We have had one man, Jeffords, take a step in the right direction. Any chance that anyone will follow?
The biggest political stories of the last 10 years seem to be moderate politicians who don’t see eye to eye with their parties and Independent voters deciding elections.
I think Ross Perot proved that it was time for a third party he was just the wrong man to pull it off. So maybe the path to a real third party is not through a single man leading the way but through the moderates joining together and fleeing both “major” parties.
I personally think that many problems including low voter turnout can be partly blamed on the fact that many voters feel they have no one to vote for. If they vote Republican they feel they will get a Bible Thumping ultra-conservative. If they vote Democrat they feel they will get an irresponsible spendthrift.
How many more people might make the effort to get to the polls if they felt they had someone reasonable to vote for?
I couldn’t find any national figures but here are two links that show the increase in independents on either side of the country.
So it looks like the voter base is there to support a third, centrist, party.
My feeling is that this is the time. I plan on contacting the moderate members of my states congressional delegation, Democratic and Republican, and urging them to join with Jeffords. To renounce their party affiliation and declare themselves independent. It is time for an end to party politics and for a centrist coalition to take the reins in Washington.
Only if there is a God. I believe most people want a break from the Republicrats. Ande if you don’t believe that’s what they are…may I point at the tax bill as proof?
It would be an interesting thought. I’ve always wondered if the existence of more than two major parties would make things “better” (by providing a wider coverage of political ideals, OR by “stirring the pot” a little and requiring that the major parties pay more attention to the smaller segments of the party), or whether it would simply make things “worse” (making things more confusing).
I guess it could go either way.
I don’t think, however, that this would stir a mass Exodus from the Dems or Repubs to create a third party, simply because, despite the fact that there are moderates on both sides, there’s still not enough of an philosophical/political meshing, AND there’s not a long history of “unity” (shaky unity is still unity) to act as a “glue”.
Personally, I think the US would be best served by five distinct “major” parties: far left (Nader and co.), center left (aka, present day Dems), centrists (Jeffords and co.), center right (present day Republicans), and far right (Buchanan and co.).
Coalitions would be necessary if all the parties were relatively equal, and this would lead to funky pairings like the far right and far left agreeing on some things, and going to war over the others.
Don’t forget that our voting system (winner take all) heavily favors having 2 parties. When 3 candidates run against one another, the 2 that are ideologically closest tend to lose to the other campaigner.
European countries that have more than 2 viable parties typically operate under a variant of proportional representation. As would the US, if it wasn’t one of the first countries to organize elections (or so flowbark speculates).
Actually, it looked to me like he took a step in the left direction.
And I don’t think it was the correct one. He betrayed his constituency. He’s just looking for money for his home state instead of the good of the country.
Personally, I hope that there are fewer money-hungry, dishonest politicians, not more. But I guess others disagree.
Typically what happens with a third party that gains momentum is:
People lose interest, or
The two major parties move in to co-opt the third party’s most popular ideas.
Either way, the third party fades into oblivion. It’s been about 140 years since a third party has broken through to become a major, sustained force in American politics. And even in that case, the third party was no longer a true “third party”, as the former major party Whigs faded into oblivion.
Multiple party systems are more likely to flourish in parliamentary democracies, where you could support someone like Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan and actually get some seats in the legislature.
As for achieving more of a centrist direction for government, there is no better time than now to be a moderate. I mean, if you’re a moderate Democrat or moderate Republican, your colleagues are going to be real eager not to tick you off, so why not play that to the hilt and grab lots of pork for your constituents?
Even so, there’s an inherent problem in organizing a so-called centrist coalition, because a “centrist” might be someone who’s:
A total hawk on foreign policy and liberal on fiscal policy
Pro-gay rights and pro-NRA
A member of the ACLU and conservative on fiscal policy
Pro-affirmative action and anti-abortion
Because “centrist” often refers to someone who embraces a hodge podge of some typically liberal and some typically conservative views, it’s tough to find a centrist consensus. Just look at how much trouble they had at the Reform Party, where the party’s highest elected official detested the ideology of the party’s presidential candidate, and another person went to court claiming that he was the party’s true presidential candidate. The Reform Party is no longer a centrist party, and their convention looked like a meeting of the John Birch Society. We might say that the Reform Party did force the two major parties to focus more on balancing the budget, but after the 1992 election, they couldn’t find another issue to garner support.
I hardly think that one man leaving his party indicates a major shift. Typically, third parties or single individuals without a party tend to pop up, grab the nation’s attention, and then disappear. You amy recall Jesse Ventura and his immediate popularity after the election. However, it has failed to translate into any meaningful reform. I think that the two big party’s would be able to stop any third party movements because such movements usually are centered around just one individual. For example, now that Ralph Nader has gone into hiding, the Greens have just kind of faded away.
For what it’s worth, some of the posters in tabletalk at salon.com insist that Pat Buchanan in the last election cycle was a sort of double-agent sent by the Republicans whose job was to get the least possible number of votes and thus to run the Reform Party into the ground. While it’s a rather wacky theory, you have to admit that if he wanted to intentionally screw up his campaign, he did a magnificient job of it.
For everyone who thinks there’s room for a party to the right of the Republicans, Buchanan proved that wrong conclusively. The right wing supports the Republicans.
If the Green party succeeds past it’s wildest dreams, all it can do is siphon 5% of the vote away from the Democrats. Go Greens!
Philosophocles is right. Success for a third party is to show that there is a constituency for an issue, and force one of the major parties to embrace it. But that means the death of that particular third party. That doesn’t mean that third party movements are useless, just that the party itself will never work.
Again, because our system doesn’t have proportional representation, third parties have to win majorities in actual constituencies to win office. It is highly unlikely for that to happen, and even if it does it doesn’t mean the party will succeed. Example, Alaska elected Wally Hickel on a third party ticket ten years ago because no one liked the major party candidates. But after Hickel left office, the Alaska Independence (that’s -ence, not -ent!) collapsed.