An Idea Whose Time Has Come
I'll start with the party I am most familiar with. Jazz and I discussed this column in our show this morning.
I grew up in a particularly conservative part of the already conservative state of Indiana. I voted for Bob Dole in 1996 and George Bush in 2000, generally because—though I'm not a conservative (I'm a libertarian)—I'd always thought the GOP was the party of limited government. By 2002, I was less sure of that. And by 2004, I was so fed up with the party that I did what I thought I'd never do—vote for an unabashed leftist for president.
Since then, "fed up" has soured to "given up." The Republican Party has exiled its Goldwater-Reagan wing and given up all pretense of any allegiance to limited government. In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it's given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending—even on items not related to war or national security—has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that's supposed to be "free market" nationalizes huge chunks of the economy's financial sector.
I can not disagree with any comments the author makes about what is wrong with the Republican Party. Heaven knows I have said all of that and then some in the last 3 years. I do however, take issue with his conclusion. The Republican Party HAS walked away from it's core conservative roots as I have written before. However, conservatives walking away from the party will not fix it for one reason. We tried this before in 2006. Conservatives stayed home in droves in 2006, handing traditionally safe seats to the Democrats for the first time in recent memory! In their usual deafness, the RNC (and the MNGOP since that is where I was in 2006) decided that the lesson to be taken from the 2006 election losses was that they needed to be MORE LIBERAL, not less! This attitude has given rise to a phenomenon that I called the "Huckabee Conservatives" on the show today. These are social conservatives who have no problems with government getting involved in the lives of the governed as long as it is for the "right" reason. Yet this same group denounces liberal policies that in essence do the exact same thing. The only way to halt this slide into "socialist lite" disguised as "compassionate conservatism" is for conservatives to come back to the party and take it back. Sadly, walking away (as Mr. Balko suggests) and letting the GOP lose again will not teach them the lessons that the party elites need to learn.
Now on to the Dems.
I talk to them every day.To call them "disgruntled Hillary supporters" is to drastically underestimate who they are and what has happened to their thinking. To call them "disgruntled Hillary supporters" suggests that they're only upset at Hillary's loss in the primary, and that they'll be back after the anger settles.
Wrong.
Okay, that will undoubtedly be true of some of them—but not the ones I've been talking to. The ones with whom I (and a few fellow conservatives) have been speaking will NOT be back under the Democrats' tent any time soon, and possibly ever.
You see, they didn't just get upset at a loss, they saw something in the Democratic Party that they didn't like. Now, you and I will tell them, "oh, that's been there for a long time." I myself, especially after a recent improvement to my education
on the subject, might suggest that what they see now has been creeping in since the start of the Wilson administration.
For right now, though, those details don't matter. What matters is that they've seen the leftist rot eating away at an American political party. The ones with whom we are in contact are not leaving the party out of some petulance at a primary loss, they're leaving the party because that rot has been exposed to them. Barack Obama has lifted up the carpet and showed them the rotting floorboards (or teeming roaches—whatever metaphor you like) underneath.
I've talked to the same people that this author speaks of. They are echoing the old Ronald Reagan sentiment "I didn't leave the Democratic Party....IT LEFT ME." a sentiment shared by many including Joe Leiberman, Zell Miller and myself. This is not the Democratic Party of JFK and my youth. This Democratic Party - with it's support of a bill that will strip private balloting rights from workers has become an anathema to the democracy that it claims to support. If nothing else, Senator Clinton has done this nation a greater service than if she had won the nomination - she exposed the rot in the Democrat Party in such a way that it was impossible for all but the most besotted kool-aid drinkers in the party to ignore.
While I honestly do not think that the two parties are irreparably broken, I do think that they are in danger of becoming irrelevant in very short order unless they get their respective houses in order fast. That will only come from reformation from within. That is why I stay active in the Republican Party. I want to fix it from within.
