Nurture the GOP in case the Democrats tank

I completely agree.

And at the very least, there must be accountability for failure.

The real problem is that each side puts staying in power ahead of the good of the country. In order to stay in office they yield to the lure of special interest money. If they fail to do so, often the special interests will back a candidate that will support them. Unless you limit the power of lobbyists, this will continue to plague us, no matter who is in power.

Change never will come from Democrats or Republicans. Thats why I most often vote third party. I'll wait to see how Obama and McCain debate eachother; but if nothing positive is shown from that, I'm planning to vote for either Barr or Nader. If Obama wants to allow third parties in the Presidential debates, then I'll be more favorable towards the idea that he wants change. Democratic machine politics is not change.

The idea that the Republican Party should become the Democratic-lite party is laughable. The Republicans in states like Mass. have already tried and have failed. Why give up large numbers of voters to get a few swing voters.

The more likely scenario is that the Republican Party collapses completely and the former Republican voters start voting in the Democratic Primary. Then there will be liberal and conservative wings of the Democratic Party.

I have grave doubts about the ability to break the cycle.

Battling the influence of lobbyist money and the special interests they represent is a good first step, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Polarized and geographically segregated communites are another form of special interests, and it is often they who want their representatives to be in power at any cost and by any means.
It's not always a top-down mechanism (Congresspeople wanting to keep their seats for perrsonal advantage). It's often a bottom-up phenomenon (voters pushing their representatives to retain their seats no matter what the impact on the rest of the country is).

The most ominous development I see is the increasing number of people who have no interest in reforming the system but turn, instead to the magic lure of third parties. I think that's a mistake, because a political party is still a political party, subject to the same foibles of human nature as the two we have. This would lead to a further splintering of society, rather than drawing people together to solve common problems.
Independent voters are a boon, putting the parties on notice, as it were.
Indepent partiies just make progress more difficult, IMO.

Accountability through the electoral process is key. If the parties are able to offer substantial alternatives to each other, then the system will work just fine. As long as the country still resembles a democratic republic someone will fill the oppositional power vacuum. I don't particularly care if that opposition party is called Republican or Green or whatever.

runasim,

I have complete commitment to reforming the system, and I think that can only happen through third parties. The two parties are too beholden to money and machine politics. A third party founded on promises of reform can only survive, if its able to institute that reform. Otherwise, they'll get voted out of office the next year.

Second, one of the major aspects of REFORM that needs to happen is electoral reform. We need to reform the ballot process and reform the debate process.

The corruption in politics is not about 'human nature' its about a broken system, thats in part held up by a broken electoral process. Its not the 'winner take all" process that has locked us in a two party system, but overly restrictive ballot access laws designed by Republicans and Democrats, which require third parties to spend all their money in the ballot process so they have nothing to spend in the campaign. Its not the "winner take all" process, but a debate commission run by former RNC and DNC chairs that collude to leave out third party candidates. Its not the "winner take all" process but gerrymandering which allows incumbents to keep their districts.

One of the reasons its so hard to break out of the system of corruption, is that the Democrats and Republicans have made it so difficult to run outside their machines. If, when you disagreed with major party policy, you could run on a different ticket; the system would work a lot better.

The biggest part of the corruption in the process that exists today is not direct bribery, but the only candidates that are able to run are those that are tied to pre-established machines with connections to money.

Reforming the electoral system will be the biggest and most effective form of campaign reform.

You can go on and continue to think Obama will win and change the system if you want; we'll talk in 4 years and see if this has happened.

McCain-Feingold was an utter joke, that actually made standards more difficult for third parties, and protected incumbents. It also did nothing meaningful to remove money from the process; PACs still are alive and thriving, just like they were before McCain-Feingold, because that law did nothing about PACs. Soft money was never the biggest problem. That's the type of smokescreen sham reform you get through Republicans and Democrats who are preening for the voters.

If Obama promises to reform the electoral process, like I said, then I will vote for him. If he thinks ballot access laws and debate restrictions are fine how they are, then I will not vote for him.

Obama has a chance to get my vote.

ChrisW,

Accountability has nothing to do with opposition parties, when they're both beholden to a corrupt process.

We also don't need a divided politic to be a functioning democracy. In the 'era of good feelings' (1815-24) the US was under virtually a one-party rule, and we did fine.

I think the power of special interests is the problem-not the parties themselves. Third parties have their own problems.

When someone like Joe Lieberman wanted to run as an Independent, he had no trouble getting himself elected. Then he proceeded to play both sides against the middle to accentuate his own position of power. He was a thorn in the Democrats' side, yet agreed with too many of their issues to be a Republican. Another example is Ralph Nader, who took key votes away from Gore in 2000, and threw the election to a man who epitomizes everything he hates.

kritt,

Yeah if you're a huge celebrity, VP candidate, in the national spotlight with already existing statewide organization, and decide to run on an independent ticket you'll have less as a problem.

