Resources for readers seeking serious information, competing viewpoints and constructive political debate.
This page brings together centrist resources for readers interested in practical public policy, liberal democracy, electoral reform and informed political debate.
We define centrism in a way that makes it similar, but not identical, to classical liberalism. It also has some elements of libertarianism. CIVPAC differs from classical liberalism mainly in emphasis and in its greater willingness to use government pragmatically. It differs from libertarianism because we do not treat freedom from government coercion as the overriding value against which nearly every other public purpose must yield. CIVPAC combines a Burkean respect for institutions and practical experience with a modern liberal commitment to individual freedom, competitive markets, social fairness and democratic reform.
CIVPAC is pro-market and pro-liberty, but it is not anti-state. It wants a government strong enough to protect freedom, provide public goods, correct serious market failures, defend democracy, and sustain the international order—while remaining constrained, accountable, and economically realistic.
Centrism, in our view, is more than anything a way of thinking about the world. Applying that way of thinking to modern political problems produces predictable public policy solutions, such as those we promote.
Centrism is not simply the midpoint between whatever the two major parties happen to believe at a particular moment. Nor does it require splitting every difference. At its best, centrism combines practical problem-solving, respect for evidence, individual freedom, economic opportunity, social fairness, democratic institutions and a willingness to accept reasonable tradeoffs.
The organizations and publications listed here do not all define centrism in the same way. Some promote moderate policies or candidates. Others work to improve elections, encourage civil discussion, defend liberal democracy or provide reliable information about government and politics.
Inclusion on this page does not imply any affiliation with CIVPAC or agreement with every position taken by an organization, publication or author. We include these resources because we believe they contribute useful information, serious analysis or constructive democratic debate. We do not receive any compensation for listing these resources.
On This Page You Will Find:
- Centrist and Democracy-Reform Organizations
- Recommended News and Commentary
- Television, Radio and Podcasts
- Election and Policy Research
- Books
1. Centrist and Democracy-Reform Organizations
Bipartisan Policy Center
The Bipartisan Policy Center brings Republicans and Democrats together to develop practical proposals in areas including economic policy, energy, health care, housing and government institutions. It was founded by former Senate leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell.
Third Way
Third Way is a center-left think tank and advocacy organization that describes itself as a home for moderate, reform-oriented politics. Its work combines policy development with political analysis intended to strengthen the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party.
Promise to America
Promise to America is a centrist Democratic initiative that promotes market economics, fiscal responsibility, public safety, effective government, free expression, patriotism, and political persuasion. Led by Felix Frisch and supported by moderate Democratic officeholders and candidates, it seeks to give the party a clearer mainstream identity and help it compete beyond safely Democratic constituencies.
No Labels
No Labels advocates pragmatic political leadership, bipartisan cooperation and problem-solving outside the normal party divisions. CIVPAC has not always agreed with its strategies or conclusions, but it remains an important participant in the organized centrist movement.
Unite America
Unite America supports nonpartisan election reforms intended to produce more representative and functional government. Its principal areas of interest include open or nonpartisan primaries, ranked-choice voting and reforms that give voters a meaningful voice before the general election.
Forward Party
The Forward Party seeks to build a political home for independent-minded voters and candidates who place problem-solving ahead of party loyalty. It supports candidates from different political backgrounds and is willing to cross-endorse Democrats, Republicans and independents who share its values.
Country First
Founded by former Representative Adam Kinzinger, Country First promotes democracy, responsible leadership and the principle of putting country before party. It draws participants from across the political spectrum while taking a particularly strong stand against authoritarian and personality-driven politics.
Braver Angels
Braver Angels brings Americans with different political loyalties together for debates, workshops and conversations. Its purpose is not to eliminate disagreement, but to help people express disagreement honestly, listen more carefully and resist treating political opponents as enemies.
RepresentUs
RepresentUs is a nonpartisan grassroots organization focused on political accountability and structural reform. Its work includes campaign-finance transparency, restrictions on conflicts of interest and changes designed to make government more responsive to citizens rather than political insiders.
FairVote
FairVote advocates ranked-choice voting and proportional representation. Its research and educational material are particularly useful for readers interested in how alternative electoral systems might increase competition, voter choice and representative government.
Campaign Legal Center
The Campaign Legal Center is a nonpartisan legal organization working on voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, government ethics and the rule of law. Although CIVPAC may not agree with every reform it supports, its legal analysis and educational resources are valuable.
Bridge Alliance Education Fund
The Bridge Alliance Education Fund connects organizations and citizens working on civic engagement, electoral reform, civil discourse, trusted journalism and democratic self-government. Its projects provide a useful doorway into the broader democracy-reform community.
Open Primaries
Specifically focused on ending closed partisan primaries, which is arguably the single reform most directly relevant to CIVPAC’s mission (primaries are what squeeze out centrist candidates in the first place).
2. Recommended News and Commentary
Not every publication listed below is centrist. Some provide politically restrained news reporting. Others offer serious commentary from the center-left, center-right or liberal-democratic tradition.
