According to recent polls, the two leaders of the race for the GOP presidential nomination are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. All other candidates lag behind.
These two gentlemen are anathema to the Republican establishment, a fact that has been made abundantly clear by establishment voices like George Will and Charles Krauthammer. Nevertheless, taken together Trump and Cruz count over half of the party's likely voters as supporters.
The party establishment has money and media access, what they don't have is enough votes to win elections. The votes constitute the canvas of the proverbial "big tent." The establishment bids fair to find themselves out in the cold, no longer in the "tent."
Meanwhile a similar schism is taking place in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders is taking the ideologically motivated folks in a birdwalk to the left, leaving the Dem establishment behind.
Could we be headed for a three party system where the GOP and Dem establishments coalesce into a centrist party (the so-called "uniparty") while Sanders Socialists go off to the left and Cruz's Conservatives go off to the right?
Some argue the centrist merger already is happening. They point to Speaker Ryan's omnibus bill with its continued support of Planned Parenthood and other Obama priorities as evidence of centrist collaboration.
