United We Fall
In our American two-party system, third party candidates generally serve as spoilers. It could be argued that our last two Presidents owe their first-term wins to third-party spoilers. Now as the 2008 campaign begins to heat up, a new third party enters the scene: Unity08.
Unity08 doesn’t present itself as a political party. In fact, its founders have stated they do not intend to create a new third party. Still, their goal is to have an 08 Presidential ticket consisting of a Democrat and a Republican, determined through an online convention. In effect this would be a third party. A bipartisan party of compromise.
At first blush it seems like a good idea. Break through the partisan politics and reclaim the middle. After all, representative government is based on compromise, so a party based on bipartisanship surely would be better than the red-state/blue-state division we currently have. But the more I think about it, the more I think Unity08 is a really bad idea.
By making a bipartisan ticket its goal, Unity08 seems to be essentially advocating for a single party system. Rather than trying to create a new centrist political party as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans, Unity08 would fuse the two on a single ticket. Those candidates who fail to secure the nomination of their respective party could have a second chance by signing up with Unity08, similar to Joe Liberman’s latest run for the Senate as an “independent.” I don’t see how this would help bring about political change.
Compromise is a good thing, but I don’t want to vote for compromise. As I see it, Unity08’s goal of ending partisanship is misguided. The problem is not that our political parties are too partisan, but that they are only two sides of a diverse political sphere. If Unity08 wants the middle to be heard, then it should create a moderate platform and make a stand as a third party. We can compromise after the election.
March 31st, 2007 14:58
Hi Brian-
Interesting point. When first hearing this, I thought it might be a good idea, but perhaps a clear, new alternative would be better than a mixing of the old.
I would change your sentence: “The problem is not that our political parties are too partisan, but that they are only two sides of a diverse political sphere;” I would add “only” after “not.” I think the Democrats and Republicns ARE far too partisan and unwilling to listen, understand, and perhaps compromise. We do, however, need more and stronger voices heard.
Susan
March 31st, 2007 15:17
At the same time, what success have third parties achieved in recent elections? Maybe Unity 08 is a step in the right direction, opening the door for future third party candidates that have more to offer than a traditional Republican or Democrat ticket. Once people see that centrism and/or bipartisanship can work, there may be more support for independent candidates or more centrist third parties in future.
March 31st, 2007 22:53
“Rather than trying to create a new centrist political party as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans, Unity08 would fuse the two on a single ticket.”
Interesting topic and I share your skepticism, in spades. But I think the above statement gets it only half right because there would be no meaningful fusion.
That’s because whoever leads the ticket sets policy for the campaign and, if elected, for the nation. Whoever is No. 2 has little say in policymaking unless he or she becomes No. 1.
If whoever heads the ticket is closely identified with either major party, there will inevitably be suspicion about that person’s real loyalty and purpose.
Unity08’s criticisms of the two major parties are well taken, especially about how hard liners and activists dominate the nominating process.
But on issues, I disagree with their contentions. In 2001 and again in 2004, polls consistently showed most Americans rejecting George W. Bush and neoconservative Republicans’ positions on a wide range of issues.
In 2004, on his campaign Web site, Sen. John Kerry put forth fairly detailed positions on virtually all the major issues Unity08 lists. Those were clear, definite stands, with almost no hedging. I know because I read most of them.
On all the major ones, Kerry’s positions aligned well with what most Americans told pollsters they preferred.
Yet, George W. Bush won re-election.
Could Unity08 do anything about $200 million worth of character-assassinating attack ads? About the outrages perpetrated by the partisan, mean-spirited Swiftboat vets, whose activities were bankrolled by millionaire businessmen who want the best government their money can buy?
I don’t see how.
The real answer is for more Americans to tune in much earlier, do their homework, make their choices and get involved. Maybe even chip in a few dollars. It’s not that hard to attend local caucuses and participate in primaries, helping to affect not only the horse race but also giving input about issue priorities and preferred solutions.
