Here is an interesting passage and quote from the WaPo discussing Barack Obama:

GOP Doubts, Fears ‘Post-Partisan’ Obama - washingtonpost.com

“Partisanship is underrated. There is a time and place for it, and more time and place than we realize,” he said.In Obama’s first years in the Senate, he showed little interest in the middle, where moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats coalesce, often to thwart their leadership.

Partisanship is underrated. So if you do right by a small percentage of Americans over the objections of everyone else, that’s much better than trying to move the country in a direction as a unit? The second sentence doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you read it twice. What does he mean by “often to thwart their leadership?”

In any event, the words “bipartisan” and “centrist” do not mean the same things. “Centrist” is essentially wishy-washy triangulation, whereas “bipartisan” simply means two sides agreed on something. It’s certainly true that a “centrist” policy, being inherently limp-dicked, is likely to get “bipartisan” support, but that does not mean that a good politician cannot get support from both sides of the isle on a policy from one of the wings.

But there are people on both the Right and the Left who will not let the hyperpartisanship go.