Is there any point to voting for an individual rather than a party anymore? Was there ever?

Politics & Elections
1

This thread (Who Should I Vote For: Scott Brown or Elizabeth Warren?) got me thinking about this question.

I don’t claim any particular party affiliation. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats for statewide and national offices. I used to examine the candidates and base my vote on which person I thought would do the best job of representing me, the constituent, in our government. That’s what’s meant by a representative democracy after all, right?

It seems to me (and maybe I’m recalling some halcyon days of politics that never really existed, but I don’t think so) that many, if not most, politicians were at one time indeed interested in representing the best interests of their states or districts while in office. Individuals of opposing parties could actually agree on some things, and reach compromises when they didn’t. The mind boggles.

But now, in these days of obstructionism and lock-step voting, if I tend to agree more often with a Democratic* point of view, am I a complete fool to throw my vote to a candidate with an (R) next to his name, even if I believe he’s smarter, or has more integrity, or any other criteria I once thought important? They might as well be monkeys trained to push either the blue button or the red button when there’s a floor vote, so why should I help give one of the monkeys to the other side?

Please save what little idealism I still have left, and tell my why I’m wrong, or that there’s hope things may one day change. I don’t necessarily like being so cynical, but it seems the only pragmatic way to look at it anymore.
*you can reverse the parties for this example, it doesn’t matter

2

It’s true that both parties used to have liberal, moderate, and conservative wings. It’s true that because of this more deals could be swung with less party-line voting. It’s true that starting with Newt Gingrich’s takeover as Speaker in 1995 that the Republicans have launched a deliberate campaign to purge the liberal and moderate wings of the party and enhance the power of the remaining conservatives by punishing deviation and catering to their electorate. This is a political situation that I’d say is different from anything in the past. Parties certainly tried to be cohesive and enforce discipline but there was never a time in Congressional history where every Republican was to the right of every Democrat.

It’s easy to observe that this has happened, and harder to predict where it will go. Will people rise up and demand that their representatives start working with the other party or will the minority who really care about party purity continue to dominate primaries and elections? Will this lead to a break-up of one of the parties into factions or a rise of a third-party that isn’t tied to current hot-button issues? The increasing percentage of minorities of voting age will change the core demographics of the party wings but no straight line projection of their current voting patterns seems reasonable. I think we’re in for a time of historic realignment.

But in the very short run, if you care about one party or the other you are very much better off voting for that party rather than for the individual. You can call that cynical but it’s the only realistic course to take - until the system breaks, and the odds are good it will.

3

I thought it would have been awesome for McCain to ask Hillary to be his running mate after she lost the primary to Obama; the ultimate in “reaching across the aisle.”

Sadly, he needed somebody shorter than he was, and went with Palin.

4

At the state and local level, vote on the basis of the individual.

At the Federal level, all Republicans vote in lockstep. So don’t vote for the individual, vote for the party. This is a recent development. Anytime from 1865-1992, it made sense to choose on the basis of the individual, though the party gave voters a rough signal.

I’m not sure when to put the trigger date for “Vote for the party, not the individual.” But I do know that it is behind us.

5

Rarely, at least for me. My political values are closely aligned with those of the Democratic Party, with some variations, and even when the Republican candidate is a decent, honest guy and the Democratic candidate is a self-promoting hack with questionable ethics, I’ll vote for the Democrat, because his votes are more likely to go my way. The only exceptions I can think of are “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” like Tom Metzger (former Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan), who won the Democratic nomination in a heavily Republican district in 1980 – no credible candidates had emerged, and no one knew who he was. Similarly, if I were a Republican, and Orly Taitz had won the right to challenge Dianne Feinstein for her Senate seat (as seemed slightly possible), I’d have voted for Di Fi.

6

I agree. And as I was driving in my car yesterday I couldn’t help but to wish that we had more of a Parlimentary system when it came to parties. I mean, I’d much rather have five political parties than two.

7

Nitpicking, but I think it’s worth it.

Britain has a Parliamentary system, but they also have winner take all voting. So they have only 3 parties, with the middle one remaining of borderline viability. If you want more than 2 major parties, you need some kind of proportional representation during the voting process.

The counterpart to the Parliamentary system is a separation of powers system. The key flaw of the latter is that it’s vulnerable to obstructionism and gridlock. And over the past several years, that is what happened. Tom Mann: We have a severe mismatch. On the one hand we have the political parties of today, which political scientists have studied and characterized as intensely polarized, vehemently oppositional, and—given their strategic focus—inclined to act like they would if in a parliamentary system. But alas, they are working under a separation of power system which over time has evolved in a way that has increased the number of veto points—in particular the routinization of the filibuster… It has changed its character, and made it especially difficult to govern. Our recent experience after the 2008 election shows what happens when you have a parliamentary-like minority, convinced that their only hope is to ensure that the president of the other party is unsuccessful, that he fails, occurring in a time of extraordinary economic crisis.

