was not forthcoming, they would be on the side of their fellow Americans.

Were they Great Moderates worthy of praise? I would say they were. Dickinson, the man with very close ties to the Crown, was unable to initially give up those ties. But in the end, he remained on the side of the Revolutionaries.

Our nation is in dire economic straits. It is easy to blame it on the man seated in the White House -- and by way of full disclosure, I did not and would not vote for him. My biggest concern is the inability of the two political parties to come together as principled men and do what needs to be done for our nation.

Are there Great Moderates -- and principled men -- among us?