My wife Edie and I are retired sailboat racers, and devotees of the coast of Maine, which Edie has visited every summer for 75 years.

This summer, as we drove by the local boatyard, we noticed an extremely tall mast rising from the pier along which boats were moored. We parked and went down to the dock. There we found a huge 105 foot long bright red sloop. Her stern bore the name Red Sky. Under that was her hail port – "C.I." (for Cayman Islands, a tax haven). A workman reported that the owner was "in the hedge fund business", and that Red Sky spent summers in Maine but wintered in the Caribbean. This "toy" probably cost its owner between five and ten million dollars.

I do not know the Yankee workman's thoughts, but as a former manufacturer of necessary products and a competitive sailor of 30 foot boats, Purple found this display of hedge fund wealth and tax evasion somewhere between ridiculous and shameful.

The other evening a group of us listened to noted economist Alice Rivlin discuss the nation's fiscal problems - deficits, debt and unemployment. She added to those obvious problems her concern for the growing inequality in personal wealth (think Red Sky) and the partisan politics which prevents government from functioning to solve the nation's difficulties. She added climate change as a dangerous longer term threat to our civilization.

An election now impends. We must choose between two parties, with very different ideas on how America should function.

One – color it Red – believes in freedom for each individual to work hard for himself, a "winner take all" philosophy inspiring each player to do his / her best, thus benefitting society as well. The other – color it Blue – believes that Americans are all in it together, that we enter life with varied abilities, and that by cooperating we can create a prosperous and just society for all.

Purple believes in blending the best of each concept. Here's how a Purple candidate might think:

America cannot go back to some happy past; too much has changed. We must face today's realities.

The world now has 7 billion people, compared to about 2 billion a century ago. Many aspire to America's material-intensive lifestyle. Our human habitat is already overburdened, as evidenced by global warming, rising sea levels, over-fishing, species extinction, fresh water shortages, and conflicts over scarce resources and cultural differences.

U.S. population is older, and culturally and ethnically more diverse than before. Americans represent less than 5% of the world's population. Our share of the global economy is shrinking. Though we remain the most powerful nation, economically, scientifically and militarily our comparative edge has diminished.

Globalization has increased dependence on other nations, economically and in addressing global problems cooperatively. Others also have good ideas. We need to listen, and lead by ideas and example, not by arrogance and force.

Our finances are in disarray. Repair requires both cost savings and added revenue (think Red Sky) to overcome past tendencies to "consume now, pay later." That bill has now come due.

Health care costs, elevated by an aging population, are a major financial problem, as is our gimmick-ridden tax code.

We must invest heavily in America's future - better education from birth for our young, and mid-career retraining for those displaced by technological or economic changes. Teachers' unions must be a partner in improving education, not a defender of ineffective teachers.

We should address past illegal immigration with compassionate common sense, allowing many of these residents to become productive citizens, while enforcing future immigration policies vigorously.

We must invest in basic research and in improved infrastructure.

We should align our military to carry out today's and tomorrow's missions, and avoid making unnecessary weapons or maintaining obsolete bases in some influential congressman's district.

Finally, we should reduce the corrupting influence of money in elections. Respectful negotiations between political parties is a prerequisite to solving governmental problems. The legislative process has been gravely damaged by a flight to ideologies of the extreme right and left. That damage has been amplified by the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which unleashed a flood of anonymous money used to inject negative and often untruthful attack advertising into today's campaigns.

Purple's most fundamental election questions are:

Who can best restore civility and collegiality to the legislative process?

Who can promote a social ethic under which those benefitting most from the economy accept responsibility to give back more than those less fortunate?

Who can represent America most effectively in working with other nations to solve international problems?

Purple has made his choice, independent of past party affiliation and in accord with the above criteria. He urges others to do the same, even if it leads some to a different conclusion.