They planned it, they talked about it, they executed it.

It involves, obviously, opposition, delay, defeat if possible, discrediting if it manages to get through, and something we call a new nullification,: that even if the piece of legislation passes, you can deny its implementation not through legitimate means if you have the power to block appropriations, but to deny the conformation of executives to run the agency even if those nominees are fully qualified. It is as if we are in the pre-Civil War south, where they can choose which laws not to acknowledge as legitimate. The book he wrote along with Norman Ornstein of the conservative think tank AEI has generated a lot of buzz in the newspapers, but a total news blackout during the Sunday talk shows. Their thesis is simply too hot: We had this piece in the Washington Post outlook section which went viral online. It’s been extraordinary for us. We have never seen anything like it. It’s quite remarkable: the title, the piece in Outlook, and the way it traveled through cyber space and fought its way onto newspapers—just not onto any Sunday talk shows. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/06/us-republican-party-its-even-worse-than-it-looks-tom-mann-and-norm-ornstein-at-uc-berkeley-on-may-18-2012.html Yet in other contexts, these guys are TV fixtures.

As a concrete example, the filibuster was applied sparingly for most of US history. Now the Republicans filibuster routinely. The American system already has a lot of veto points, and they work well provided both sides are inclined to split their differences. But when one side is obsessed with the utter defeat of the other -SOP in Parliamentary systems- then institutions like the filibuster turn poisonous. Ideally, the Senate would drop it entirely next session: it is badly out of date. Filibuster and False-Equivalence Fiesta - The Atlantic

8

Even in days of yore, when you had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, they still formed their caucus. So, every Republican elected to Congress, even a liberal one, increased the chance that you’d have a Republican controlled Congress. Every Democrat elected to Congress, even a conservative one, increased the chance you’d have a Democratic controlled Congress.

9

I used to be quite rigorous in my preparation for elections. I’d read each candidate’s positions for all of the lesser offices like prosecutor, university boards, secretary of state, etc. I’d even make a point of trying to find a few Republicans to vote for. Not anymore. The Republicans have decided that ideological party purity is the Ace of Trumps and will be played on every hand. So, for the rest of my life, I will simply vote the straight Democratic ticket.

10

Yes, you’re imagining it.

Angry partisanship has been the norm, not the exception in American history. At one time congressmen used to bring guns to the chamber, and we all know about Preston Brooks. Remember Henry Clay, “the Great Compromiser?” That nickname did not originate as a compliment. Some historians regard the lack of roughly equal parties in the 1850s as contributing to the Civil War. Can’t find a cite at the minute, but I’ve read quantitative measures of voting in congress that suggest we are in one of the least partisan times.

So, yes, the noble era of bipartisanship is a fantasy.

11

Not true: Approval Voting gets round this.

12

I’ll vote for an utter prick that shares more of my views than an upstanding honorable prince of man that shares less of them.

In practice, though, I consider pretty much all politicians duplicitous pricks at about the same level of prickishness.

13

I last voted for a Republican in 1990. It was during the Lewinsky kerfluffle that I vowed never to do so again.

14

Your nits have nits. Let me pick them off for you. This is true for the UK as a whole, but Plaid Cymru is a notable fourth party in Wales at the local level and holds a couple of seats at the national level, and the same can be said for other regions. It isn’t just a 3-party (or 2½-party) system the way the entire US is basically either Republicans or Democrats at all levels. Your broader point about winner-take-all voting and two major parties is quite right, though.

15

This argument gets a lot of airplay: I’m glad it was made and I’m happy to refute it.

First of all, treating the era immediately preceding the Civil War as a typical one is bizarre. Secondly, you are confusing amicability with functionality. Show me an example where the opposition succeeded in delaying massive levels of executive appointments, not because they had a problem with the appointees themselves, but because they wanted to cripple the administration. I say you won’t be able to, since mid-level appointees didn’t require Senate approval for most of US history, and there were gentleman’s agreements in force that only started breaking down during the 1990s.

We should take a look at your cite later though.

In my mind approval voting was a mechanism for achieving proportional representation. Oops: my thoughts lacked precision, to put it charitably. Wikipedia has a brief discussion which I need to study: Approval voting - Wikipedia See section on Multiple winners.

True. But whoever controlled the House or Senate felt obliged to reach to the center to get anything done. And if each party has liberals, moderates and conservatives anyway, a loss of partisan control is less of a big deal. It would be a consideration though.

They do. Thanks for the clarification.

16

I think this was when my own disillusionment began as well. Gosh, every Republican truly believed that Clinton had committed an impeachable offense, and every Democrat believed he didn’t. What an incredible coincidence!

17

I want to see those measures.