Actually if you look at all the "legitimate" candidates in this election campaign, you'll find that the center has actually shifted to the right quite drastically.
John McCain is the furthest thing from a "maverick" centrist like he's always touted as. He used to live up to this title, but has since within the past couple years, decided to kneel down to the powers that be and give in to his presidential ambitions. He embraces evangelical leaders (like John Hagee and Pat Robertson) that say things like Hurricane Katrina was brought upon the city of New Orleans by the people itself because of the deep amount of sin within it, and that Islam should be destroyed.
And despite the way the media portrays them, Senators Obama and Clinton are far from leftists, and actually more towards the center (although "center" in the American electoral definition is a very relative term). Considering Senator Clinton's hawkish persistence in antagonizing Iran and her voting record in the senate, I'd have to believe that she would likely just follow the same policies as the previous Clinton administration (insert memories of bombing the bejeezus out of Bosnia and its citizens here). Senator Obama is no better, he wouldn't pull out mercenaries from Iraq (clearly the most unreliable "troops" there), and despite his insistence that he'll institute measures to make them more accountable, recall that they said they'd do the same thing with the infrastructure contractors there... I don't think I ever heard anything about that since (although I did hear about KBR and their terrible troop-killing faulty wirings). Senator Obama also intends to continue the vast American empire that people seem to rarely want to talk about, with bases on every single continent and continuing hegemony. I don't see how this is any different than any past administration, whether Republican or Democrat.
The mainstream journalists are a big problem with this election campaign. How can you have a serious dialogue on issues when they parrot this business of lapel flag pins, guilty-by-association politics, and "blackness"? I have a serious issue with the fact that the media is so obsessed with sound-bytes that they forget to talk about the real issues facing real people. As dramatic as it is to see the politicians duking it out over the "Ballot Bowl" on CNN and watching John King play with his big touch-screen LCD TV, I'd rather know about WHY things are crumbling (economy) and WHY terrorism even exists (which has absolutely no connection to jealousy of American "freedom and democracy"). In regards to Al Gore, the only reason he lost is because this joke of a free press blatantly misquoted him over and over, and portrayed him as a sang-froid politician that was clearly elitist (sound familiar?) and then turned around and portrayed George W. Bush as a down-to-earth fun-loving guy. Gore's campaign was a poor run, yes, but it was a problem clearly exacerbated by the mainstream press shaping dialogue and manipulating context. Whatever happened to fairness and accuracy in reporting?
The fundamental problem with the American election system is that the elections are so fueled by the influence of the mainstream media (which clearly is giving a pass to Senator McCain and beating this Reverend Jeremiah Wright issue the way kids poke dead animals with sticks: ad nauseum) and the need for a vast amount of financial capital that it snuffs out the voices of people with any ideas other than what comes out of that wonderful building called the Senate House. Let's not even talk about the electoral college votes. OR the idea of superdelegates, probably the most fundamentally undemocratic system that has ever been concocted.
All this points to a flawed system that is in desperate need of fixing. A good start is making available (in mainstream media) the dialogue for such change to happen.