What does this mean for 3rd party candidates? This means that now is their time to start building the groundwork that they will need in two years to start taking back this country. This means that Independents and Libertarians across the country have two huge voting blocks to make inroads with. Most states have vote percentage thresh-holds that 3rd parties must meet in polling or elected races in order to guarantee them a spot on the ballot the next time. It is a heck of a lot easier to get that magic number (usually around 15%) in a county or state wide race than it is in a national race. Don't feel like you must aim for the stars right out of the gate! Get the magic 15% to get on the ballot and then start recruiting. Go to these disgruntled Republicans and Democrats and say "I really think we have more in common than you do with the others." The more you can do to generate a groundswell the better it will be in 4 years for candidates higher up the ticket. The more that you can do in the next two years on a county and state level the easier it will be for your Presidential candidate to get into the debates in 4 years!
The big thing that EVERYONE forgets is that politics is not trickle down - it is bubble up. Libertarians and Independents are never going to see the debates from the podium if they do not have the grassroots support to make the debate commission sit up and take notice.There is no better time than today to make your contribution toward fixing what is wrong with politics today.
Labels: Third Parties
posted by The Lady Logician at
3:59 PM
5 Comments:
I agree, nationally, we'd do well to have a viable third (or fourth even) party.
In utah, I'm still wishing for a viable second party.
:)
By
Alice, at 9:39 PM
LOL Allie. I hear ya.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 2:14 PM
There is a idea that has been percolating in my brain about how the two party system is ineffective in its current split. There is one point of agreement between rank-and-file D's and R's: complete distrust of those elected to represent us.
However, we align with D's and R's according to their perceived stances on the issues most important to us. If you distain of a rich selfish class that piggishly keep money and power at the cost of those without money and power, you will align D. If you distain people equating success with immorality and believe that the exercise of personal responsibility determines outcomes far more than starting points, then you will align R.
The truth is that the charicatures of greedy R's and lazy D's are constructs used by the political class to keep us in our places. And the process of lawmaking, law enforcing, and law administering (the 3 branches) are intentionally convoluted to keep the populace living under those rules in serfdom to those who do understand the rules.
I believe that rank and file D's and R's have quite a bit in common. If we were to align along the lines of Libertarian (leave me the hell alone) and Social Justice (come to me my babies and let me quell your pain), the L's would far outnumber the SJ's. But the phony previous political construct keeps us somewhat equally split and allows those in the politcal class to game the system by keeping the represented from understanding what the hell is going on.
In short: damn right we need a third party!
By
Dale, at 10:49 AM
Astute points on the caricatures Dale, very astute. As I said in another post, I do MidStream Radio with a liberal and a moderate (me being the conservative on the panel). When we get past the caricatures and delve into the issues, more often that not we all three agree on what needs to be done. It is only on a couple of issues where we part and that is honestly to be expected.
Once we get away from the caricatures we can make progress.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 11:09 AM
The only successful 3rd party in our history was the Republican Party. It succeeded because it stood for one of the most fundamental of all rights: freedom. Now, certainly many of todays 3rd parties are for freedom. The main ones are too. The crux is how freedom is defined. Each party defines freedom in its own way. None seem to agree completely on freedom's definition.
To sum up too long of an argument in your comment section with the added danger of coming across as a bit oversimplifying, I will assert that all of today's 3rd party groups, none will ever grow to reach major party status.
I am reminded of the Byrd's "Turn, turn, turn" which is a contemporary adaptation of a Psalm. It applies especially in our current time. To put the image of Obama at every mention of the word, change is upon us and some of it is bad. Most likely things will get worse before they get better. No matter, we still have to deal with what is. (Spoken like a true Gen-Xer!)
I am not suggesting it is time to go all Atlas Shrugged on the major parties quite yet. The major parties, much like our great nation, has changed in ways that are troubling to us. The parties are in need of an overhaul and they will get them. In twenty years, the two major parties will look nothing like they do today. As with anything, it will take time to do so. Time moves slow, so witnessing the dynamic in the parties is nearly impossible. We are also being affected by the events we wish to observe. This makes it even more difficult to quantify change.
Anyway, my suggestion is not to give up, but to fight on! Switching parties, especially to trivial, transient 3rd parties, when times are down is the easy way out! Chin up, things are going to get worse!
By
Anonymous, at 12:37 PM
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