People need to tune out the he said/she said/they said, sound bites, the media’s gotcha moments and whether someone looks authentic riding in a tank or going hunting, and instead focus on whether they make sense about issues people say are important to them. Which candidates know what they’re talking about? Which candidates have a solid background of learning, of public service and accomplishment? That kind of thing.
I think the Unity08 folks are well intentioned. I just don’t think theirs is the way to make much of a difference, let alone make the system over so it comes out in some middle ground that’s acceptably comfortable for all.
March 31st, 2007 23:15
Susan and Elena, I think if you would take a close look, you’d find a goodly number of Democrats in Congress and governorships who qualify as centrist or moderate. By contrast, I think you’ll find relatively few Republicans moderates left in Congress (I don’t know about governorships).
If you want moderates to dominate, you and others of like mind will have to pick your favorites and proactively support them.
Be warned, though, that these labels are highly subjective and don’t neatly fit nearly as much as most people think.
For example, for a good many people, support of gay rights or a woman’s right to not have the government force her to carry a pregnancy to term is enough to make them write off an otherwise outstanding moderate politician. Supporting either of those things suddenly and easily trumps all other considerations.
Now, consider that those moderate politicians could easily be elected to a legislature or Congress and serve for years without ever having to cast a meaningful, much less pivotal, vote on either issue. But some folks find their stand on either or both issues so unacceptable that they label otherwise moderate politicians as liberals or hard left.
A similar example is easy to draw, in which many, many people who favor gay rights and a woman’s having autonomy over her own body would foreclose any chance of their supporting an otherwise moderate policitian who opposes those things.
Yet, if an office seeker tries to dodge or hedge on hot-button issues such as those, they risk losing credibility with everyone. So, when they disclose which side they’re on, there goes their centrist status, at least in the eyes of those opposed to the stand they’ve taken.
April 1st, 2007 12:34
SW- You contend that “…if you would take a close look, you’d find a goodly number of Democrats in Congress and governorships who qualify as centrist or moderate. By contrast, I think you’ll find relatively few Republicans moderates left in Congress (I don’t know about governorships).”
I will admit that I know little enough about the individuals who make up the big picture, so I cannot challenge this assertion with facts, but it seems, without support, to be overly contentious. I certainly have an impression that the country has drifted towards the right, but I come to this site to question my assumptions more than to massage them. Maybe this gets us into the lack of utility of labels (since a moderate to me may be a pinko to Karl Rove). But since this is your statement, I’ll ask: is there some data or yardstick that you are using to make this assertion?
Nick
April 1st, 2007 12:40
SW again-
You mention “Could Unity08 do anything about $200 million worth of character-assassinating attack ads? About the outrages perpetrated by the partisan, mean-spirited Swiftboat vets, whose activities were bankrolled by millionaire businessmen who want the best government their money can buy?”
I absolutely agree with you about the problems in the processes you mention. But , as I am towards the more open-minded end of the spectrum, I think we ust also include the Democratic PACs like MoveOn, who also sponsor attack ads and do it with some very partisan glee. How do we help the entire process, and both sides in a two-party system, become a biy more civil and more focused on issues than mind candy? Involvement, as you mention, is a necessary step–maybe less hours blogging and more in the trenches of the campaigns we support because we’ve done our work and know the people and the issues.
Nick
April 1st, 2007 13:00
Hi S.W.,
My home state of Ohio has two centrist Republicans, definitely made in the Rockerfeller mode. So, they do exist, but they changed their colors after being elected.
Rick
April 1st, 2007 17:25
Nick, regarding your question about relatively fewer GOP moderates, Republicans have noted this has happened. During the long run hard liners like Gingrich, Armey and DeLay had as House leaders, they used a variety of tactics to punish Republican members deemed to moderate and/or not willing to march in lockstep with the leadership’s orders.
One tactic involved dropping items a targeted member needed for his district out of bills, especially in House-Senate conference committee proceedings. Another was redistricting targeted members so they had a harder time raising money and getting re-elected. In some cases, the leadership and RNC pumped money into the primary campaigns of Republicans who were more hard right and willing to play follow the leaders — all to the disadvantage of GOP incumbents who had shown too much independence.