The goal is not to find a publication with which a reader always agrees. The goal is to find sources that make a serious effort to establish facts, disclose their viewpoints and engage opposing arguments honestly. Without a common set of facts about the world, reasoning and debate are pointless. The sources listed here make a serious effort to establish facts, distinguish reporting from opinion and engage opposing arguments honestly.
Some of these are free, some require subscriptions, and some are behind a paywall.
Reuters and The Associated Press
Reuters and AP are useful starting points for breaking news and basic factual reporting. Both maintain formal commitments to independent, nonpartisan and fact-based journalism. They will not eliminate every dispute about wording or story selection, but they provide a valuable baseline before turning to political commentary.
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is one of America’s strongest sources of business, economic, financial, legal and international reporting. Its news organization formally separates news from opinion and emphasizes facts, data, original reporting and actionable information.
Its editorial page is not centrist; it represents a traditional market-oriented center-right position. Readers should distinguish it from the news pages.
CIVPAC believes the Journal also benefits from an unusual commercial discipline: many subscribers use its reporting to make consequential business and financial decisions, not merely to have their political preferences affirmed. For those readers, accuracy has direct economic value.
The Economist
The Economist offers an internationalist, market-oriented and socially liberal perspective on politics, economics, business, science and foreign affairs. Its global scope is particularly useful in an American media environment that can become excessively domestic and partisan. The publication’s governance structure is designed to protect editorial independence from commercial, political and ownership pressures.
Tangle
Tangle is an independent, subscriber-supported political newsletter that explains a major issue and then presents arguments from the left, right and center before offering its own analysis. Its structure helps readers distinguish the underlying facts from the different interpretations placed upon them.
The Flip Side
The Flip Side summarizes how writers and publications on the left and right are approaching the same question. It is particularly useful for readers who want to understand the arguments actually being made outside their normal information environment.
The Dispatch
The Dispatch provides fact-based reporting and commentary informed by conservative principles. It offers a traditional center-right perspective that is not organized around loyalty to a political party or personality. This makes it a useful counterpart to pragmatic center-left publications.
Slow Boring
Matthew Yglesias’s Slow Boring is a center-left newsletter about politics and public policy. It is particularly useful on housing, economic growth, transportation, demographics, government capacity and the practical constraints surrounding progressive policy goals.
Persuasion
Persuasion publishes essays and conversations defending free speech, free inquiry, pluralism and liberal democracy. Its contributors do not always agree with one another, but the publication is unified by a belief that disagreement should be addressed through evidence, argument and persuasion rather than coercion or denunciation.
The Bulwark
The Bulwark publishes reporting and commentary in defense of liberal democracy, constitutional norms and civil discourse. Its perspective is strongly anti-authoritarian and anti-Trump, rather than politically neutral. Readers should understand that orientation, but its analysis of democratic institutions and the evolution of the Republican Party is often valuable.
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum covers civic participation, democratic reform, bridge-building and efforts to improve American self-government. It is a useful source for developments within the wider democracy-reform community that receive little attention from major news organizations.
3. Television, Radio and Podcasts
Fareed Zakaria GPS — CNN’s weekly international-affairs program provides historical context, substantive interviews and analysis of America’s place in the world. Fareed Zakaria generally writes from a liberal-internationalist perspective rather than a position of political neutrality, but the program offers a breadth and seriousness rarely found in American television news.
The Michael Smerconish Program — Michael Smerconish approaches politics from an explicitly independent perspective. His radio and television programs examine arguments from across the political spectrum and frequently ask audiences to reconsider the assumptions of their own political side. He can be contrarian, but that willingness to resist predictable partisan conclusions is part of the program’s value.
The Dan Abrams Show — Heard on SiriusXM’s POTUS Politics channel, Dan Abrams examines major political controversies through the lens of law. The program combines legal analysis, interviews and discussion without fitting comfortably into either party’s media ecosystem.
The Julie Mason Show — Also heard on SiriusXM’s POTUS Politics channel, veteran political journalist Julie Mason interviews elected officials, reporters and policy specialists from across the political spectrum. Her program is less an expression of centrist ideology than an example of informed, civil and politically wide-ranging journalism.
The Mona Charen Show — After five years hosting the Beg to Differ roundtable, Mona Charen now conducts extended interviews with writers and experts about politics, democratic institutions, foreign policy and broader social trends. Her perspective is center-right, anti-authoritarian and strongly committed to liberal democracy.
The Good Fight — Yascha Mounk conducts extended conversations and debates about liberal democracy, pluralism, authoritarianism, political culture and public policy.
Democracy Decoded — The Campaign Legal Center examines elections, campaign law, voting rules and proposals for strengthening democratic accountability.
4. Election and Policy Research
Political commentary should be checked against original documents and reliable data whenever possible. These resources can help readers examine candidates, campaign finances, legislation, public opinion and the likely consequences of policy proposals.
Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia is a digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections. It provides information about candidates, ballot measures, elected offices, state governments and election procedures and states that it is committed to accurate, objective and neutral content.
