Trying to make an informed decision

I wasn't going to watch the presidential debate tonight. I watched the last one and I regret those two hours of my life I'll never get back. I hate politics - I really really do. However, I do think it's important to care about what's going on, try to be somewhat informed, yada yada yada. Anyways, TGD had the debate on while I was working on the laptop so I got sucked into it. Mostly they say the same thing over and over again. What I'd like to know is how do you pick a candidate when they cater to the extreme left and right? I consider myself a "middle ground" person - neither super liberal nor conservative. Where's my candidate? Ralph Nader? That's it? See, this is why most of the time I don't get involved. I'm disillusioned with the whole political process, that and it seems like the people that are gung-ho are too extreme, unwilling to hear anything the other side has to say. The whole thing just drives me nuts.