Where's The Middle?

As we crank up for another presidential election I am constantly reminded about the depths we've sunk to in our political discourse.  As a student of history this is nothing new in American politics, it used to be a lot less polite, but with today's media access its more than ever shoved right in our faces.  I come from a very liberal family for the most part.  Serving in the military has given me a healthy dose of reality when it comes to foreign affairs.  I really liked Herman Cain early on but he was dragged down once his private life was exposed.  I thought at the time how John F Kennedy, with his well documented libido, couldn't get elected to even city council nowadays.  Our political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, have grown a lot more powerful than our founding fathers ever intended and that is to all our detriments.  To be a successful Republican you have to coddle the right wing, almost fascist elements of the Christian right.  Conversely the Democrats have to appease the equally distasteful, to me, far left which borders on communism/socialism, decidedly un-American, whatever it is.  I actually voted for Obama because I thought he had the intelligence and vision to be a good leader.  I was duped, maybe due to the influence of a strong willed spouse, he has taken us much further to the left than I and many others who voted for him hoped.  He has, if anything, made the political discourse more divisive, which is a shame.  I had such high hopes for him.  I was discussing this with friends and family during a recent car ride, where is the middle?  Where is the political candidate that is brave enough to stake out some ground in the middle, to be the leader who can dismiss the nut jobs from either end of the spectrum and actually work for us instead of the political parties.   Being an elected official should not be about getting re-elected, it should be about serving the biggest portion of the people that elected you, not the fringes.  We're all out here waiting.