Vote Smart
Vote Smart provides free information about candidates and elected officials, including biographies, issue positions, voting records and interest-group ratings. Its stated mission is to provide factual and unbiased information without supporting or opposing candidates.
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission is the primary official source for federal campaign-finance reports. Its databases allow readers to examine contributions, expenditures, independent spending, committees and candidate filings.
OpenSecrets
OpenSecrets organizes campaign-finance and lobbying information into a form that is often easier to use than raw government filings. It is especially helpful for examining donors, industries, outside spending and connections between money and political activity. Its federal data should be checked against the FEC when precision or legal reporting requirements matter.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official federal source for bills, resolutions, legislative actions, committee information and congressional records. It should be the starting point when determining what legislation actually says or what procedural stage it has reached.
Congressional Budget Office
The Congressional Budget Office provides cost estimates, budget projections and economic analysis for Congress. CBO is formally nonpartisan, does not recommend policies and seeks to separate its estimates from the political judgments surrounding legislation. Its projections are estimates rather than certainties, but they are an essential starting point for serious fiscal analysis.
Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center conducts public-opinion polling, demographic research and other data-driven studies. It describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank and does not take policy positions.
The Cook Political Report
The Cook Political Report provides independent, nonpartisan analysis of federal and state elections. Its race ratings and Cook Partisan Voting Index are useful for understanding electoral competitiveness, although ratings remain informed judgments rather than predictions of certainty.
5. Books
These are not CIVPAC-approved texts, and several are written from identifiable center-left or center-right perspectives. They are recommended because they illuminate centrism, political polarization, democratic institutions, electoral reform, civic responsibility or the challenge of governing amid disagreement.
Books
The Centrist Manifesto, by Charles Wheelan
Wheelan makes an explicit case for a pragmatic centrist political movement drawing useful ideas from both major parties. Some of its political strategy reflects the period in which it was written, but its emphasis on tradeoffs, fiscal responsibility and practical policy remains closely related to CIVPAC’s project.
The Politics Industry, by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter
Gehl and Porter analyze American politics as an industry dominated by a protected two-party duopoly. They argue that electoral incentives, rather than simply bad personalities, help produce gridlock and political dysfunction, and they propose structural reforms intended to increase political competition.
The Primary Solution, by Nick Troiano
Troiano argues that partisan primary elections reward ideological factions at the expense of the broader electorate. The book presents nonpartisan primaries and related election reforms as practical ways to make representatives accountable to more voters.
The Constitution of Knowledge, by Jonathan Rauch
Rauch explains how science, journalism, law, government institutions and open criticism help societies test claims and gradually correct errors. It is an important defense of evidence, institutional knowledge and intellectual humility in an age of misinformation and ideological certainty.
The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt examines the moral intuitions underlying liberal, conservative and libertarian beliefs. The book helps explain why intelligent and decent people can reach sharply different political conclusions—and why understanding an opponent is not the same as agreeing with one.
The Spirit of Compromise, by Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson
Gutmann and Thompson distinguish the uncompromising mentality often rewarded in campaigns from the compromises required for effective governing. They also address the difference between principled compromise and the abandonment of essential values.
The Bill of Obligations, by Richard Haass
Haass argues that democracy depends not only on individual rights but also on habits of responsible citizenship. He emphasizes obligations such as becoming informed, rejecting violence, participating in civic life and placing constitutional democracy ahead of party or personality.
Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein
Writing from the center-left, Klein examines how political parties, institutions, media and social identities reinforce one another. Readers may disagree with parts of his diagnosis, but the book provides a valuable framework for understanding why polarization is deeper than a disagreement over individual policies.
The Fractured Republic, by Yuval Levin
Writing from the center-right, Levin examines the weakening of national cohesion and argues for rebuilding institutions closer to families, communities and civil society. The book also criticizes the tendency of both left and right to romanticize different versions of America’s mid-20th-century past.
The Great Experiment, by Yascha Mounk
Mounk explores whether ethnically and religiously diverse democracies can develop a shared civic identity while preserving genuine pluralism. Its subject is central to any centrist politics seeking both inclusion and national cohesion.
The Once and Future Liberal, by Mark Lilla
Lilla offers a center-left critique of identity-centered progressive politics and argues for a renewed emphasis on citizenship, common purpose and persuading a broad electorate. It is a polemic rather than a neutral analysis, but it raises questions that pragmatic Democrats and centrists should take seriously.
A Final Caution
No source should be trusted automatically.
Reliable publications make mistakes. Nonpartisan organizations make judgment calls. Think tanks have institutional viewpoints. Polls contain sampling and modeling uncertainty. Election ratings are informed estimates, not facts. Even official government data may be incomplete, revised or interpreted differently by reasonable analysts.
Whenever an issue matters, readers should compare multiple sources, distinguish reporting from opinion, examine original documents when practical and remain willing to revise their conclusions.
That discipline—not automatic acceptance of any approved list—is one of the foundations of responsible citizenship.