First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

It's important to remember that Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left - comparing him to Hitler, calling him a terrorist and a tyrant - preceded Obama Derangement Syndrome on the right.

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

I believe that the far-right and the far-left can be equally insane - but there's no question that in the first years of the Obama administration, the far-right has been far crazier. In part, this comes from parties being out of power - without the responsibility of governing to ground them, the activists and the ideologues take over.

The American people are smart. They've gotten sick of the predictable hyperpartisan talking points and canned anger.

A wingnut is someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans, the unhinged activists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They're the people who always try to divide rather than unite us.

One tell-tale sign of a Wingnut: they always confuse partisanship with patriotism.