I worked with the Reform Party, though, and we had a lot of contact with elected Congressmen who expressed interest in jumping ship and joining us. They were too afraid though because they thought it would be political suicide---because of the ballot and media difficulties involved.

People really don't understand how much the parties control the electoral process. There have been a lot of cases where a Democratic or Republican candidate at the Congressional level has decided to buck the machine and not take dirty money; then the party just runs someone against him that will take dirty money.

The end result is that we only get candidates who will take dirty money.

Again, not human nature; a broken system.

I disagree with the idea that the country would be completely different if we had Gore as President instead of Bush; and I disagree that its a meaningful election if someone wins over the other by less than 1% of the vote (2000). I personally couldn't care less if Gore won instead of Bush. I think Democrats would have taken us into war also.

But besides that point, and I may disagree with Nader himself on that; I don't think you know how elections would be different if there were not repressive restrictions on third parties. The spoiler problem would probably not exist as such.

Running as an Independent, btw, itself is much easier than running on a third party. Perot had so much more legal and ballot issues running on the Reform Party in 96 than running as a independent in 92.

It takes more signatures to get on the ballot as a third party candidate than as an independent.

Accountability has nothing to do with opposition parties, when they're both beholden to a corrupt process.

We also don't need a divided politic to be a functioning democracy. In the 'era of good feelings' (1815-24) the US was under virtually a one-party rule, and we did fine.

I don't want to get too caught up in the idea of parties vs. individuals. Because you could have one party with divisions or no parties at all.

However, I do think you need distinctions among candidates to have a functioning republican democracy.

Redfish,
The system is what people (human nature) has made it to be. If it's broken, then people broke it.

Even if third parties turned out ot have a good inflluence, the mechanics would still be those of politics, or the group dynamics of human nature.

Third parties would still need money, they would still need to wheel and deal on legistlation, they would still need a platform on a broad range of issues, In short, third party members would still need to be politicians, vulneralbe to the same impulses, good and bad, to which every other member of Congres is subject.

Where we differ is that I put the horse of reforming the processes of the system before the cart of possibly ntroducing new elements into it.

Th Era of Good Feeling , btw, largely depended on ignoring those feeling far from good abot it. . I don't think we want to return to being oblivious., as the awakening can be a rude shock..

runasim,

Either way, if we're going to reform a broken system, we have to reform the parts that are broken. Even as they're not winning, third parties are making a huge difference in this effort---they've been involved in bringing laws that are on the books to court. Many laws have already been thrown out.

And its always up to Obama if he wants to encourage this.

I think if Obama made clear a position that the bar for entry of third party candidates shouldnt be high (lower than last elections 15%), he would gain votes, not lose them.

If Obama's team also doesn't engage in trying to sue minor parties off the ballot (like Democrats did to Nader), he will gain votes, not lose them.

I think our current political system had the unintended consequence of making it far too difficult for third parties to make a difference. If we could substantially alter the system with something like proportional representation then it would be much easier to form a third party.

"The idea that the Republican Party should become the Democratic-lite party is laughable."

That's what liberals call "moderate" or "centrist." [rolling eyes] But there's a rude piece of reality in this, insofar as the GOP so often in Washington proceeds to do just this. DC, the rest of the Northeast, California -- it's a RINO reserve!

Cooperation and collaboration (what those nice, touchy-feely "moderates" or "centrists" want from the GOP; they dare not call it "Project Judas" or "Project Don't Rock the Boat, Can't We All Get Along Share the Pork") is what often happens, in fact. That's one characteristic of the Duopoly we have. (It's like any larger cartel; there always is cheating; each side wants to poach swing voters and less-committed voters from the other party.)


* * *

As far as

"Nurture the GOP in case the Democrats tank"

is concerned, and the other recommendation,

"Nurture the Democratic Party in case the Republicans tank"

big-money lobbying hedgers contributing to campaigns of both parties like Archer-Daniels-Midland come to mind. The Duopoly is not too hard to exploit, especially if they often will collaborate or cooperate with each other as Washington continues to grow.

So I encourage us all to contribute to the re-education of the GOP by speaking out for a lot less social conservatism,

In my opinion this has had ZERO effect on the people that the progressive left must rely on who will vote the GOP out of power. The GOP has done almost nothing in the way of social conservativism that really matters to those who are not progressive left.

Its the War Stupid has been the democrats Mantra. The delusional process that those who oppose the GOP this fall will be that the voters reject everything about the GOP and this is simply not true. This is a rejection of the war. Pure and simple.

The rest will fall into place in 2 or 4 years when the voters have forgotten how rotten the gop is and realize how rotten the DNC is.