Beyond that, the reporters and pundits have commented repeatedly how much more “disciplined” congressional Republicans have been than Democrats in recent years.
Regarding your remark . . .
“I think we ust also include the Democratic PACs like MoveOn, who also sponsor attack ads and do it with some very partisan glee.”
I tend to agree in principle, particularly since a couple of Moveon.org exploits have been over the top.
And yet, I also wonder if it’s not fair to cut pro-Democratic activists a little slack, given how broad, wide, deep and well-funded the right-wing noise machine has grown.
Big-name corporate media, nearly all the cable news outlets, several newspapers and magazines, 90 percent of talk radio and virtually the whole D.C. infrastructure of so-called think tanks, plus several colleges and universities, the Southern Baptist Convention and numerous evangelical Christian organizations represent a lot of propaganda horsepower. And that’s not even mentioning phony TV news “reports” and paid-for opinions from supposedly independent columnists like Armstrong williams. And then there are the authors of numerous books, including a current one ghost written for Tom DeLay.
April 2nd, 2007 19:20
S.W. — My comment was more about finding a way for bipartisanship to work in the system we’ve allowed to dominate, rather than to glorify centrism. I used that word simply because often bipartisan efforts can find some common ground within a more centrist framework.
I agree with Nick that as a nation we have slipped farther to the Right in many ways. However, in other ways I can see that we’ve become more interested in making laws to protect every one of us in every conceivable situation, rather than using common sense or taking responsibility for our actions. Yes, I know that smacks of Libertarianism (government out of my back pocket, yadda yadda). But in all honesty, I think that in that vein we’ve turned more to the Left (assuming The Left advocates bigger government and more laws — does it? that’s a topic in and of itself).
Again, I see the value in defining some of these terms (Left, Right, etc.) to avoid confusion.
April 2nd, 2007 20:39
Elena, back when the West was wide open and wild, there were relatively few laws and regulations, and even fewer law enforcement officers. Rough justice, exacted up close and personally by an aggrieved party, maybe with help from sympathetic family members and friends, was far more common than laws and lawsuits.
Inhabitants of big, open, sparsely populated places can get along with fewer laws and less enforcement. Can you imagine someone whose nearest neighbor is 12 miles down the trail going into town to fetch the sheriff because his neighbor’s dog is barking or his neighbor left some trash get over the property line? Ever hear of a Pony Express rider or stagecoach getting a speeding ticket? Or hear of someone on horseback along a lonely dirt trail in the middle of nohwere being cited for DUI?
Then, think about what our modern city and suburban neighborhoods are like and what it’s like on our busy streets and freeways.
As populations grow and population density increases, as humans interact more often and more intensively in most aspects of their lives, rough justice and just letting trash dumpers, speeders and drunk drivers do their thing unbothered by the law doesn’t cut it any more.
Neither can factories be allowed to dump their dangerous waste in the soil or rivers, or pump them into the air. Neither can meatpackers get by using ill-trained workers in filthy workplaces to put out tainted products that can sicken and even kill innocent people, all toward minimizing expenses and maximizing profits. Neither can developers be allowed to build whatever, wherever and any old way. Neither can just anyone hang out a shingle and start practicing medicine, law, dentistry, etc.
We have a lot more laws, law enforcers and a lot more government and government regulation now because at every step of the way down through our history, people had suffered losses of many kinds, even loss of life, for lack of those things, and they or their survivors demanded something be done.
Most of the time, these laws have only been enacted and backed up with enforcement after people have raised hell with lawmakers for quite some time. The matter of a civil rights is a perfect example.
Some people found it hard to accept that on a long trip they had to drive another hundred or 200 miles because hotels and motels operated by their kind for their kind were few and far between, and they couldn’t go in other people’s places like real, first-class citizens. They couldn’t accept that their money was good enough at the back door of a roadside diner, so they could eat in their car, but not good enough to get them a place at the table, inside. They couldn’t accept that their kids weren’t good enough to attend schools with other kids not of their kind.
