Beware "The Moderate's Trap", even if it is no less or no more a trap than any other ideological trap... the "can criticize both extremes" echoes this one -- which tends to mean a position is defined by whoever gets to define what is the two sides.
In terms of political posturing, the funniest figure here is Bill O'Rielly -- basically a garden variety Republican conservative, if slightly less heterodox than, oh, a Sean Hannity.  I used to occasionally watch his viewer responses at the end of his show, where he would run a viewer comment from someone calling him a "right wing stooge", then follow it with a "left wing stooge" letter, with the always maddening comment (no matter who says it) "If I'm getting bombarded by both sides, it means I'm doing something right" -- cue "Independent".  Sometime last decade, a liberal blogger tried something -- he sent a comment in of the "you liberal stooge" variety -- and, predictably, it got on the air... because naturally he needs to find one of those letters to balance the multitude of letters from the other end.

For the Democratic versus Republican politics of the coming election cycle ... I have this thought which shows danger for Hillary Clinton (why my best guage is that Hillary would beat Jeb, and that Rubio or Walker would beat Hillary)... and maybe something for either small "l" libertarianism or vague Republicanism...
Colorado was the tipping point state in 2012 -- the state that if you measure out the percentage wins for Obama and Romney brought Obama over the 270 line.  He won largely with social issues bringing his voters to the polls... Medical Marijuana, Gay Marriage, and immigration.  2014 was a big loss in Colorado for the Democrats, where in 2010 it was a stop-gap for the Democrats (see too Nevada, with Reid able to bring out the Hispanic vote in his favor).  Two of the three issues had been settled in 2012, with the third one a "always manage, never really solve" hot potato that the Democratic Senate Incumbent didn't want to touch...
This is counter-intuitive to the old Democratic / Liberal lines about "wedge issues" trumping your issues of economics for some blue collar voting blocs, but as always these analyses are always political conveniences.
And here too we have an interesting small "c" conservative line on the issue of, for instance, gay marriage I saw expressed by George Will "Not in favor of it, and yes does alter the definition of marriage to nonsense... but... not the end of the world, not what's destroying Western Civilization, I can live with it..."