Do principled stances have any place in mainstream American politics?

The last few years I've been reading a lot of left libertarian/right libertarian, anarchist, Austrian economics, Keynesian economics philosophies... and it's made me wonder a little bit why it took me so long to be exposed to a lot of these ideas. Then I switch on the mainstream news and see left and right pundits basically having debates with each other that is the intellectual equivalent of chimps at the zoo throwing poop. Is there any hope for intelligent debate in the mainstream and thus a more critically thinking population or will we as a culture stick to poop throwing?