These folks also couldn’t accept that they had to pay a hefty tax and/or take a tricky test before they could vote, just because of their race and the color of their skin.
So, after most of a century of struggle, their efforts paid off with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Those laws and most others didn’t come about because some busybodies in government wanted to look industrious so as to justify their high salaries. They came about because in ways great and small, ordinary people and even big corporations had sought a greater degree of safety, peace of mind and fairness, for themselves and for others.
April 3rd, 2007 18:12
S.W. — Whoa Nellie! I’m not a cowboy. I’m not even a Libertarian! Neither am I an Anarchist.
When I was a kid, I rode my bike like a crazy thing - without a helmet or any padding (it was the 70s). Yet I never needed stitches, somehow. Hmmm… anyway, the point is, I do think there’s a certain about of molly-coddling that we have locked ourselves and our kids into. These days kids doesn’t know what it’s like to ride a bike with the wind thrashing their hair about because they must - MUST - wear helmets. I’m not saying helmets are bad. But I feel it should be up to the parents, not the government, to make sure their kids wear them. This is one tiny little example of what I was talking about in my earlier post. I’m not talking about things like institutionalized racism, child labor etc. I am talking about things that need common sense and a moment of thought, not our lawmakers, to deal with appropriately.
I agree it’s a fine line, but it’s one that has been stretched over the last couple of decades. I love it, for example, that I don’t have to come home from having dinner and a couple drinks with cigarette smoke in my hair and clothes. However, I think it’s a travesty that the reason I’m enjoying these smoke-free environments is because of a NYS law that prohibits any and all smoking in any and all public areas.
Here’s my suggestion for an alternative: bars that want to have smoking legal on the premises should apply for a permit, pay a fee, and advertise as such. (fees could go to cancer research?) Places that aren’t interested in public smoking can remain smoke-free. If people want to kill themselves and have no compunction against harming others with 2nd hand smoke (and those consuming 2nd hand smoke are willing to be harmed), let them do their thing. I’d suggest keeping restaurants smoke-free, as many children would be at risk for 2nd hand smoke inhalation.
That way, going to a smoky bar would be like abortion: if you don’t like it, don’t do it. Give people choice and consequence for their choices.
April 4th, 2007 03:49
Elena, there’s much sense in what you say about letting bars and restaurants cater to smokers — consenting adults who assume their own risks and who might or might not suffer their own consequences as a result.
But where a child riding a bike without a helmet is concerned, it’s a different matter. Yes, parents should take responsibility for seeing to it their bike-riding children do that as safely as possible, including wearing a helmet. Unfortunately, not all parents are responsible.
Even parents who are responsible can be — and have been — guilty of just not thinking, of not foreseeing the possibility their child could end up with serious brain injury or even die as a result of an accident on a bicycle.
A law empowering police to help keep such tragedies from happening is well worth the cost in kids not experiencing the feeling of wind in their hair as they ride.
BTW, there’s another benefit you might not realize. If all bike-riding kids must wear a helmet, economies of scale in producing and selling those helmets to a mass market bring the price of helmets down. That helps less-well-off parents afford the cost of doing the right thing.
April 4th, 2007 12:08
SW — I see your points regarding bike helmets. I guess I’m thinking in terms of what I did as a kid (and lived to tell the tale) and how my experience is different from today’s kids. Obviously, I grew up in a different time with different needs and sensibilities.
Still in all, I see the molly-coddling, and what today’s college students are like (as opposed to my generation), and I don’t think it (the molly-coddling) necessarily brings out the best of being human. I see timidity, lack of self-motivation, lack of confidence, and a desire for every detail and molecule to be spelled out by the teacher. There’s a lack of adventurousness (academic, creative, or otherwise) that I find disturbing.
This has become a bit off-topic from the original post, but is very interesting. Maybe another post on this topic is in order…?