If the presidential election proved anything it is this. American voters and taxpayers, be they Republican, Democrat or independent, do not want to be governed by extremists, right or left. What citizens want to see are political leaders who are centrist, moderate and willing to compromise and work with their political opposites. We want leaders that will abandon rabid partisanship and bickering and get together to solve our nation's very pressing and critical problems.

What the election also clearly indicated is that if the Republican Party ever again wants to occupy the White House, take control of the Senate, and maintain its rapidly diminishing majority in the House of Representatives, come the 2014 off-year election, they must move and move quickly into the political center, abandon extreme ideology and learn and practice the political arts of negotiation and compromise.

The first order of business in accomplishing this necessary change of position is for the Republican leadership and elected officials to immediately distance themselves from the likes of Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Michelle Malkin, Laura Inghram, Dick Morris, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, as well as his local wannabes and imitators on WSBA Radio in York and WHP in Harrisburg. It's time to flush these extremist and divisive elements down the drain once and for all. The hijacking of the Republican party by the conservative entertainment industry and the Tea Party must come to a decisive and permanent end, and we must do it now. The party must change or perish.