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A Recipe For 3rd Party Victory
Yet another stand-back, thought provoking entry comes via CBS.com’s Editorial Director Dick Meyer:
The dumbed-down duopoly that controls political power in our 50 states is devoted to just one thing: self-preservation. Americans can’t take it anymore, but there’s no alternative.A few weeks ago, I wrote a column desperately begging for a real third party in 2008 and depressingly charting the obstacles the legacy parties have erected. I received a boatload of e-mail, almost all of which said: “I agree, it’s even worse than you say, but what’s the solution, Mr. Wisenheimer?”
Since then, Chuck Todd, the political savant who runs “The Hotline” — otherwise known as “crack for hacks” — has written that the time is actually ripe for a third party putsch. He notes a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that found 45 percent like the idea of an “independent” party. And Thomas Friedman, the smartest serious American who doesn’t run a hedge fund, also committed public fantasy by writing about a third party.
So trying to be responsive to both my readers and the obvious, spontaneous tsunami of support for an idea whose time has come, I have found a solution. It’s easy and it comes in five simple parts.
We don’t want to risk taking this one out of context — so read the five parts yourself.
Further down in his post he adds:
The Independent Party’s final step will be to recruit as wide and talented a crop of House candidates as possible. I am morally convinced there is a huge population of talented, community-oriented people in their 30s and 40s who have been successful in business, journalism, education, science and philanthropy and who would like to be in government — but who think, like you do, that the current process is repulsive. There’s a good one in every district.The Independent Party will have no platform to later ignore or make a mockery of. It will have something far more important: a recognizable political sensibility shared by a sensible, non-polarized majority of voters who actually have very good b.s. detectors.
And, indeed, it’s often said “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” In the case of American politics that saying elicits a “Well then fix it already!!!!!!!!!”
Both political parties have now become infected with winking disease. You know, the kind you see on many of the panel talking head shows on TV and cable, where journalists and politicos smugly glance with a slight sense of bemusement letting the others in the studio and viewers know that they know what is being said officially by this party hack or that government hack is BS…but it’s all part of the game.
Both political parties are also increasingly infected by the talk radio culture disease as well, where sound bytes peppered with what used to be called rhetorical extremism are the norm — all meant to get a someone’s often excessive phrase and puss on TV and to arouse the passions of partisan voters.
Read Meyer’s post IN FULL. He’s talking about opting instead for for nuts-and-bolts, problem solving, issue-oriented politics and government.
Which is why it’s a great specific plan that may never come about.
Unless more Americans get tired of the bipartisan winks.
7 Responses to “A Recipe For 3rd Party Victory”
Great idea, but how do they plan to fundraise? Our politicians are who they are and do what they do because of special interests and the lobbyists that represent them are allowed by law to host fundraisers for them.
This is why we no longer have representative government, as our elected officials are now beholden to corporate interests, labor unions, environmental groups, small business associations, etc, etc. Consumer advocates generally rank down at the bottom of the heap.
I love this idea! I admit that I’d really, really, really rather have the grassroots define the candidates, but for 2008, that wouldn’t be possible. But if a third party somehow rose up with political pragmatism as its party platform, then we might actually have a chance to fix all the problems we’re faced with today.
At least for a while, anyway – until the Independent Party became drunk with power like the Democrats and Republicans are today.
How about pulicly funded elections?
Maybe nobody sees it now, but the economy is going pretty good. Ahead it will get worse. The future according to these guys is a recession. If os, the winning party in 2006 will probably see the worst of it.
Given that the MSM has done virtually everything in their power to play down the current high point of economic activity, this coming recession is going to look like a depression.
It’s just a great time to start a new party .. NOT.
Is the “MSM” the “corporate” or “liberal” one. A political party of moderate Dems and Republicans might be possible, the cost of leaving a party vs. the freedom of action in not having to play to the extremes will be the deciding factor.
Many would support a third party of moderates, but they would have to prove they could raise money and win. Third parties have been tried in the past with disasterous results. They can actually subvert the will of the majority, resulting in minority rule. The most recent- example,–Ralph Nader in 2000, drew voters away from Gore and gave us the loser of the popular vote, Bush.
Real Change On The Horizon?
The Republicans are becoming increasingly right wing and the Democrats are likewise moving further left. The only time either party “pretends” to be moderate or centrist is in the year and months before a presidential election. I think the voters are quickly tiring of the partisanship and petty bickering. The polarization of this nation’s political field and the moves to the extremes of the political spectrum will someday be the catalyst for the emergence of the Moderate Party as a viable force in American politics. Even if we fail to win the White House by 2012 we can still implement 75% of our platform, philosophy and ideas because of the reactionary measures of the two major parties to take the wind out of moderates and independents sails. Right now if the “middle” had a viable party we could make a real run at Congress and national offices in 2008. Does anyone have 15 to 20 million laying around to further the most noble of all causes?