Democrats are talking about "Two Americas" in which they crudely separate Americans into two categories: The noble have-nots and the corrupt haves. Calling such a description an oversimplification would be charitable.

Republicans and Democrats talk past each other because they, fundamentally, don't understand each other.  There is no "compromise" really possible because they approach their positions from completely alien points of view.  When someone tries to provide a compromise, they are disdained by both because neither party will be satisfied with any compromise.  It's not like liberals are a 10 and conservatives a 1.  It's more like Liberals are a 10 and Conservatives are Z. What is half way between 10 and Z?

To use my own over simplification, let me illustrate the basic difference between American liberals and American conservatives on the role of the federal government.

Conservatives see the federal government as essentially a huge neighborhood association.  The federal government is there to provide services that are impossible or impractical for individuals to provide for themselves or can't be provided by a company.  The list of things that fit that criteria is very very small.  Defense. Roads. Police. Fire Departments...Um...Police..

And so in the conservative view we all help contribute to paying for these services in the form of taxes. Conservatives don't like the idea that different people have to pay different amounts for the same service.  After all, imagine getting your cable bill and being charged 20X as much as your neighbor simply because you make more money.  Because conservatives see the government as an association of citizens, they tend to be unsympathetic to suggestions of having it into the business of doing things that people should doing for themselves.  A neighborhood association will pay for the streets to be plowed in the winter but not for someone to shovel everyone's walkways. If someone doesn't want to shovel snow, they shouldn't buy a house with a big walkway.

Liberals, by contrast, see the federal government as the guaranteer of social justice. The federal government is there to provide services to the people that benefit all citizens. This is a critical difference. Services that benefit everyone versus services that are impossible for individuals/corporations to provide. A liberal would argue that the neighborhood association analogy is flawed because it makes the assumption that everyone moved into a given neighborhood on remotely equal grounds. The federal government, precisely because it isn't driven by profit or religious ideology, is best positioned to provide service that benefit everyone. Sure, everyone will pay a bit more in taxes, particularly the wealthiest but so what? Realistically after a certain income level additional income is fairly meaningless. That extra income can be distributed to the less fortunate of society to provide services to all people.

It's because of these radically different views that the two can't really be compromised.  Bush, for instance, can't satisfy either by trying to go half way.  His prescription healthcare plan is a perfect example. A conservative says "The government's job is not to provide pills for anyone at all. That's not its job. Caring for the elderly should be done by families and having the government assume jobs best suited to families inevitably weakens families. The rise of the single parent house hold goes hand in hand with the great society programs of the 60s which has been harmful to all of society.  Liberal programs may have good intentions but result in bad results."  And so Bush's prescription plan for the elderly alienates conservatives.  By contrast, it fails to satisfy liberals because it's a half-measure. Bush brings in the insurance companies into his plan, the very people that liberals dislike in the first place. A liberal would say "You either believe that prescription drugs for the elderly is something the government should take care of or you don't."  Programs like this can't be half-baked. It's like trying to make a car (to satisfy car lovers) without an engine (to satisfy environmentalists).

This is one reason I think Bush is vulnerable this year. He has alienated the base of conservatives who feel that the federal government is already too involved in taking care of individual citizens rather than providing services that no individual can provide for themselves. But in the process he's befriended few liberals who see his efforts as clumsy cynical attempts to get some half-baked program through.

It really comes down to axioms. A conservative asks "Is this something that individuals or companies could do for themselves? If yes then forget it." A liberal says "Is this something that will benefit all individuals in our society? If yes, then do it."  There is no half-way because they are coming from completely different perspectives.