Can anyone tell me what "Democrat" or "Republican" mean now?

Disclaimer: I am a self-avowed political neophyte -- not an expert or a pundit of any sort. I hope that this posting is received by the reader as thought-provoking and not polemic or ideological.

What's the difference now between Democrat and Republican? Between liberal and conservative?

Over the past several weeks since the 2008 presidential election, I have heard many Republicans bemoan the fact that George W. Bush did not represent Republican values. At the same time, I hear Karl Rove -- the architect of the "new Republican machine" consistently defend the current administration. Whatever one's views of the Republican party, it is clear that it is a party with an ideology that is in flux -- some would say, in crisis.

At the same time, there are liberal Democrats who have grown frustrated with President-Elect Obama before his first day in office because they see him as not advocating aggressively for their positions -- positions that have been kicked to the curb the last eight years.

Now I'm not a politico, and I would rather not see political parties other than that they serve a purpose in governing. But the muddying of what Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal and moderate mean have been sloshing and squirting around like Jell-O.

So I've been considering, as both parties re-consider their identities and brands, what is an outcome that benefits the country?

As an independent voter (we call it "unenrolled" in Massachusetts), I see an importance in the balance that a multi-party system brings. Without that balance -- with everyone playing to the ideological middle with no sense of the poles -- I believe America loses its bearings. (I will try to keep my fundamental assumptions to a minimum, but that is one of them). I suspect I am not alone, with a strong tendancy for the American people not to vote unilaterally for one party. This is also borne out in the observation that the Democratic landslide in November has been coupled with many stern warnings from the people (from ordinary citizens to pundits) not to swing as far left as we had swung far right.

It used to be that Republican included: fiscally conservative, small government, constitutionalist, entrepreneurial, analytical and dispassionately smart. Yet in the last eight years, all of these planks of the platform have been shattered. What remains includes a corrosive social conservatism that is better at generating hate and mistrust than at generating real solutions to serious problems.

Democrats on the other hand used to stand for: fiscally liberal, big government, progressive constitutional interpretation, labor-friendly, emotional and passionate. Clearly the Democrats have done a better job recently in growing their base of support, but they have done so by promising to return to several tenets that Republicans claimed as their own. Simply by ousting George W. Bush and hitting the reset button on his policies and governing approaches -- from the powers of the presidency (and vice-presidency) to more amiable foreign relations to fiscal responsibility to intelligent and open discourse around big decisions -- has done a lot to establish the Democrats as the party of the majority. It has also blurred the lines distinguishing the parties. And in so doing, it has made it less clear -- to me, at least -- how a two-party system makes our democracy better. Two parties trying to look the same will limit choice. Two parties that each hold valuable aspects of the American ethos -- and neither holding them all -- will necessarily need to come together, balance one another and compromise to fulfill all of what Americans will ask of their government.