A Third Party: Making It Real
By amba | Related entries in Elections, General PoliticsWhich means, of course, not making it ideal. That’s only in our dreams:
[Right away,] we need a top of the ticket. Yes, grassroots is better, but there is no time and no possibility of it happening. A top-down party will not achieve profound social change, probably ever. A top-down party, like the degenerate duopoly, will also be shackled to chains of marketing, fundraising and the decline of genuine community in America. That doesn’t mean a third party won’t be one hell of an improvement.
I saw this a couple of days ago but succumbed to linking fatigue. But now The Moderate Voice has picked it up and just in case you didn’t catch it there, you should. It’s CBS.com’s Dick Meyer’s Recipe for 3rd-Party Victory — “an idea whose time has come.” Highlights:
- A “straightforward” name: The Independent Party.
- Michael Bloomberg for President. Third choice after McCain and Colin Powell, who aren’t available.
But “freakishly smart, pretty funny, undeniably competent,” enough of a maverick and enough of a billionaire to start the moneyball rolling. - Gen. Anthony Zinni for veep. Has “said he’ll never get involved in politics in rather contemptuous ways, which qualifies him for this job perfectly.”
- A slate of high-profile 2008 Senate candidates including Wes Clark (Ark.), Walter Isaacson (LA), Tim Penny (MN), two women university presidents, Penn’s Amy Gutmann (NJ) and Brown’s Ruth Simmons (RI), and a former university president — Larry Summers (MA, taking away John Kerry’s seat). That’s a particularly nice touch.
- A think tank to cast a wide net for policy ideas, train candidates and campaigners, and to “[conduct] massive research and development about ways to communicate with citizens that are better than 30-second television ads, staged debates and creepy, farcical conventions.”
- A talent search to fill the House with fresh citizen legislators.
The best part is Meyer’s description, not so much of the Independent Party’s principles as of its cranky, folksy, impatient-with-bullshit values, larded with the welcome words “intolerant,” “hostile,” and “belligerent.” It’s almost irresistible to quote this part in full, but I won’t because I want you to read the whole thing. A taste:
- hostile to budget deficits and billing our debts to our children; [ . . . ]
- conservative when it comes to conserving and preserving the environment, safety, communities and social traditions [at last, someone has seen the "conservative" in conservation!]; [ . . . ]
- defensive, wary, not cocky, not very intellectual and sometimes humanitarian in its foreign policy.
It’s so good that Joe Gandelman calls it “a great specific plan that may never come about.”
Sigh.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, General Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
You may be right that the time is right for a third party. But your slate of candidates is downright crazy. Bloomberg doesn’t have the background or qualifications for the top spot. Zinni is such a die-hard Republican he can’t even bring himself to hold Bush accountable for any of the policies or appointments Zinni likes to complain about (and if anyone should know that the commander-in-chief is ultimately responsible, it’s a military professional). You can scratch Clark from your list of Senate candidates as well. No way he will ever run as anything but a Democrat, and no way for anything less than the presidency. It would be a step down from his prior status as Supreme Allied Commander. Would Eisenhower have settled for a senate seat? Would anyone in his right mind have expected him to?
May 15th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Bush’s rating are down; Hillary’s ratings are down. I think that the People are ready for a change and the Third party is looking better every day.
It is a shame that tools like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot forever stained the underwear of Third Party candidates. People associate third parties with millionaires and charts. It will be an uphill battle but with the right cadidates they might have a chance, but I doubt it. There are too many people supporting the two party system and the third parties do nothing but steal votes from Dems/Reps during the elections.
May 15th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Question: Why does a third party have to win the White House? The best first step a third party could do is to focus on Congress. Fill enough seats with moderate independents to ensure that neither party holds a majority and, in order to get anything done, both parties will have to drop the hard line playing to their base rhetoric and focus on moderation and actual debate and compromise.
This is a more realistic short term goal for a third party. It would have to build itself up before taking the White House but it would not be impossible for one in today’s climate to at least begin claiming some seats in Congress that could at least begin to both build the party and ensure that ideologues do not have a majority to work with.
May 15th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Great idea, Ryan, I never thought of third parties in that sense. Maybe they should take baby steps before trying to get into the hot seat.
May 15th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
For that matter, it’d be even better to run as independent candidates in LOCAL elections – build up credibility and all…
That was the Republican strategy of the 80s, which led to having a really deep bench for their successes in the 90′s and today.
May 15th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
I hate to be quibbling before it even gets off the ground, but isn’t “Independent Party” rather an oxymoron?
May 15th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I agree with Ryan very strongly, but I would go further. The problem with the current system isn’t that we are electing bad candidates or that they have bad ideas of how to govern; it is that the system makes voting a zero-sum game. This leads to parties deciding their issues based on who will be hurt politically, rather than what is defensible on policy bases. So a war which is popular among Democrats when there is a Democratic president becomes anathema when the Republican hold the White House, and so on.
The third party, in my view, has a specific role – not to espouse any policy, but to facilitate consensus among the various factions. Candidates should be skilled in consensus building primarily, and the caucus would offer to facilitate any policy disputes, refuse to go into coalition with either party, and hold the possibility of bloc voting as a threat over the major parties. If it can deny either party a majority, it would automatically be able to choose among positions unless the major parties could reach agreement. And by eschewing races for the White House and Senate, it could make it very clear that it was process-oriented, not about personal vainglory.
May 16th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Knave, in my mind this is the real power of a third party. This is where having multiple parties in other countries is a powerful factor. No single party has the power to bully its philosophy through government because no single party has the majority needed to work without reaching an agreement with another party.
David, I think it would be a good idea to start even more locally as you state. Begin with school boards, city governments, county governments, work your way up through state governments, then you’re ready to throw your weight around and take a few Congressional seats. That said, if there were ever a time to skip the local government step and go straight for a shot at Congress, this is the time to do it with everyone seemingly upset with both parties. I just hope, if such an attempt is made and fails, that doesn’t hurt the overall progress of any potential third party development.
Russ, that is a very interesting idea but I question the ability of any party that doesn’t stand up and state a stance on some issues to get votes, especially in today’s political climate. I know that, when I vote for someone, I want to know where they stand or at least what kind of philosophy they have. In a way, I do want a consensus builder but I also want someone who will stand for his or her ideals, not support something just because it is a consensus decision.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
[...] An article at Donklephant points to a Dick Meyers commentary that I missed last week which touches upon the subject. [...]